CNET’s Daniel Terdiman has an interesting interview with Pete Worden. The NASA Ames director spoke about astrobiology, global warming, world peace and other matters during a Yuri’s Night celebration held at the space center on Saturday.

Worden has some nice things to say about Yuri’s Night, which he sees as essential to getting younger people excited about space exploration. He also discusses possible expansion of the center’s partnership with Google and California’s universities.

However, the rest of the interview is disappointing. Terdiman throws some softball questions at Worden about the agency’s work on global warming and whether Ames can be “a center of research into peace.” The Ames director hits these pitches clear out of the park and right into the San Francisco Bay.

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The results of the 2007 NASA Culture Survey have been published, and it does not paint an especially good picture of the credibility of the agency’s management under Administrator Mike Griffin.

Only 51 percent of the 5,408 employees who responded to the survey answered “Yes” to the statement: “I can rely on management to be honest.” When broken down by field center, only 36 percent of employees surveyed at Ames Research Center in Mountain View, Calif., found management to be honest. This was followed by NASA Glenn in Cleveland (39 percent) and NASA Headquarters in Washington (46 percent). The highest figure was at Johnson Space Flight Center in Houston (62 percent).

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