Re: Lori Garver Spins Kerry's Opposition to Space

From: Eric Chomko (echomko_at__at_polaris.umuc.edu)
Date: 07/30/04 

Date: Fri, 30 Jul 2004 14:53:21 +0000 (UTC)

Jon Berndt (jsb@at.hal-pc-dot.org) wrote:
: "Henry Spencer" <henry@spsystems.net> wrote in message

: > Uh, suppose what he wants is to say less? If what he wants is less
: > dramatic and less ambitious, then any comparison is likely to favor Bush.
: > If Kerry *doesn't* want to try to outpromise Bush on this issue, the smart
: > thing for him to do is to avoid discussing it. This isn't necessarily a
: > bad sign -- most of Bush's promises are for things which won't happen on
: > his watch even if he *is* reelected, so they mean little.

: The last statement above is bogus. Most things promised for space are
: long-term projects, but that doesn't make them invalid. Kennedy challenged
: us to get to the moon before the decade was out - obviously past his
: presumed term.

To paraphrase Llyod Bensten during the debate with Dan Quail, where Quail
had eluded to being like Kennedy; W is no JFK!

When W gave his space initiative speech it was at the one-year memorial
of the Columbia disaster (at NASA HQ), not within months of his
inauguration in a joint session of Congress as Kennedy had done.

: Like the seemingly-impossible-at-the-time lunar goal that Kennedy boldly
: set, Kerry needs to elaborate at least the intent to set high and
: challenging goals that foster growth and discovery, and to support a
: focused, long-term vision for NASA if he wants to win support of that group.

Which group? The Florida-KSC, Alabama-MSFC, Texas-JSC types, or the
Maryland-GSFC, Ohio-GSC, California-JPL types?

: I suspect he doesn't care much (or has no insight) for that, and fear he
: will bring the "goal" down within easy reach simply because the Vision for
: Space Exploration has been tagged as the "Bush space policy".

Bush's whole focus is on manned spaceflight. Kerry would be wise to
include all of NASA and that includes the unmanned sector as well as the
manned sector. They speak of one NASA but when the glaring
political differences between the manned vs. unmanned is as obvious as it
is today, the one-NASA goal simply falls short.

Eric

: Jon

Relevant Pages

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