While Adams is quiet on the issue of commercial spaceflight, Sen. Sam Brownback, a Republican now running for governor of Kansas, is not. Speaking in Wichita yesterday, Brownback in effect put out the welcome mat for space companies that might be thinking of establishing operations there. “We will pursue partnering opportunities with our existing companies and private space companies on the design and manufacture of commercial space vehicles, as well as encourage them to locate some of their facilities here,” he said, the AP reported. Brownback also introduced Alan Weston of NASA’s Ames Research Center, who spoke at the Wichita Aero Club and had a similar message of support for commercial space. “We at Ames, and many people at NASA, believe that commercial space can cut these [spaceflight] costs dramatically,” he said, as reported by the Wichita Business Journal. “I believe, and Pete Worden (director of NASA Ames) believes, that the industry here — the aviation industry — can lead this revolution.”

Some other random notes about various space policy issues at the state level:

In New Mexico, gubernatorial candidates Susana Martinez and Diane Denish offered somewhat differing takes on Spaceport America in response to questions from NMPolitics.net. Denish, a Democrat and the current lieutenant governor, calls the spaceport “a visionary idea”, saying that the spaceport will be used not just for “wealthy space tourists” but also satellite launches for communications and imaging needs (although probably not in the immediate future). Martinez, the Republican candidate, notes the spaceport’s “impressive potential” but says that “additional large investments would be a misguided use of our taxpayer funds”. (It’s not clear what, if any, additional investments are planned or have been requested for the spaceport.)

The situation is a little more dire in Oklahoma, where one state legislator is considering closing the state’s spaceport if “nothing substantial” happens there in the next three years. State Rep. Todd Russ, a Republican whose district includes the spaceport in Burns Flat, said in the sidebar to an article in The Oklahoman that he would talk with fellow legislators about closing the spaceport if there’s no activity there, especially after Rocketplane, a major planned tenant of the former air force base, filed for Chapter 7 liquidation this summer.

As you might expect NASA’s future has emerged as a major issue in political races in Brevard County, Florida, home to the Kennedy Space Center and thousands of workers whose jobs may be lost once the shuttle is retired next year. It’s showing up not just in Congressional races, but also at the state and local level. “I can’t remember a time in the last 20 years when NASA was at the forefront like it is now,” Titusville Area Chamber of Commerce President Marcia Gaedcke told Florida Today.

In an article in this week’s issue of The Space Review, I provide some more insights on the new national space policy from a couple of forums on the subject held in Washington late last month. That includes discussion of the meaning of some of the language in the policy (what does “responsible behavior” mean, for example?) and implications for international cooperation and arms control. The PolitiFact project, meanwhile, uses the policy to assess a couple of Obama campaign promises. The lack of reference to a new National Space Council in the policy is considered a “promise broken” by PolitiFact, since the Obama campaign’s space policy white paper explicitly called for it. It also rates the language on arms control a “compromise” over a proposal in the policy for a “code of conduct” in the white paper.

In an op-ed in the Las Cruces (N.M.) Sun-News, Rick Homans, executive director of the New Mexico Spaceport Authority, thanks members of the state’s Congressional delegation for their support of the Commercial Reusable Suborbital Research (CRuSR) program in authorization legislation. He particularly thanks Sen. Tom Udall and Rep. Ben Ray Lujan for proposing amendments to remove funding and other restrictions on CRuSR in the legislation. “As of this week, with the amended NASA plan moving through Congress, we’ve taken a ‘giant leap’ to setting a new direction for NASA and laying the foundation for the commercial spaceflight industry,” Homans writes.

And finally, from a column in the same newspaper from Pat Hynes, head of the New Mexico Space Grant Consortium, this observation: “I have fallen under the spell of the 2010 Space Policy Act. It’s the sector guidelines on page 10. That’s when the Thunder Bolt hit me.” She is referring to the new national space policy’s definition of commercial space activities, and the role the state and its new spaceport could play. “When Spaceport America is fully operational, we will be able to compete for government business and save the taxpayers money while creating a new commercial space industry. Let’s hope this means future jobs in the commercial space industry evolving in New Mexico. What’s not to love?”

