Campaign '08

No space debate for you

Did you know there’s going to be a space policy debate tomorrow in Washington? No? That’s okay, because you’re probably not invited anyway, the Orlando Sentinel reported late today. The Thursday event, organized by the Aerospace Industries Association, will feature some familiar people: Lori Garver, representing the Obama campaign; and Floyd DesChamps for the McCain campaign. Garver represented the Obama campaign in a debate last month at the Mars Society conference in Colorado, while DesChamps represented McCain at the May ISDC debate in Washington that also featured Garver, at the time representing Hillary Clinton.

However, the debate is “closed, definitely closed,” an AIA spokesperson told the Sentinel. “I think there has been a lot of public debate and not every forum has to be a public event.” There has indeed been a fair amount of debate on space policy in this campaign—more than what one might have expected early this year—and there may be reasonable logistical reasons (like room size) for making this a closed-door event. However, the fact that there’s been “a lot of public debate” suggests there’s a lot of interest in the topic, at least in space community: it would be nice, at a minimum, to provide a recording, transcript, or other record of the event for those who cannot attend.

Leave a Reply

  

  

  

You can use these HTML tags

<a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <strike> <strong>