Republican Party Space Policy Focuses on NASA
Mitt Romney. (Credit: Gage Skidmore)
The Republican Platform — a document that lays out what the party stands for in the upcoming Presidential election — includes a brief passage on the nation’s space program. The section is largely focused on NASA and the need to maintain American leadership in this area for the purposes of competitiveness, technological progress, and national security. There is no mention of commercial space nor any specific proposals on programs and initiatives. Nor does it contain any criticism of the Obama Administration.
This vagueness is largely in line with Mitt Romney’s approach to space, which has been to attack the Obama Administration as disastrous while offering no specifics on what he would change.
Read the space section below.
America’s Future in Space: Continuing this Quest
The exploration of space has been a key part of U.S. global leadership and has supported innovation and ownership of technology. Over the last half century, in partnership with our aerospace industry, the work of NASA has helped define and strengthen our nation’s technological prowess. From building the world’s most powerful rockets to landing men on the Moon, sending robotic spacecraft throughout our solar system and beyond, building the International Space Station, and launching space-based telescopes that allow scientists to better understand our universe, NASA science and engineering have produced spectacular results. The technologies that emerged from those programs propelled our aerospace industrial base and directly benefit our national security, safety, economy, and quality of life. Through its achievements, NASA has inspired generations of Americans to study science, technology, engineering, and mathematics, leading to careers that drive our country’s technological and economic engines.
Today, America’s leadership in space is challenged by countries eager to emulate—and surpass—NASA’s accomplishments. To preserve our national security interests and foster innovation and competitiveness, we must sustain our preeminence in space, launching more science missions, guaranteeing unfettered access, and maintaining a source of high-value American jobs.
In case you were wondering (and I know you were), the section contains exactly 197 words. This is significantly below the 245 words that the Republicans devote to Puerto Rico and America’s overseas territories, which the GOP primarily sees as a source of military recruits, cheap labor and energy resources. (I’m exaggerating only slightly here.)
4 responses to “Republican Party Space Policy Focuses on NASA”
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Remember this from the Obama Campaign Speech in Titusville, FL in 2008
John Kelly: Reality check on Obama space promises
Florida Today
“Let me be clear,” the president said, “we cannot cede our leadership in space. That’s why I am going to close the gap, ensure that our space program doesn’t suffer when the shuttle goes out of service.”
His goal was “making sure that all of those who work in the space industry in Florida do not lose their jobs when the space shuttle is retired because we cannot afford to lose their expertise.”
PROMISE BROKEN
When Obama became President, the KSC Workforce was told to stay home the day he came back to KSC to give his speech – He flew in his own audience and Cancelled the Constellation Program, and 9,000 Jobs were lost.
Space workers held a rally with signs saying Impeach Obama (http://bit.ly/vzZSxi).
Many Many Space Workers that voted for him, because of his promise – will always have this on their minds, especially during Election 2012.
Yeah, well a broken promise will usually cost you in the future.
So, Romney’s strategy seems to be to say nothing and keep his options open, counting on anger over Obama’s actions to do the work for him. It tells you nothing about what he would do in the future, which is usually the point of a campaign.
However, it reveals quite a lot about Romney: calculating, cautious, unwilling to explain himself unless forced to, and fearful of saying something he might have to go back on.
It’s a lot of things, but I’m not sure it’s very good leadership. Leaders need to be able to take positions, make decisions and adjust when necessary. Obama made an ill-advised campaign promise, found he had to reverse it once entering office, and will take the knocks that come with it.
I’m not sure how 9,000 people lost their jobs because of Constellation. The program is still with us for the most part. We’re still building Orion. Ares V has morphed into SLS. All thanks to Congress. The only thing that is really gone is Ares I, which if you talk to some of the people involved in killing it, was the most important thing to eliminate because the rocket design was poor.
I think most of the job losses were a result of the shuttle retirement, something set in motion by President George W. Bush and kept on track by Obama. It was a difficult decision made for complicated reasons. I’m not sure, given the financial realities, that Obama was really in a position to reverse that decision even if he had wanted to. It would have certainly come at the expense of other programs that were more pressing.
Unfortunately in the real world the total funding is limited. If a program costing 3 Billion per year for 10 years could be replaced by an alternate approach for a total of 3 billion in 5 years then guess what, the costly slow program should be cut not the fast inexpensive pragram.
In other words Constellation SLS/Orion should be cancelled and COmercial crew and comercial heavy lift should be fully funded. So far the Republicans (mostley) have reduced Comercial Crew funding and insisted on SLS/Orion funding Rommney by not advocating a different approach is standing for the same expensive inefficient big ticket big space that costs a lot and deliveres little.
What Doug and Warshawski said. The mind simply boggles at the politics; it’s like 1984 Newspeak, except it’s old space that is being re-branded as newspace (aka SLS)and newspace simply being dismissed as wrongspace. I’ve said this many times before but I just don’t get why the Republicans (for the most part), who claim to stand for commerce and a freemarket, so desperately want to throttle commercial space in it’s infancy and keep the Juggernaut of government funded ‘expensive inefficient big ticket big space that costs a lot and deliveres little’ (to paraphrase Warshaski)space… It makes my brain squeek!