On Sunday, Florida Today endorsed the Senate legislation in an editorial, stating that it is “imperfect, but contains major elements that make good sense.” Those elements include immediate development of a heavy-lift vehicle and Orion spacecraft while also supporting commercial crew development. The House version, by comparison, is “badly flawed” because it would “essentially terminate” the commercial crew program while supporting continued development of a Constellation-like program whose long-term costs would be “unsustainable”.

Rep. Suzanne Kosmas (D-FL), in a brief Florida Today op-ed, suggests the Senate version of the bill is better than the House version. The Senate version “comes much closer to the goals outlined in our bipartisan plan for NASA and strikes a better balance in terms of continuing the development of a NASA-led vehicle while supporting the growth of the commercial spaceflight industry,” she writes, saying only of the House version that it was “important to move the process forward”. In a companion op-ed, Rep. Bill Posey (R-FL) indicates he’s not pleased with either version, saying they “move in the right direction but still fall short”. He is particularly critical of plans, as he puts it, to “outsource our space program to the Russians”.

In response to a series of questions posed by the Orlando Sentinel, Florida Democratic Senate candidate Kendrick Meek called the White House’s NASA budget proposal its biggest policy mistake to date. The proposal “does not provide adequate funding to implement NASA’s priorities”, Kendrick responded in the excerpted responses published by the paper, adding that it would also “disproportionately impact Florida’s economy”. In response to another question, Meek identified NASA as one area, along with clean alternative energy, that deserved additional federal funding. Meek’s opponent, Jeff Greene, who has a 10-point lead over Meek in a new poll, did not address NASA in the responses published by the Sentinel.

Finally, at the end of an interview with local businessman Bernie Simpkins, Florida Today asks him what he thinks of the president’s space policy, including its emphasis on commercial space. “I have no objection that he’s encouraging commercialization or privatization. I still believe that entrepreneurs or private industry can do better than government,” he responded. However, he added, “space is like the telephone company or national defense. It’s such an important industry that we can’t let it go.” Of course, in an era of multiple telecommunications providers, the concept of the telephone company is something of an anachronism…

Late Friday the administration made a move that appears intended to blunt some of that criticism. The president sent a letter to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi containing a number of amendments to its budget proposal, including one for NASA. “This request would fund an initiative to develop a plan to spur regional economic growth and job creation along the Florida Space Coast and other affected regions in furtherance of my Administration’s bold new course for human space flight, which revitalizes NASA and transitions to new opportunities in the space industry and beyond,” the president wrote in his letter.

The amendment, contained in page 15 of the document, includes the $30 million that will go to the Commerce Department for regional economic growth on the Space Coast and the $10 million that will go to the Labor Department for job training in that region. The amendment also includes an additional $45 million that will go to Commerce for regional economic growth “in other areas affected by job losses associated with programmatic changes in this account” and $15 million more to Labor for job training in those other areas. All the money—$100 million total—would come out of the Exploration portion of the budget, although the document doesn’t specify what specific areas of Exploration would lose money to fund these initiatives (the original $40 million was to come from Constellation closeout costs.) Despite effectively getting its budget cut by $100 million, NASA put a positive spin on the amendment: a spokesman told Space News that the money was “essential” to helping the workforce and regions most affected by the agency’s changes.

Given Utah’s demographics, whomever wins that June 22 GOP primary will likely win the general election in November. So how do Bridgewater and Lee stack up on space policy compared to Bennett, who sharply criticized NASA’s plans to cancel the Ares launch vehicles—which could lead to the loss of hundreds or thousands of jobs at ATK’s Utah facilities—during a Senate Appropriations Committee hearing last month? The two candidates haven’t touched on this much yet. Lee doesn’t mention space on the issues page of his web site. Bridgewater, though, does answer the question of whether he supports the president’s plan “for the privatization of NASA” in the negative. “The same rockets that send a man to the moon could send a missile across the world to defend our nation,” he claims (bringing visions of a Saturn 5 or Ares 5 being repurposed as an ICBM). “NASA plays a vital role in the security of our nation and the strength of our military.”

Their criticism is modest, though, compared to comments made by Texas Gov. Rick Perry Saturday in a press conference Saturday in Fort Worth. Perry, a Republican running for reelection this year, said it was “very disconcerting” for him to have the president talking about supporting jobs at KSC while saying nothing about JSC. “The message there was: ‘You’re from Texas. We don’t care about you,’” he said, as quoted by the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. “I tell people this president has put a target on Texas’ back.”

