First, I think I should issue a warning. At present I am a moderate supporter of Hillary Clinton in this campaign. Why? I do consider her a more than acceptable candidate. Lori Garver — whom I have known for something like 20 years — invited me (as well as others) to an issues and policy breakfast last June which I attended. Since my particular focus in politics is workforce issues, management culture and items that flow from those concerns, I saw this as an opportunity to influence people who will be making decisions with regard to the future of space exploration and, possibly, other areas relating to technology.

Is Hillary Clinton genuinely interested in space and science and technology in general? I think she is. The number of votes she can win by appealing to the techie crowd is not all that big. Her admission that she wanted to be an astronaut when she was young is quite believable. She was born in the late 40s and grew up in an era where space in particular and technology in general had high positive recognition. For a more in depth look at what life was like for people around Hillary’s age, please see my blog posting A Few Observations. It’s more about the differences between people born in the late 40s and those born after Apollo stopped, but I think people here will get the drift. Even people as old as Obama will see things much differently than the Clintons and Griffins. Clinton and Griffin came of age in a time when almost anything seemed possible. That conviction started falling apart in the 1970s, when relative youngsters like Obama were coming of age.

Criticisms of all the candidates that they are failing to fully understand what is going on are much closer to the mark. This is not surprising given the cultural biases present in the tech community. To really “sell space” we need to listen and observe the larger world, not simply preach. For instance, the energy from space crowd (see my blog posting Energy from Space Luncheon) could well be onto something given the current concerns about carbon in the atmosphere as well as other energy concerns (e.g., security of depending on the volatile Middle East for oil).

Can the space community work with the next president, be it Clinton, Obama or McCain? I think we can. But it will require our doing more listening than talking.

I will also comment on Jim Muncy’s excellent post at top of this discussion. Another set of problems the Columbia Accident Investigation Board spent much time researching and discussing relates to the culture of NASA in the years preceding the accident. These kinds of cultural issues affect too much of tech industry, not just aerospace. My blog posting Aerospace Workforce Issues covers this area as well. I’ve also sent a copy of the proposals to people employed in the political arena.

I will do a final plug for my blog, Independent Broad Minded Centrist. Yes, I spend a great deal of time discussing the sorts of cultural issues I’ve touched on here.

I do hope my comments made some sense.

If you really want to increase education then give matching funds to the school boards directly not the state governments but the local governments.

But that leaves too few hands in the pot so it won’t get done.

Bill I would suggest that they don’t care much because it will not be until their second term in office that the decision to proceed beyond LEO will even come up for a decision at a practically level beyond low level studies and artwork.

What will happen under their watch is the transition of American based access to LEO from the Space Shuttle to something else. Right now it’s the engineering 101 implementation of the VSE policy that is being messed up. In fact its politics 101 combined with engineering 101 combined with budget 101 that makes DIRECT so strong. Any solution needs a good score in all three areas.

In any case it appears offical that VSE/Policy for Space Exploration is DOA in the Obama administration and the CEV becomes an expensive ISS taxi. Good bye COTS hopes. Wonder who will even want to be NASA Administrator if he is president?

Clinton will probably ignore NASA once elected. Maybe after making noise about turning NASA over to Lori Graver as the first female administrator fi we are lucky. Then move on to other things. VSE will probably be quietly forgotten. However New Space would probably benefit given Lori’s desire to be a space tourist.

Meanwhile it appears that McCain would make no changes, maybe even ask Griffin to hang around. He just might. Or you at least get a good replacement like Peter Worden. VSE would stay on course more or less.

So decide which future you want for NASA?

— Donald

The Direct people are asserting that with a June 1, 2009 decision to go forward with the Direct 2.0 plan, a Jupiter 120-X could launch with crew in September 2012.

Gap? What gap?

Well, of course. Welcome to politics. Members of Congress and the Senate (and even the President) think as far as their next term and of how much they can improve the economy (among other things) of the district they represent. This is unlikely to change much as long as we remain a Republic.

It is our job as advocates to work within this reality to go forward. That is why the VSE was such an important policy — move forward with existing technology, achieve quick results “on the ground” in space, and stay within more-or-less existing budgets. It is also why ESAS looks increasingly likely to be a disaster: it abandoned existing technology for something new (if not exactly “advanced”); four years in it has achieved no results in space and is unlikely to for the foreseeable future; and it busted the (admittedly reduced) budget almost before it was out of the starting gate.

Since I agree with Al in another thread that the economic winds will be increasingly against us, we may have lost a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, here.

Why is that you ask? Because most people do not understand the value of the U.S. space program. NASA needs to get a decent Public Relations campaign going to rally people behind it. Then, and only then, will politicians do more than just pay NASA lip service.

I’m not sure that’s correct. Ms. Clinton has talked about spaceflight in relatively ideological and inspirational terms, somthing the other two candidates have not done. If this reflects her real thinking, than it is at least possible that she may care about Item 4.

— Donald