By Jeff Foust on 2008 October 24 at 7:46 am ET A reader passed along a notice that Congressmen Tom Feeney and Dave Weldon will be meeting with state and local officials in Brevard County, Florida to “discuss local, state and federal partnership opportunities for Florida’s Space industry”. The meeting will take place Monday, October 27th at 10 am at 2725 Judge Fran Jamieson Way in Viera, on the third floor of Building C. The meeting will feature a number of speakers besides Feeney and Weldon, including KSC deputy director Janet Petro and Space Florida president Steve Kohler. The meeting is designed to serve as a followup to a Florida Space and Technology Forum held last month.
By Jeff Foust on 2008 October 24 at 7:39 am ET On Thursday John McCain gave a speech in Ormond Beach, Florida, that included many of the themes the candidate has repeated countless times now on the campaign trail, such as a one-year budget freeze. However, the Barack Obama campaign seized upon one part of that speech, notably what McCain didn’t say:
Days after attempting to clarify his ever-changing position on space funding, John McCain returned to the region this morning and reinstituted his call for a spending freeze – without an exception for NASA. Speaking in Ormond Beach, McCain promised to freeze spending on “all but the most important programs like defense, veterans care, social security and health care,†pledging to “veto every single pork barrel earmark.â€
Notably absent was any exception for space funding, muddying a position McCain tried to clear up last week.
“It seems Senator McCain isn’t committed to exempting NASA from his proposed spending freeze. After talking about space for all of 53 seconds in Melbourne last week, now he’s returned to the area and neglected to mention space at all, going so far as to reinstitute his spending freeze pledge without a NASA exception. It’s no wonder Florida Today has called McCain ‘downright schizophrenic’ about space,†said Obama’s Florida Policy Director Ian Bassin. “Barack Obama has pledged an additional $2 billion to reduce the spaceflight gap and save Florida jobs and was recently praised for his ‘leadership’ on space issues by NASA Administrator Michael Griffin. That’s the change Florida’s Space Coast needs.â€
So did the McCain campaign really go back on its pledge just last week to provide $2 billion more for NASA? One can argue that McCain was not trying to provide a complete list of “important programs” that would be exempt from the freeze, and just listed the highest-profile ones. However, while Ormond Beach is not usually considered part of the “Space Coast” region of Florida, it’s close enough—just north of Daytona Beach—that the McCain campaign could have avoided any controversy and negative publicity by simply adding “and NASA” to that list, if in fact the candidate is still committed to that budget increase.
By Jeff Foust on 2008 October 23 at 8:20 am ET Yesterday Florida Today formally endorsed Suzanne Kosmas in her bid to unseat incumbent Congressman Tom Feeney in Florida’s 24th district. While Feeney has a reputation as a strong space supporter in Congress (“No one disparages Feeney’s record as an advocate for NASA since his election in 2002,” the editorial notes), one of the reasons the newspaper cites for endorsing Kosmas is her stance on space:
She promises to work diligently for Brevard residents in Washington, and nowhere is that more clear than in her strong support for NASA’s moon exploration program and willingness to fight for the funding required to build a new fleet of post-shuttle spacecraft.
We’re also impressed with her strategic vision to leverage the Space Coast not just as the nation’s hub for manned and commercial spaceflight but also as a nucleus for alternative energy and technological research to help end America’s dependence on foreign oil.
That’s a goal we support as KSC heads toward the shuttle fleet’s retirement in 2010 and an estimated 3,500 lost jobs.
By Jeff Foust on 2008 October 22 at 10:58 am ET Late yesterday India launched its first lunar mission, Chandrayaan-1. In response to that milestone, the Barack Obama campaign issued the following statement from the candidate that ties that launch into his space policy:
With India’s launch of its first unmanned lunar spacecraft following closely on the heels of China’s first spacewalk, we are reminded just how urgently the United States must revitalize its space program if we are to remain the undisputed leader in space, science, and technology.
My comprehensive plan to revitalize the space program and close the gap between the Space Shuttle’s retirement and its next-generation replacement includes $2 billion more for NASA – but more money alone is not enough. We must not only retain our space workforce so that we don’t let other countries surpass our technical capabilities; we must train new scientists and engineers for the next generation. My comprehensive space policy focuses on reaching new frontiers through human space exploration, tapping the ingenuity of our commercial space entrepreneurs, fostering a broad research agenda to break new ground on the world’s leading scientific discoveries, and engaging students through educational programs that excite them about space and science.
