GOP on Space: We’re in Favor of It
Donald Trump (Credit: Michael Vadon)
The Republican Party Platform has a brief mention of space located between sections on reforming the civil service and supporting people living in America’s far flung territories.
The section is below. It doesn’t say that much, but at least it’s there. The Democratic Party Platform has no mention of space.
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.
29 responses to “GOP on Space: We’re in Favor of It”
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Kind of an ignorant article. It is the Obama Admin above all that has threatened the American space program. If it wasn’t for congressional mutiny, we’d have nearly none. While both parties have long shown support of the space program, it is the Democratic Party of late that has attempted to cut it out of existence.
NASA and aerospace, both as government programs and promotion of space commerce, does not create or keep Democrat voters. Many of the NASA centers and its prime contractors are in Republican districts.
Not really. That is true of the SLS garbage, as well as Houston, but you will find that a lot of the items are in Dems.
For example, here in Colorado, all of our space companies are split across various districts.
When NASA was formed those were all conservative southern democrat states… they became republicans as part of the Reagan revolution. Senator Shelby used to be a democrat.
The “Blue Dog” democrats became republicans because of LBJ’s “War on Poverty” and the Voting Rights Act. 15 years before Reagan. Reagan actually was one of them.
None of which has much or anything to do with contemporary politics. The exercise in redistribution that is the US space program is non-partisan in the sense that it just happens to be that most of NASA gets its pork buttered by republicans, because they control the districts that facilities are in and prime contractors have their hooks in them the most.
wow.
Uh, NO.
It was O that kept CCDev and ISS going, as well as quit throwing away money on Constellation.
It was the GOP that continues to throw away our money on the SLS.
The GOP keeps trying to kill off SpaceX.
And at every single budget request, O’s request for NASA is about 10% MORE Than what the senate gives and about 20% more than what the house wants to give.
If you differ with that, then PROVE that the house and senate budgets have been MORE than O’s has.
The GOP has never tried to kill off SpaceX.
Show me the legislation – proposed or enacted – whose purpose was to “kill off SpaceX” and list the GOP party leaders, or indeed anyone in congress, who supported it.
That would be every NASA budget proposal in the Republican dominated House that zeroed funding for commercial crew, and every NASA budget proposal in the majority Republican Senate (and ultimately passed budget) that halved it.
Interesting. What year(s) did the House of Representatives budget have zero funding for Commercial Crew?
What website do you normally pedal that BS?
You should actually read the proposals made by President Obama. This is the speech he made at the Kennedy Space Center on April 15th 2010.
“All that has to change. And with the strategy I’m outlining today, it will. We start by increasing NASA’s budget by $6 billion over the next five years, even — (applause) — I want people to understand the context of this. This is happening even as we have instituted a freeze on discretionary spending and sought to make cuts elsewhere in the budget.
So NASA, from the start, several months ago when I issued my budget, was one of the areas where we didn’t just maintain a freeze but we actually increased funding by $6 billion”
http://www.nasa.gov/news/media…
He wanted a NEW FUNDING INCREASE to fully fund commercial crew. So maybe you should rephrase your statements.
It’s so deeply ingrained in the collective psyche of some that “Obama tried to kill the space program”, “Obama cancelled the shuttle”, “Obama hates NASA”. Nothing is going to change their minds. The “truthiness” of their beliefs will always outweigh mere evidence to the contrary.
We have lots of nifty CG movies of big rocket launches!
Just pay me a salary out of your tax monies and claim that I “do a job” in the future space industry. Fine for me. Vote for that!
Sorry all of those positions have been filled.
Good to see.
But I would of preferred more details. Like is the SLS future boondoggle going to be killed off?
Doubtful. If Obama couldn’t kill it, Hilary won’t (she’ll keep using it as a poker chip). It will be business as usual. A magnificent busy work project to keep the mil-industrial-complex happy and writing campaign contribution checks.
Or….
