Late last year Senator Obama released his plan on federally funding the Education Industry. He will throw more money at the 50+ Billion dollar Education budget.. by taking money from the 16 Bilion dollar budget of the "Wasteful" NASA. He would "postpone" the NASA Space projects "for five years".
"Five years". In other words, for a Four Year political office, he would kill it.
"Education" in other words Tools for the Education Industry. At the expense of Inspiration that would actually make kids Want to learn anything.
When McCain got the nomination some Spaceniks cheered it as a way against Obama. But when the emotion ended there was the fact that Senator McCain has been in office a long time and in that time there has been no clear and important movement towards Space from him either.
Late last year Senator Obama released his plan on federally funding the Education Industry. He will throw more money at the 50+ Billion dollar Education budget.. by taking money from the 16 Bilion dollar budget of the "Wasteful" NASA. He would "postpone" the NASA Space exploration initiative "for five years".
"Five years". In other words, for a Four Year political office, he would kill it.
And it's not just new stuff either. "Five years" of slashed budgets with the Shuttle being retired in 2010 and ONLY the Russians being able to send things and people to the ISS. And don't forget this other little fact that barely gets coverage... because of existing budget limitations, the Russians have already been handed ISS Command and Control. Whatever you think of the Space Station the fact is that it's like the War, it is there and it has to be taken care of. Different from the War though, the ISS is also the clear High Ground and all it takes is some little political issue to come up for it to be comepletely off limits to the United States and other non-Russian partners.
"Education" in other words Tools for the Education Industry. At the expense of Inspiration that would actually make kids Want to learn anything.
When McCain got the nomination some Spaceniks cheered it as a way against Obama. But when the emotion ended there was the fact that Senator McCain has been in office a long time and in that time there has been no clear and important movement towards Space from him either.
For those of us who feel that getting real humans on Mars is a far bigger Inspirational objective than just returning to the Moon, McCain is no noob or obvious helper. He is clearly shown in the documentary "The Mars Underground" as sitting on high listening to Dr. Robert Zubrin with a half smile but no personal attachment.
Obama is no Kennedy. Kennedy upped the cold war arms race significantly ... followed by a call for reduction after America was ahead and Americans were safer. Kennedy dreamed the big dream, for whatever reason, and called upon Americans to do Clear And Actionable distinct work to get Americans to the Moon.
I'll be up front, I was originally leaning far to Obama. But as time passes Obama, to me, has become a speaker of vague sound bites and the only thing that I can see as radical is how the bites change radically depending on what town is he pontificating to at the moment.
Not that I'm now behind McCain... I just don't trust him because his Maverickness hasn't done any obvious things to help the Space Industry do more than continue to limp along.
Voting at the moment comes down to Abortion, because that is the only place where an obvious differentiation exists. What a shame.
But what of Space? You decide. Visit the MarsSociety.org to watch the proxied Space Policy debate from the 11th annual convention that took place in Boulder a week before the Obamawagon clogged the Denver airport.