As a child, I remember sitting on my grandfather’s shoulders and watching the Apollo astronauts return from a splashdown to Hickam Air Force Base, dreaming of where they had been. It inspired my imagination and gave me confidence in what we as Americans could achieve. It’s time for a space program that inspires our children again. As President, I will lead our space program boldly into the 21st Century – so when my daughters, and all our children, look up to the skies, they see Americans leading the way into the deepest reaches of our solar system.
By Jeff Foust on 2008 October 21 at 10:11 am ET From a news report about a debate betweem Re. Nick Lampson (D-TX) and Pete Olson, his Republican challenger in the November election for the 22nd congressional district in the Houston area:
“I’d like to address one of the congressman’s statements that he got $3 billion for NASA. That’s simply not true. Senator Kay Bailey Hutchinson did the heavy lifting for that,” said Olson.
“Well, first let me say Kay Bailey Hutchinson works in the Senate, not in the House. I work in the House and I was one of the leaders that made it happen,” said Lampson.
The first part of Olson’s statement is true: Nick Lampson didn’t get $3 billion (extra, presumably) for NASA. But then, neither did Sen. Hutchison, or anyone else in Congress. They appear to be referring to the recently-passed NASA authorization act, which authorizes $20.2 billion for NASA in 2009, about $3 billion more than what was appropriated in FY08. However, it’s likely that, when (and if) a final FY09 appropriations bill is passed, NASA’s funding will come up short of that $20.2 billion mark, probably by a significant amount.
By Jeff Foust on 2008 October 18 at 10:58 am ET
- Sen. Mel Martinez (R-FL) said that John McCain was the space program’s best friend in remarks introducing the Republican presidential candidate in Melbourne. “The space program has never has a better friend than John McCain,” Martinez said, as reported by Florida Today . “The Straight Talk Express knows the importance of the American space program and that we can’t rely on the Russians. This is a great man.”
- The Obama campaign, reacting to McCain’s speech, suggested that McCain was flip-flopping on space, the Orlando Sentinel reported. “One day it’s a spending freeze; the next day it’s not; but whatever his stance is, Space Coast voters are looking for a change from the Bush-McCain policies that brought us to the brink of thousands of job losses,” Obama spokeswoman Adrianne Marsh said.
- Those who attended the speech, though, were generally pleased with what McCain had to say about space. “It was great news for Brevard County and everyone who works out at the Space Center,” one woman told Florida Today.
By Jeff Foust on 2008 October 18 at 10:45 am ET While there isn’t an official transcript of John McCain’s speech Friday in Melbourne, Florida on the McCain-Palin 2008 web site, you can see video of the speech courtesy of Florida Today (although it wasn’t working well for me this morning) and also Central Florida News 13. Here’s the passage by McCain that mentions space policy:
If I’m elected president I won’t cut NASA funds like Senator Obama did and then reverse myself [cheering] here on the Space Coast for political benefit. My friends, we just saw the Chinese, saw them in space. We’ve got competition. We’ve got to say ahead. We will be the first nation to Mars. We will continue, we will continue to lead in space. [cheering] I’ve always been a strong supporter of manned spaceflight and NASA. I will fund NASA including the $2 billion needed to minimize the gap between the retirement of the shuttle and the movement to a new vehicle.
In addition, News 13 interviewed McCain before his speech and asked the candidate if his pledge to freeze discretionary spending suggested “that means NASA’s not getting any more money?”
Of course not, of course not. It means that we’re going to move money around. We’re going to have an across-the-board cut and we’re going to have a scalpel as well, and we’re going to cut out those programs that are unneeded and unnecessary… Space is vital. We have to be the first people on Mars. And we just saw the advances that the Chinese are making… Eighteen billion dollars’ worth of earmarks: that would do a lot for NASA’s budget, that would do a lot for early childhood education.
It’s interesting in both cases that McCain specifically mentioned the need for the US to be the first nation to land people on Mars, an imperative that is lacking from the campaign’s official space policy, which merely endorses the existing space exploration policy that includes “an eventual mission to Mars” and calls on the US to remain “a leader” in space exploration.
