NASA's regularly-scheduled political whipping

NASA Administrator Mike Griffin is set to appear this morning before the House Science Committee. If you want to know what the hearing is supposed to be about, click here to read the original charter for the hearing. This is supposed to be about the budget, and there are certainly plenty of heated questions to come about shifting science funds to shore up the space shuttle program's budget. However, beyond that, Griffin is likely to take a bit of a public drubbing here on the recent broohaha about his public affairs office being overly controlling of what agency scientists say about global warming and other topics as well as exerting undue influence over how they say it, when they say it, which reporters they get to talk to and (most importantly) whether the message jibes with Bush Administration policy. Griffin has pledged to fix that problem and change public affairs policy, and the agency has an internal investigation under way that is being closely monitored by Congressional regulators and the national science press. In any event, it'll be interesting to see how much this gets talked about this morning. The hearing is scheduled to start at 10 a.m. and you can watch it online here. The hearing is also being shown on NASA Television.