Whether or not the rest of North Dakota’s citizens care about space policy and programs, I guess the space community has its work cut out for it to get them to care.

In any case, Lampson’s persistent work on various versions of his “Space Exploration Act”, even if somewhat flawed, seemed to be honest attempts at getting us beyond Earth orbit. And that was a clear precursor to the new vision. Kucinich was a supporter on the 2003 Lampson bill; I really don’t think you can honestly characterize that as support for “pork”.

That depends on how you define “leadership on space issues.” Everyone you named has mainly defended pork and various NASA programs–not space per se. Certainly Glenn has never been a friend of any space program designed to get non-astronauts into space.

It does strike me as something difficult for anyone familiar with space policy to type with a straight face.

Of course, the same is largely true if you substitute the word “Republican.” Actually, I see no one acting with anything resembling leadership for space (as opposed to local pork) right now except Senator Brownback.

However, Mrs. Heinz-Kerry’s remarks are slightly encouraging. Jay Manifold has speculated that the president’s interest in space may have been driven to at least some degree by the First Lady. Perhaps a President Kerry (something that I hope I’ll never see for a number of reasons) will be influenced by the provider of his allowance. Of course, there’s little there to indicate that she’s interested in manned space.