I'm sure that Cowing is fairly depressed by this news, and I have some rope I can spare if he needs it - though as a mountaineer I'm sure he already has plenty, if he should decided to use it to ease his suffering -

Scoop should take heart, though, as undoubtedly Goldin gave up that higher pay in the private sector and that quality time with his wife and family just so he could stick around to p*** him off - After all, Goldin undoubtedly realized that Keith would have little to do if he left DC and wasn't there for Keith to kick around -

IN the real world, whoever the next NASA administrator is, and whenever he takes office, he isn't going to be able to do more than the President and Congress want him to do, and are willing to pay for - and given that Mars is bathed in radiation, and not available for broad human settlement, manned Mars flight is going to have a fairly low public priority -

IF on the other hand they decide they want to keep the Earth habitable, and avoid the next impact events, which will definitely occur, and with explosive forces somewhere between 16,000 to 600,000 times that of the World Trade Center attack, then there is a good chance we'll have a man tended lunar observatory -

IN the meantime, we've got a space station in orbit, and we should all be doing our best to ensure its success -

EP