By Jeff Foust on 2008 October 17 at 9:02 pm ET The Wall Street Journal has the first (or one of the first) online reports about John McCain’s speech in Melbourne, Florida where the Republican presidential candidate planned to mention space. And, as expected, McCain offered an extra $2 billion for NASA for reducing the Shuttle-Constellation gap. The full text of the speech hasn’t appeared yet on the McCain-Palin 2008 web site, but the WSJ report indicates that it was “nearly identical” to the speech he gave earlier Friday in Miami, replacing a paragraph in the Miami speech about Cuban relations with one about space.
The bits provided in the WSJ report indicate McCain played up China’s activities in space as a motivator for the US to press ahead. “My friends, we just saw the Chinese. We saw them in space,” McCain was quoted as saying. “We’ve got competition. We’ve got to stay ahead. We will be the first nation to Mars.”
Curiously, he also said this: “If I’m elected president I won’t cut NASA funds like Sen. Obama.” Obama, of course, reversed course in August on an earlier plan to delay NASA’s Constellation program by five years to help pay for his education program, and has also proposed adding $2 billion to NASA’s budget, something that, ironically, the Republican National Committee included in its “liberal fiscal agenda” charge against Obama.
By Jeff Foust on 2008 October 17 at 9:00 pm ET CQ Politics published a transcript of a conference call featuring Sen. Bill Nelson earlier today talking about primarily about Medicare and Medicaid, but the senator, unsurprisingly, talked a bit about space policy in his opening remarks:
Well, as we speak, John McCain has left Miami and he’s en route to my home town of Melbourne. And the fact that he’s going to Brevard County is an indication that he is quite concerned that Barack has really sliced in to that traditionally Republican area, because Barack has a very detailed proposal on America’s space program, and John McCain has had a proposal, as he said two nights ago in the debate, of a freeze at last year’s levels across the board.
And, of course, if they do that with NASA, it will absolutely continue to savage NASA, as George Bush’s administration has done, that’s leading us at the space center, when they shut down the space shuttle, to 4,000 to 5,000 jobs laying off because they have not developed the new rocket to replace the space shuttle, and we’re going to be beholden to the Russians to get to the very space station that we built and paid for, and — and — and without an American vehicle for five to six years.
Barack has addressed this. And I submit to you that that’s exactly why McCain is going to Brevard County, which went heavily for George Bush over John Kerry , and he’s going in there because he knows that — that Barack has — has absolutely pierced those Republican engineers who are so concerned about America’s space program.
Of course, even before McCain’s speech today the campaign has indicated that the Republican presidential candidate would be pressing for more money for NASA, exempting the agency from the “across the board” freeze that Nelson referred to. More interesting, though, is the claim that Obama’s space policy has won over (or “pierced”, as Nelson put it, which sounds kinda painful) KSC workers, even those who are Republicans.
By Jeff Foust on 2008 October 17 at 10:15 am ET As noted here yesterday, John McCain is expected to discuss his support for additional NASA funding during a speech late today in Melbourne, Florida. The Orlando Sentinel reports that the McCain campaign is trying to get “space industry officials” to attend the rally, hoping that their attendance will be perceived as an endorsement of the candidate and his space policy.
The Democrats, though, are offering some counterprogramming to McCain’s speech. A press conference featuring Sen. Bill Nelson is planned for some time today, according to the Sentinel. In addition, the Obama campaign Thursday released a radio ad for Florida audiences criticizing McCain on space, with Nelson claiming that McCain “wants to freeze NASA spending at last year’s level.” (The ad is available online.)
Obama supporters who are interested in space have also organized themselves as “Obamanauts”, complete with a modified version of the Obama campaign logo that has more of a space theme. They are hosting “open space policy discussions” on the Space Coast and have also posted a three-page Obama-McCain space policy comparison that puts the statements of the two campaigns on various space topics, from NASA funding and the Shuttle-Constellation gap to ITAR and commercial space.
While all this attention may make it look like the Space Coast is the key to winning the state, some perspective is in order. The Obama campaign, for example, is pouring major resources into the Miami area to drive up voter turnout; the Los Angeles Times article also adds that McCain will make two campaign appearances in Florida today, but only specifically mentions the one in Miami, not the one in Melbourne. Another article today in the St. Petersburg Times calls the Tamp Bay area Florida’s “most critical battleground” and a “swing-voter mecca”, where both campaigns focusing major resources.
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