Congress

Grayson, Kosmas losing

Two of the space-related House races to watch are not going well for the incumbents: according to Florida’s Division of Elections, Rep. Suzanne Kosmas (D-FL24) is well behind Sandy Adams (R) and Rep. Alan Grayson (D-FL8) is also trailing Daniel Webster (R).

Update 8:55pm: the AP has called the FL-24 race for Adams over Kosmas, while Grayson has conceded to Webster.

18 comments to Grayson, Kosmas losing

  • Florida Today reports Kosmas has lost.

  • Obama’s anti-NASA policies pretty much killed off the Democratic candidates in this year’s elections in Florida. In a state that already had a high level of unemployment, the last thing Florida needed was for Obama to put even more people in the unemployment line. Obama’s anti-NASA policy was not only bad for America’s technological and economic future, it was a political disaster for the Democrat Party in a pivotal state.

    What the President attempts to do, if anything, to turn things around politically in Florida in 2012 should be interesting!

  • Ferris Valyn

    Bill Nelson’s term is up in 2012, at which point he’ll be 70.

    Does he run for re-election, or does he retire? And if the later, what are the odds that Grayson makes a play for that seat?

  • Mark R. Whittington

    Kosmas likely would have lost if Obama’s space policy had been more sensible. Grayson lost because he was a jerk.

  • Beancounter from Downunder

    ‘ Marcel F. Williams wrote @ November 2nd, 2010 at 9:58 pm
    Obama’s anti-NASA policies …’

    Please elaborate on these anti-NASA policies. I don’t quite understand how you arrive at that conclusion?

  • Ferris Valyn

    Beancounter from Downunder – Danger Will Robinson, Danger

  • Those who are celebrating GOPer victories having visions of shuttle extensions, larger SD-HLVs and a Moon alone policy had better wake up and smell the java, it ain’t gonna happen.

    The Tea Partiers for the most part are ignorant of space policy and could give a crap. If anything, they’ll go along with the 2010 Authorization but give it less funds when appropriations go through.

    Hide and watch.

  • NASA Fan

    The more things change the more they stay the same. While the Content of what NASA doea may be altered somewhat by each change of Congress, the way it does what it does, and the ineffectiveness it does what it does, and how the political dynamics of a democratically elected board of directors continues to diminish what is possible in what NASA achieves, will all remain the same.

  • This morning’s Florida Today on Kosmas:

    The defeat of Kosmas is a huge loss for the Space Coast, where her advocacy for NASA and Kennedy Space Center and her moderate voice on health care and tax policy will be missed.

    Adams is woefully ill-informed on issues, including space, that deeply affect her constituents.

    She must get up to speed fast and, with Posey, work across the aisle with Democrats on the severe problems facing citizens who can’t find work and are losing their homes.

  • Robert G. Oler

    dad2059 wrote @ November 3rd, 2010 at 4:57 am

    Those who are celebrating GOPer victories having visions of shuttle extensions, larger SD-HLVs and a Moon alone policy had better wake up and smell the java, it ain’t gonna happen…

    yeah I missed the “we are going to cut the budget and get spending in line but we are also going to increase the money at NASA” speeches…

    Robert G. Oler

  • @ Beancounter from Downunder

    “Please elaborate on these anti-NASA policies. I don’t quite understand how you arrive at that conclusion?”

    1. He terminates NASA’s return to the Moon and then adds insult to injury by saying: “Now, I understand that some believe that we should attempt a return to the surface of the Moon first, as previously planned. But I just have to say pretty bluntly here: We’ve been there before.”

    That was probably the most ignorant and arrogant statement I’ve ever heard. It sounded almost Nixonian! But it strongly suggest that Obama could care less about manned space travel. And he views the emerging private manned space programs as a way to eventually finally end government funding for manned space travel.

    2. He originally terminated NASA’s ability to have its own crew launch vehicle which would have made NASA dependent on Russian and private industry in order to venture into space.