Depending on what his personal opinion, how he’s influenced, Trump could go either way. Since Obama has never embraced SLS and made it “his” project, and if it gets sold to him as a “Great Big Way to Make America Great Again”, he might be all for it. OTOH, Trump isn’t big on wasteful government and has more faith in private enterprise, so he may (try) to kill it and go with SpaceX for this notional need for super heavy lift capacity.
Clinton will make a trade with congress for a commercial space station to replace ISS. Bush Traded Constellation for commercial cargo. Obama traded SLS for commercial crew. Clinton will trade SLS/Orion for a commercial space station.
Why do you think Clinton cares about a commercial space station? (Compared to a public healthcare option or some other policy.)
Presidents don’t care about space. The NASA budget rarely even gets an asterisk at the bottom of a page when a graph is shown of government spending. I just state my opinion on how I believe things will play out.
I meant why would do you believe she would “trade SLS/Orion for a commercial space station”? Why a commercial space station? As opposed to… well… anything else.
Just from reading policy positions of the last 30 years and what people have wanted to see happening in commercial space. As I have stated you need commercial cargo services to LEO, you need commercial passenger services to LEO and you need a commercial destination in LEO. I refer to that as the three legs of stool needed to go around NASA rather than trying to go through NASA and move commercial space transportation into a more traditional development trajectory.
Here is some of the backstory.
http://www.nasa.gov/sites/d…
Suits me. I support SLS
*This platform plank has been brought to you by your good friends at Lockheed Martin 🙂
Anyway, good to see space getting a mention, especially as Trump’s only significant comment on space was something to the effect of, “That stuff is nice, but we need to improve America‘s infrastructure first” (an unending task, thus there would never be a “NOW we can do it” if that were to be the bar).
I can guess some Republican congressional members from Alabama and other places stepped in and said, “Well now, hold your horses there, son”, much as Senator Bill Nelson (Democrat) did when a newly elected (or still running?) Obama proposed funding a big education initiative of his by just taking the money from what is normally allocated to NASA.
Uh, no. Obama made a single throw-away line early in his campaign when asked about NASA and Constellation, that while he supported what NASA had achieved in the past, he felt that the money was better spent on education than returning to the moon.
After becoming the Dem candidate, he created a space policy advisory committee which included people like Garver, and issued a policy which would increase NASA’s budget, focus on science and technology development, and strongly leverage (and enable) commercial spaceflight.
That latter space policy was reflected in his proposed budget after being elected. He proposed to end Constellation, push that money into tech development and commercial crew, add a billion in extra funding for the development of a new generation large rocket engine. (Which would have been handy right about now, given concerns over dependence on Russian engines.)
Nelson objected to that proposal, voting with Republicans to demand a continuation of a “Big Rocket” development that kept Shuttle contractors employed. SLS was the compromise.
The passage above is from the 2012 GOP platform, not the 2016 platform. The new platform contains some similar language, but also endorses the use of public-private partnerships.
What about Newt Gingrich’s influence and space enthusiasm if Trump gets elected? He made a debate statement about space based solar power when he ran 4 years ago, which was heavily punished by the news media. And space solar power is such a bad idea, why did he pick that one of all great and crazy ideas lying around about space exploration? In some ways it is a good thing that politicians don’t care about space. The Indian prime minister is said to be personally involved in ISRO’s design of space probes. Engineering and politics aren’t very compatible.
(That border wall to Mexico is going to be so tall that it can be used as a space elevator)
Trump is a game changer. The space community should come together and make him stir up space flight. He will reign at the 50 years jubilee of Apollo 11. Get a few Nobel prize winners together, he’ll listen to winners and likes rock star entrances, national prestige, military strength. All the good political reasons for space flight. The bad reasons focus on maximizing the costs instead of the delivered results, like jobs and education bla bla bla and that has never gotten anywhere.
– (Heard sometime next year) Mr. president, now that you have conquered the entire Earth, it is evidently too small for you. There is more real estate in…
– Tell Shostak to get’em aliens on the phone, I’ve got a deal they won’t resist. They are behind with their rent payments, aren’t they. Everyone always is.