Perry’s Democratic opponent in the general election, former Houston mayor Bill White, also wants more details about the revised plan, but without the same rhetorical zeal as Gov. Perry. “To properly plan and continue to be a leader in NASA’s new future, the Johnson Space Center community needs more details as soon as possible,” White said in a statement a day before the president’s speech, after the fact sheet about the revised plan. “I’ll encourage more cooperation and open communication between NASA, our congressional delegation, and our JSC family.”

While some Florida legislators are seeking to extend the life of the shuttle, others in New York, including Democratic senators Chuck Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand, are also interested in the shuttle. Not extending it, mind you, but securing an orbiter for the Intrepid Sea-Air-Space Museum in New York City when the fleet is retired. Schumer tells the New York Daily News that he thinks the Intrepid’s bid is in “very, very good shape” after a meeting he had Wednesday with NASA administrator Charles Bolden.

However, not mentioned in the article is a provision tucked into legislation introduced earlier this month that could shortcircuit the bid by the Intrepid and many other cities seeking to land an orbiter, from Seattle to Tulsa. The “Human Space Flight Capability Assurance and Enhancement Act of 2010″ (S. 3068 and HR 4804) states that, once the shuttle fleet is decommissioned (several years later than planned), the orbiters would be awarded to institutions under a competitive process like the current one, but with “priority consideration given to eligible applicants meeting all conditions of that plan which would provide for the location, display, and maintenance of one Orbiter at or near the Johnson Space Center, in Houston, Texas, and one Orbiter at or near the Kennedy Space Center near Titusville, Florida.” With one orbiter already expected to go the National Air and Space Museum, that would shut out the Intrepid and anyone else.

One part of the letter is a little confusing. Referring to plans for heavy-lift launch vehicle development, the letter states: “We are cognizant your Administration’s budget proposal seeks funds to subsidize the private development of so-called ‘heavy-lift’ systems. However, it is important to note that these initiatives are preliminary and have largely yet to begin.” It’s not clear what private “heavy-lift” vehicle development efforts they’re referring to; the funding in the budget proposal regarding heavy lift is focused on technology development for such systems, separate from commercial crew development, which doesn’t require vehicles typically considered as “heavy lift”.

Also on Tuesday, Florida governor Charlie Crist met in Washington with members of his state’s congressional delegation, with NASA as one of the key topics of discussion. However, according to the Orlando Sentinel’s account, the meeting “generated little more than sound bites” other than a suggestion that Crist work with governors of other states affected by the new policy. “Using a blue Sharpie, Crist wrote them in a notebook: California, Texas, Alabama…” the St. Petersburg Times recounted.

Potentially more effective for Florida, though, was a private meeting Sen. Bill Nelson (D-FL) had with President Obama Tuesday, with space on the agenda. Nelson announced the meeting on Twitter, adding, “Lots of folks unhappy with newly released plan for NASA.” After the meeting Nelson described it as an “excellent conversation” but without providing other details, other than that “We’ll see the fruits of that conversation when the president visits [Florida] on April 15.”

One other related note: members of Houston’s congressional delegation are scheduled to host a press conference Thursday morning with the city’s major, Annise Parker, to discuss Constellation. Parker, as reported yesterday, is in Washington in part to discuss the potential economic impact on her city if Constellation is canceled.

However, there’s no guarantee that despite the dire predictions of economic catastrophe on the Space Coast, state help will be forthcoming. As the Orlando Sentinel reported Thursday, state legislators said it would be difficult, at best, to get those incentives approved given the poor state of the overall economy and a $3-billion state budget deficit to close. “[T]he probability of getting $32 million is not probable,” said state Sen. Mike Fasano, who chairs a committee that will take up the proposed incentives.

Meanwhile, Florida Today reported that Gov. Crist had a “tense” meeting with KSC director Robert Cabana, who was promoting the proposed budget that would transition human transportation to low Earth orbit to the private sector. “We can cry about what we’ve lost, or we can make the most of our opportunities,” Cabana said. Crist, though, tried to argue that the shuttle retirement should be postponed until “after the recession”.