    3. He toyed with our common sense by attempting to delay the building of an HLV for another 5 years.

    Its pretty obvious that Obama is part of the wing of the Democratic party that has always hated the fact the so much money (in their opinion) is spent on manned space travel instead of more important (in their opinion) social programs.

  • Vladislaw

    Marcel F. Williams wrote:

    “But it strongly suggest that Obama could care less about manned space travel. And he views the emerging private manned space programs as a way to eventually finally end government funding for manned space travel.”

    You make absolutely no sense. You say the President could care less about manned space travel, yet the President wanted to spent 6 bill to fund manned space travel.

    You say the President wants to end governement funding for manned space travel yet the President extended the ISS for an additional 5 years thereby committing the government to fund manned space travel for 5 extra years.

    Sorry but you sound like a nutter when you try and argue against facts that are already being codified into law.

  • Beancounter from Downunder

    Vladislaw wrote @ November 3rd, 2010 at 12:57 pm

    Agreed. Marcel you also said that ‘He terminated NASA’s ability et al’. Well that’s crap because the Shuttle program was terminated by Bush and it was inevitable that it would close down. None of O’bama’s doing. NASA and Griffin were directly responsible for the failure to close the gap with the $9b debacle of Cx. Again, not O’bama. Sheesh. You don’t even understand the basic facts about your own HSF program and why it’s where it is today.

    In addition, now that the GOP have control of the Congress (majority in the House with slim minority in the Senate) then NASA can expect to have it’s funding returned to 2008 levels. There’s no interest in NASA in the GOP other than for particular seats where pork is involved. Overall, the platform of the GOP as I read it is is reduce the deficit so NASA has more to fear in terms of its appropriation under the GOP than under the previous Democrat controlled Congress.

  • @Vladislaw

    President Obama has shown extremely little interest in NASA. Actually, under Obama’s original plan, manned space travel related expenditures would have been cut in half over the next 5 years.

    The President knew that politically he couldn’t simply end NASA’s manned space program on his own. So he had to set it up so that Congress could do it for him. The best way to do that would be to have NASA build nothing (no crew vehicle and no heavy lift vehicle) and to go nowhere while turning over manned spaceflight to private industry. This would have set NASA up for heavy budget cuts in the near future by Congress since NASA would have been reduced to an expensive R&D program. In Israel, Bolden even discussed the possibility that there might not even be any NASA astronauts anymore.

    Fortunately, many in Congress saw through Obama’s plan and decided to immediately fund a crew vehicle and heavy lift vehicle. The Senate saved NASA!

  • Vladislaw

    Marcel F. Williams wrote:

    “President Obama has shown extremely little interest in NASA. Actually, under Obama’s original plan, manned space travel related expenditures would have been cut in half over the next 5 years.”

    What President HAS been interested in space? Hell even Kennedy said he wasn’t much interested in space. As a percentage of the budget it is so small no President concerns themselves with it unless for one of two things:

    An accident, failed mission, or budget overruns force them to address NASA.

    A photo-op et cetera used for a political calculation.

    President Obama understood it is not the flag and footprint that is as important moreso than the development of technology. He wanted to fund a technology driven NASA. Which is exactly what the Vision for Space Exploration was. I challange anyone to show how technology wasn’t the cornerstone of the VSE. Actually READ the VSE and find one single page where technology was not mentioned as being the motivator behind each part of the VSE.

    From launch to landing technology is mentioned. From the first with the icey moons to communication networks, isru, closed loop life support, power, propulsion et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. The list goes on and on and it was all about technology.

    All President Obama did was actually fund the technology the Vision for Space Exploration laid out. You couldn’t do the moon with constellation and fund the technology. Personally, I will take the technology over another set of footprints.

    If a new paradigm is set up where all my costs are cut in half, i honestly do not care if you cut my top line in half, because if my costs are all lower I still get the same bang for buck.

