By Jeff Foust on 2004 November 2 at 11:30 pm ET A few key space-related House figures have easily won reelection. Rep. Sherwood Boehlert (R-NY), chairman of the House Science Committee, has won reelection, as has the ranking Democrat on that committee, Rep. Bart Gordon (D-TN). Rep. Tom DeLay (R-TX), the House Majority Leader whose district includes NASA JSC, has also won reelection despite a surprisingly strong challenge.
One person in danger of losing reelection is Rep. Nick Lampson (D-TX), who is behind in early returns. Lampson is the ranking minority member on the space subcommittee of the House Science Committee, but was one of a number of incumbent Democratic House members who were adversely affected by redistricting.
By Jeff Foust on 2004 November 2 at 9:18 pm ET A couple more Senate races with space implications are going as expected: Sens. John McCain (R-AZ) and Sam Brownback (R-KS) are projected to win reelection. McCain is chairman of the Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee, and Brownback is chair of that committee’s Science, Technology, and Space subcommittee.
By Jeff Foust on 2004 November 2 at 8:33 pm ET Most of the major networks have projected that Sens. Kit Bond (R-MO) and Barbara Mikulski (D-MD) have won reelection. Mikulski, as previously discussed, has been a strong supporter of NASA in Congress, and is also the ranking minority member of the VA-HUD subcommittee of the Senate Appropriations Committee, which has jurisdiction over NASA. Bond is the chairman of that committee. (Of course, depending on how the overall election turns out, those roles could switch.) Neither result is a surprise.
By Jeff Foust on 2004 November 2 at 7:20 pm ET The AP reported that, as planned, ISS astronaut Leroy Chiao voted electronically from orbit. Chiao didn’t reveal who he voted for, but that he thought about it “long and hard” over the weekend, taking into account more than space policy in his decision. Chiao actually transmitted his vote Sunday night, Halloween: “maybe that’s kind of appropriate,” he said.
By Jeff Foust on 2004 November 2 at 1:25 pm ET If you’re one of those rare people for whom space policy is a deciding issue in this election, and you haven’t made your mind up for whom to vote today (yes, I realize I’ve probably reduced the size of the audience to zero, but just play along), you could do worse that to read Rand Simberg’s summary of the space policy positions of the two candidates published Monday at TCS. A couple of quibbles: Bush didn’t speak recently at KSC (that was Kerry, back in July; Bush spoke at Space Coast Stadium), and the article doesn’t mention Kerry’s switch from opposing to supporting the ISS after 1996. But, as Rand writes, “Whether you think that this record represents good or bad space policy depends partially on your opinion of those programs…″
By Jeff Foust on 2004 November 1 at 6:24 pm ET A reader emailed today and noted that C-SPAN carried a replay over the weekend of a Kerry campaign appearance Friday in Orlando. In that speech Kerry did mention space policy, claiming that he would “push the boundaries of the solar system” and “wouldn’t leave the money behind either.” Kerry’s campaign web site has a copy of his Orlando speech, but it doesn’t mention space; an Orlando Sentinel article about the appearance also doesn’t make note of space. Did anyone else out there catch the speech, live or on C-SPAN, and can share some additional insights?
By Jeff Foust on 2004 November 1 at 7:48 am ET Watching football Sunday afternoon, I was startled to see a political commercial mention the Hubble Space Telescope. I wasn’t surprised, though, to see that the ad was for Barbara Mikulski, who is running for reelection to the Senate here in Maryland. Mikulski “fought to save the Hubble telescope”, the ad claimed, and also mentioned that she “brought in high-tech jobs at NIH and Goddard Space Center”. (You can watch the ad in QuickTime and Real formats.)
