Not everyone seemed to understand the full significance of Goldin's statement. In fact, the Mars priority has the potential to save the taxpayers billions. The primary scientific consideration is to avoid contaminating Mars with Earth organisms. Robotic exploration is at least ten times cheaper than doing it with people. I doubt anyone will tell the media these facts.
Ghosts make better copy, especially when a faculty curse accompanies the event.
The faculty member in question has received no visible support, within or without the Hawaiian community, for her curses. Scientists do not serve science well by dismissing their critics impatiently as ignorant of what they are criticizing. Admittedly the temptation to do so is great when the choice is between getting on with productive work vs. swatting gnats. Regrettably, much of the postmodern criticism of scientific methodology seems to be, to put it bluntly, shoddy scholarship. I think this needs to be dealt with painstakingly and in detail.