    I can spend 1 billion dollars to lift 6 people and 25 tons into space with the shuttle … or .. I can spent 160 million to lift 25 tons and 120 million to put 6 people into LEO.

    So even if you cut my 1 billion in half, and i lose the shuttle, I can still do more with less.

  • @ Vladislaw

    There were plenty of cheaper alternatives to the Ares I/V architecture for returning humans to the Moon. And many of us on the forum argued for them! But the Obama administration chose to simply ignore these alternatives.

    President Obama was pretty clear about what he thought about the Moon.

    April 15, 2010: “Now, I understand that some believe that we should attempt a return to the surface of the Moon first, as previously planned. But I just have to say pretty bluntly here: We’ve been there before.”

    And President Kennedy was pretty clear about what he thought about the Moon.

    President John F. Kennedy Rice University in Houston, Texas 1962:

    “We set sail on this new sea because there is new knowledge to be gained, and new rights to be won, and they must be won and used for the progress of all people. For space science, like nuclear science and all technology, has no conscience of its own. Whether it will become a force for good or ill depends on man, and only if the United States occupies a position of pre-eminence can we help decide whether this new ocean will be a sea of peace or a new terrifying theater of war. I do not say that we should or will go unprotected against the hostile misuse of space any more than we go unprotected against the hostile use of land or sea, but I do say that space can be explored and mastered without feeding the fires of war, without repeating the mistakes that man has made in extending his writ around this globe of ours.

    There is no strife, no prejudice, no national conflict in outer space as yet. Its hazards are hostile to us all. Its conquest deserves the best of all mankind, and its opportunity for peaceful cooperation many never come again. But why, some say, the moon? Why choose this as our goal? And they may well ask why climb the highest mountain? Why, 35 years ago, fly the Atlantic? Why does Rice play Texas?

    We choose to go to the moon. We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win, and the others, too.”

    And just 7 years later, Americans were walking on the surface of the Moon!

    I much prefer the positive can-do philosophy of a Kennedy over the negative can’t-do or won’t do philosophy of Obama and his science advisor, Holdren.

  • Vladislaw

    I believe President Obama made a political calculation, which would disappoint voters more. In 2004 President Bush said close the gap at 2014 and by 2010 we were still 7 years away and a lunar landing in the 2030’s, the failure of fulfilling the gap and having 7 years of soyuz launches or the 10 – 15 year slip in a lunar landing mean’t something had to change.

    If he got reelected lunar would still be over a decade away, but America not having it’s own launch system would mean getting hammered by the opposition. By doing domestic launch first with 6 billion would have given him results in a second term. Nothing he could have did with the moon would have mean’t results for him while in office.

    If we did the techology in 2011 whoever came into office in 2016 would have their choice on heavy lift, closed loop life support, nuclear power and propulsion, aerocapture, fuel depots, inflatable habitats and robotic missions to find landing sites on the moon would have been conducted.

    With commercial access to leo and commercial stations in place whoever came into office would have been given all the tools they needed by 2016 to make a well informed choice on how to push beyond earth orbit.

    Right now, we have half of nothing in every direction, half of nothing for the technology we need, half of nothing for commercial access, half of nothing for heavy lift, half of nothing for a lunar or asteroid mission.

    I believe we would have been better off going in a different direction. No matter what we do in heavy lift, through NASA, is not going to be cheap, it is going to take forever, and any mistake, mishap or accident will once again mean years of America’s space transportation grinding to a total halt as we are without access and an endless parade of studies and hearings will have to be conducted and every congressperson will need to bray.

    What form of commercial transportation grinds to a 100% halt when there is an accident? … For YEARS. There isn’t one. Only with America’s space program do we allow ourselves to be shackled into this position.

  • yg1968

    Kosmas was expected to lose, no matter what she did. Her win in 2008 was the result of fraud allegations against the incumbent Republican. Her district almost always votes Republican.

    As far as Grayson is concerned, good ridance.

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