Bridenstine as NASA Administrator?

Bridenstine may well be, for a variety of reasons, a bad pick for the job as NASA Administrator. But I think it's missing the mark to criticise him on the grounds that he doesn't have a background as a scientist or working in the space program. NASA Administrator is a political-appointee job, and one often held by people whose background is in the civil service or public policy instead of science & engineering. The most famous, James Webb, was a lawyer who'd held various positions as a Congressional staffer and at Treasury and State. Others have come from the business world as executives for defence or aerospace companies. Even the ones who did have a hard-science background, typically did such work earlier in their careers before taking on more administrative or academic roles leading to their selection to run NASA.

Parliamentary systems are more sensible about this. It's understood that the the Minister for [fill-in-the-blank] is going to be a career politician, paired with senior civil servants in a department who have the more relevant experience. That's fine, because it's not a scientific or engineering job. It's an administrative and policy-making job, the point of interface between the elected government and the bureaucracy.

Bridenstine might not be a good choice, but I'm not offended by the idea that an ex-Congressman would be chosen for the job instead of a physicist or engineer or former astronaut.