Mikulski’s election web site has more on the topic, including a petition visitors can sign to save the Hubble. (As if there aren’t enough pro-Hubble petitions online already.) Her web site also notes that she fought to secure funding for the New Horizons mission to Pluto (being run by APL in Maryland, of course) as well as $10 million in funding to improve launch facilities at NASA Wallops. That’s more than you’ll see most candidates say about space, although she still has to master a bit more of the space learning curve: her web site also mentions that she successfully worked for “Wallops Flight Facility to be designated as a site for NASA’s commercial launches.” NASA’s commercial launches? Oh well…
By Jeff Foust on 2004 November 1 at 7:34 am ET This week’s edition of The Space Review has three articles that touch upon space policy and the Presidential election:
- Sam Dinkin looks at Kerry’s space policy and find that it “really says more about his domestic, Iraq, and terrorism policies than indicates much about what will happen for space in a Kerry presidency.”
- Greg Zsidisin asks the question on the minds of Democratic space activists: vote for your party’s candidate, or for the candidate who proposed a new space exploration policy? Find out why he’s sticking with Kerry.
- Taylor Dinerman examines the missile defense policies of Bush and Kerry with a particular eye towards space-based missile defense. While Bush is the stronger of the two on this topic, “there seems to be no real possibility that the US will be able to deploy any kind of boost-phase interceptor, either ground-based or space-based, by the end of his second term.”
By Jeff Foust on 2004 October 31 at 7:43 am ET The Washington Times, the smaller—and more conservative—of DC’s two major daily newspapers, published an editorial describing the differences between the Bush and Kerry space policies. The Times should be praised for taking the time, in the final Sunday newspaper before the general election, to discuss space policy. However, their editorial is a little confusing.
The latter half of the editorial is fine: it clearly states the differences between Bush and Kerry on the exploration vision. It’s the first part, where it talks about Kerry’s focus on the shuttle and ISS, that’s a little unclear. A quote:
The loss of Columbia did more than reduce the shuttle fleet; it dictated either the retirement or re-certification of the remaining shuttles by 2010. Neither alternative is wise. The shuttles have never fulfilled their promise and their primary destination, the International Space Station (ISS), has proved a costly experimental platform.
It’s not clear what the writer is advocating: he appears to be opposed to retiring (or recertifying) the shuttle in 2010, but he also appears to be unimpressed with the shuttle and ISS in general. Another quote:
“Two of NASA’s top priorities,” under Mr. Kerry, would be returning the shuttle to flight and completing the ISS, according to spokesman Jason Furman.
I think one could argue that shuttle RTF and ISS completion are two of NASA’s top priorities today, and will be priorities regardless of who wins the election. In fact, as noted in the comments of a previous post, NASA is currently studying increasing the number of shuttle flights to ensure the proper completion of ISS, a move which would further delay the shuttle’s retirement date and most likely delay the exploration initiative (as it would be deprived of that wedge of funding freed up from shuttle operations.) Perhaps, despite the Times’ headline, Bush’s space policy isn’t that bold after all.
By Jeff Foust on 2004 October 31 at 7:21 am ET A Florida Today article Sunday suggests that uncertainty about the outcome of the Presidential election, and the resulting effect on space policy, has frozen efforts to develop a series of robotic lunar missions that would be forerunners of eventual human missions:
“They are not going to go forward with the vision until they see how the election is going to turn out, and that’s true of Congress also,” said Paul Spudis, a planetary geologist at Johns Hopkins University who served on the President’s Commission on Moon, Mars and Beyond.
“Seriously, their people are running in place and they want to see what’s going to happen,” Spudis said. “My sense is that we won’t actually get moving out on this — on the detailed architecture and strategy studies — until that is resolved.”
That’s true to some degree: it seems unlikely a Kerry Administration would be so keen on lunar missions if it is as strongly opposed to the overall exploration program as it appears to be. However, the article misses the point that there is some opposition in Congress regarding how the initial mission, Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO), is bring run: while NASA is soliciting proposals for LRO instruments, NASA is building the spacecraft in-house even though there are any number of companies perfectly capable of building it. There have even been suggestions for data purchase and prize mechanisms to obtain the data LRO would acquire, which would seem to better fulfill the commercialization imperative of the Aldridge Commission. So, even if Bush wins reelection and the exploration program continues on, NASA lunar exploration plans as currently stated could still face opposition in Congress.
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