World Space Week is a relatively obscure observance, virtually unknown outside the space community and not universally known inside it. Yet the event, which this year ran from October 4 to today, prompted statements from both presidential candidates. On Sunday the Obama campaign issued its statement, and yesterday the McCain campaign quietly released its own World Space Week statement. While the McCain statement is longer, it’s full primarily of glittering generalities, expressing overall support for space exploration and promising that, as president, McCain would “ensure that America continues its leadership in space”.
The one place where he does draw some comparisons between himself and Obama is one passage where he refers to Obama’s change of position (or flip-flop, depending on your point of view) on space policy earlier this year:
At the same time, space is a great tool to promote peace and international cooperation. Therefore, we must explore all options to complete and fully utilize one of the great achievements of mankind, the International Space Station National Laboratory. It represents a tremendous investment of public funds and should not be put at risk by cutting funding for NASA programs as my opponent in this election had previously proposed. This may be his definition of change, but it is not the type of change that the nation or the world needs.
Those who hoped that McCain would use the opportunity to refine or expand his space policy, or address continued Democratic claims that he would jeopardize NASA’s future by freezing its budget along with other discretionary programs, will be disappointed.
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