[snip] Although other states, including Utah, are likely to be hit hard by the cancelation of Constellation, Colorado had several advantages others didn’t.
There was a viable Plan B for Orion, which will now be scaled back and made into a rescue vehicle for the international space station. And the state is delicate political terrain for Democrats, with several critical races this year that will be close, including those involving Bennet and Hickenlooper, who is running for governor.
“There are a lot of reasons for the White House to be on the side of Colorado at this point,” said one top Colorado Democrat.
By the time Udall and Bennet met with Bolden on Tuesday morning, there were glimmers of hope, said aides familiar with the meeting.
By that evening, the White House made it official, sending e-mails to key members of the delegation to tell them — with only the barest of details — that Orion would stay, a $4 billion program saved from the scrap heap by a hairbreadth.
White House aides recast the president’s speech, and Obama announced Thursday that the Orion capsule “will be part of the technological foundation for advanced spacecraft to be used in future deep space missions.”
“In fact,” said Obama, standing in a hangar at the Kennedy Space Center, “Orion will be readied for flight right here in this room.”

Orion highlights political tension
[Snip]
By most estimates, the president’s last-minute decision to maintain a version of the Orion program was based on politics.

Colorado is a swing state containing key and vulnerable races for Democrats, and the loss of the $8 billion program could have been devastating for Sen. Michael Bennet and other Democrats. Even Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper joined the fight.

In reports last week, The Denver Post’s Michael Riley outlined a series of back-channel negotiations on the part of Hickenlooper, Bennet, Sen. Mark Udall and Rep. Ed Perlmutter.

Among the Democrats’ top arguments for keeping the spacecraft — even in its new downgraded role as a rescue unit for the space station — was the delicate political environment their party now faces here.

For a nation that needs to make tough choices about structural changes in the overall budget to rein in out-of-control spending, the political fight over keeping the Orion spacecraft under construction ought to prove instructive…..

.

I have always found it galling that California ends at San Diego, when it would much more logically extend to all of Baja California.

I’m sure the people of northern Mexico feel similarly and have wondered the same thing about California all the way up to Santa Rosa and beyond (I can almost hear them asking themselves… Why doesn’t Mexico extend all the way up past Santa Rosa….?) As a kid growing up in LA, I always wondered why there were so many Spanish sounding names for nearly all the places nearby I would visit. Makes you think.

“The cities soon will hold a majority of the people and “Norte Mexico” (the area from San Antonio, South to the ocean up the River all the way to El Paso and then East to San Antonio De Bexar) is growing.”

Interesting notion. Conversely, with burgeoning narco-terror in northern Mexico and the possible breakdown of a civil government, a US military invasion and occupation is certainly an option. I have always found it galling that California ends at San Diego, when it would much more logically extend to all of Baja California.

It’s hard to imagine a radical enough gerrymander to put Hawthorne in the same district as Huntington Beach. SpaceX is not going to become Dana’s constituent.

Boeing Launch Services is a customer-focused subsidiary that provides business development, sales, procurement and program management of Delta launch services for commercial customers.

It’s reasonable to assume that Dana will be lobbying for Orion Lite to ride atop a Delta rocket.

If so, it’s not because it helps his district much. Most of that work was moved to Decatur, Alabama, and it’s now United Launch Alliance, not Boeing.

Simberg did this a while back …but I thought that SpaceX San Diego was in Sanchez district…but I dont know.

what is going to be entertaining is the race in TX 17. I have no doubt that Chet is going to win again (he is being groomed for the Senate in 2012 after having been a surprise on Obama’s short list in 08) but Phil G. has injected himself into the race.

Robert G. Oler

On Musk’s donations: Chet Edwards is the rep for the Texas district where SpaceX does its engine tests. And their HQ is *almost* in Jane Harman’s district (it was back when they were in El Segundo, I think, now they’re in Maxine Waters district.)

The Congressional districts get redrawn after this election, based in part on the census. So who’s in what district may change.

For all the talk about Rohrbacher being in SpaceX’s pocket, not only is SpaceX not in his district, it doesn’t look like he’s getting any money from Musk. Maybe Dana actually likes the plan because it aligns with his ideology!

Rohrabacher has been a fairly lonely voice for years within Congress calling for commercialization of space access. There are a number of aerospace companies in his district, the largest I suspect is Boeing Launch Services.

To quote from their web site:

Boeing Launch Services is a customer-focused subsidiary that provides business development, sales, procurement and program management of Delta launch services for commercial customers.

It’s reasonable to assume that Dana will be lobbying for Orion Lite to ride atop a Delta rocket.

Maybe Dana actually likes the plan because it aligns with his ideology!

Rohrabacher has close ties to the founders of the Space Frontier Foundation, which is fairly libertarian in nature and also endorses Obama’s proposal.

For all the talk about Rohrbacher being in SpaceX’s pocket, not only is SpaceX not in his district, it doesn’t look like he’s getting any money from Musk. Maybe Dana actually likes the plan because it aligns with his ideology!

to keep this on space policy.

Certainly any upcoming battles on the NASA budget under Obama will be an at least “small” test of the theory that Republicans will support things on their merit and ideology.

As noted in another thread Newt and Dana R, two people who in the GOP have a solid grasp on space policy both support this plan. So far their logic seems to not have penetrated the “save our jobs” mentality of those in the GOP who are pushing for “something” else (that something related to their district)…even when on the face of it there is more money and such for certain districts and obviously the Constellation project is floundering.

It will be entertaining to see, at least in space policy how this works out

Robert G. Oler

You keep saying this, but never provide any evidence for it. You instead provide counterevidence (Dana Rohrabacher). Don’t you even read what you write?