Space Politics

Because sometimes the most important orbit is the Beltway…

Commerce, Richardson, and space

November 21, 2008 at 5:44 pm · Filed under White House

The Washington Post reported today that New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson is a leading candidate to become the Secretary of Commerce in the Obama Administration. This has relevance to space policy given his recent comments on the topic of commercial space. As reported here last month, Richardson vowed to make sure “that the Obama Administration is pro-commercial space” during comments at a press conference in Las Cruces. (At the same press conference he also said he was “very happy” as governor of New Mexico and that his advocacy would be “hopefully here still as governor of New Mexico”, but added, “you never know”.) As Commerce Secretary he would be well-placed to continue his advocacy of commercial space, in large part because the department is home to the Office of Space Commercialization. As secretary, Richardson would be in position to press for more resources for the office (assuming he is sincere about his advocacy), as well as potentially influence policy in other parts of the administration, perhaps through a reconstituted National Aeronautics and Space Council.

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3 Comments »

sc220 wrote @ November 21st, 2008 at 9:21 pm

Goodbye Griffin, and his socialist approach to spaceflight development! Time to get NASA and its subsidized Design Bureau field centers out of the spaceflight development business, and put good old American free enterprise back into the leading edge.

Space Politics » Transition notes wrote @ November 23rd, 2008 at 11:43 am

[...] been set for the formal announcement. As noted here earlier, Richardson, governor of New Mexico, has been an advocate of commercial space in his home state and promised as recently as last month to be an advocate of commercial space in the Obama [...]

Space Politics » Richardson’s in, but what about the transportation job? wrote @ December 4th, 2008 at 6:34 am

[...] As expected, President-Elect Obama named Bill Richardson as his pick for Commerce Secretary on Wednesday. The only real surprise to come out of yesterday is that Richardson is once again clean-shaven. Richardson’s interest in commercial space in particular has previously been noted here. [...]