Resignation of leading scientist a defeat for the country
I don’t know much about space issues. My 11-year-old son knows much more, as I realized once again a few days ago when we visited the National Air and Space Museum in Washington.
However, when I first realized how interested he was, I spontaneously thought of Stamatios Krimigis. “You know, there is a great Greek who knows all this stuff very well. Everyone listens to him,” I told him. “So you can understand just how important he is, they’ve named a planet after him,” I added. “That can’t be a planet,” he corrected me. Indeed, it is the “asteroid 8323” which now has the name of the leading Greek astrophysicist, who worked on the Voyager 1 and 2 missions.
Krimigis, who took his first steps in Vrontado on the island of Chios and ended up exploring the universe – visiting the planets in his own way – is one of those special cases of successful Greeks living abroad who worked at agencies, organizations and/or private companies – in his case NASA – and his achievements received international recognition.
These are the Greeks we cite with admiration and pride in so many discussions in Greece and abroad. Against this backdrop, it was a pleasant surprise when, around a month ago, it was announced that he was the new director of the Hellenic Space Agency (HSA).
Unfortunately our satisfaction at his appointment did not last long.
Krimigis resigned, saying that ministerial decisions had “effectively annulled the HSA’s entire purpose and rendered it an unreliable bureaucratic structure that could become subservient to any political chief.” He also criticized the behavior of the general secretary for telecommunications, saying he functioned as a “space czar” and had “no knowledge or experience in this field.”
The decision of a scientist of such high caliber – the head emeritus of the Space Department Applied Physics Laboratory at Johns Hopkins University in the United States and a NASA researcher – to involve himself in the Hellenic Space Agency convinced everyone that something significant was in the making, and that perhaps a minister had dared to be different by selecting someone on the grounds of merit for the good of the country, without bureaucratic constraints and political interventions. Unfortunately these expectations were dashed.
It is unacceptable for us to let down and send away those who we should be protecting and luring to the country, and ultimately making the most of – these great scientists that serve as great role models.
The resignation of the leading Greek astrophysicist is a defeat for the country. Stamatios Krimigis