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Florida Group Wants To Make Space a 2016 Presidential Campaign Issue (examiner.com)
MarkWhittington writes: According to a story on News 13, an Orlando TV station, Space Florida is working to make space a political issue in the 2016 presidential election. Thus far the campaign for the presidency has been dominated by more mundane issues such as the economy, illegal immigration, and the threat of terrorism. Space Florida, which is "the State of Florida's aerospace economic development agency," is said to be "working with three other battleground states to make sure America's space program is a part of the campaign for president." Presumably one of those states is Texas, which has lots of electoral votes
They won't have to work hard, considering "space" has been an issue for every election as long as I've been able to pay attention to elections.
Like four years ago......as soon as it was time for the Florida primaries, every candidate started talking about their space plan. After the Florida primary was over? Never mentioned again.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
As it should be. Space travel and exploration are the future of the human species. Politicians not giving it priority are either in denial or ignorant of this fact, in which case they are foolish, or simply don't care, in which case they are psychotic. Humanity's long term plan should always be a focus.
I dont understand the authors snarky tone when writing this. Space travel and exploration is important on so many levels, one of which is the economy! It baffles methat someone would try to negatively spin space exploration as a important issue on slashdot, especially with their already tiny an evershrinking budget.
I fart in your general direction!
With love,
The Americans
But the GOP is in control of the purse strings and they want to de-fund even essential services. No way will they invest in the future without another space race. Our current enemies are terrorists who can't come close to racing against us.
No competition = no race = no funding for space.
The only way I could it happening is if we had first contact of some kind. So I put the odds at about a 100 million to one, against.
I'm more likely to win every single lottery and put all the funds toward a trips to mars.
excitingthingstodo.blogspot.com
Terrorism is a mundane issue? You mean to say that space science is more important to government's function than the safety of its citizens?
Do you not understand the purpose of government as outlined in the preamble of our Constitution? "Establish Justice, Insure Domestic Tranquility, Provide for the Common Defense." That's what government is for, not some science project.
"We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America."
this post is a cartoon.
Looking at the issues mentioned in the summary:
- economy: the government does not have direct control over the economy. At best, they can hope to attempt to influence economic development. Yet they cannot make promises.
- illegal immigration: the government does not have direct control over illegal immigration. At best, they can hope to attempt to deter illegal immigration through expensive or draconian policies. Again, they cannot make promises.
- terrorism: the government does not have direct control over terrorism. At best, they can make the life of terrorists harder but they cannot hope to stop terrorist activity and detecting it is extraordinarily difficult. Once again, they cannot make promises.
- space: the government does have direct control over federal agencies (e.g. NASA) and its contractors. While they cannot violate the laws of physics, they can certainly have fairly reliable results if they consult with scientists, engineers, and administrators to ascertain what is realistic. In other words, they can make promises.
Incidentally, none of this is specific to space exploration. Figuring out what you have some degree of control over should be one of the things that anyone considers when evaluating campaign promises.
NASA is desperate for the Pu-238 needed to create radio-thermal generator units. To make this material requires a nuclear reactor. Most any nuclear reactor will do but some are more suited to this task than others. Liquid fluoride thorium reactors are a prime candidate for this, they can make the Pu-238 in normal operation while also producing power and other valuable radioactive isotopes.
The heat from a LFTR reactor is high enough that it makes cracking water into hydrogen for rocket fuel a very efficient process. After the water is cracked the heat left over can be used to make electricity, another valuable resource.
We are not going to send people to space with an economy based on "green" energy like wind and solar. Fossil fuels won't get us there either. If space exploration is going to be more than just communication satellites and the occasional trip to low earth orbit on the ISS then we need nuclear power. We'll need nuclear power on earth to make the energy needed to get things into space. We'll also need to develop nuclear power systems suited to operation in space.
Solar panels are great for many situations in space but if we go to Mars then we'll need nuclear power. There's no atmosphere to speak of on Mars so there won't be windmills. Even if one was able to drill for oil on Mars there is no air to burn it. To make that happen we'll need people trained in designing, building, and operating nuclear power plants. To get these people we'll need an infrastructure built to train those people. If we want college graduates trained in nuclear power for a mission to Mars in 2030 then we need to start building the programs to train them now.
The government has to do very little to make this happen. All they need to do is get off their thumbs and allow people to invest their own money in building nuclear reactors. I don't want to hear how these politicians will encourage nuclear power since government seems to have a reverse Midas touch, everything they touch turns to shit. I want to hear how the government will step aside and allow the market to provide the means to develop nuclear power and all the other technologies we need to get into space.
The great thing about space exploration is that it drives so many technologies with uses here on earth. This is true with so many other scientific endeavors. A new space race might be just what we need to allow this federation to reduce poverty, increase employment, raise wages, and so much more.
I am armed because I am free. I am free because I am armed.
Florida wants to remake "Meat in Space."
Both programs have roughly equivalent scientific value. Unmanned stuff, on the other hand makes a lot of sense.
want more corporate welfare.
In early 2008 Barack Obama campaigned publicly for the support of educators by pointing to his plan for education which on page 15 explicitly said:
"The early education plan will be paid for by delaying the NASA Constellation Program for five years"
Everybody with a brain knew that would end Constellation and all the people transitioning from Shuttle to Constellation would lose their jobs (given that none of the vendors would be able to keep employing those people for 5 years with no cash flowing in from the customer (NASA).
Democrats in the "swing state" of Florida were panicky over this, and aware that space advocates might know about it since the long-standing Obama plan had been reported in space advocate circles as early as fall of 2007, so they setup a big space event for Obama in Florida to fool the space workers. In August 2008, assisted by his go-to guys for fooling space advocates (Senators Glenn and Nelson) Obama went to Titusville and said this:
"Today we have an administration[Bush43] that sets ambitious goals for NASA without giving NASA the support it needs to reach them. As a result, NASA's had to cut back on research, trim their program, which means that after the space shuttle shuts down in 2010, we're going to have to rely on Russian space craft to keep us into orbit. So let me be clear: we cannot cede our leadership in space. That's why I'm going to close the gap, ensure that our space program doesn't suffer when the shuttle goes out of service. We may extend an additional shuttle launch. We're going to work with [Senator]Bill Nelson[D-FL] to add at least one flight after 2010 by continuing to support NASA funding, by speeding the development of the shuttle's successor, by making sure that all those who work in the space industry in Florida do not lose their jobs when the shuttle is retired because we cant afford to lose their expertise." - Barack Obama
President Obama won Florida in 2008 by only a 2.8% margin. Space workers are obviously not enough to make up that entire margin, but they were PART of that margin, which is what "community organizing" aided by "micro targeting" is all about - rounding up lots of special interest groups and pushing the right emotional/political "buttons" to get each group to turn-out and vote even if some groups are turning out having been told this will support interest X and others are turning out having been told it will oppose interest X. Some Obama supporters now try to pretend that Obama meant something other than Constellation as the successor to Shuttle, but at this time in history, none other was proposed by any candidate or policy so Space Workers were clearly supposed to assume Constellation, particularly given the line about preserving ALL their jobs.
By 2012 when Newt Gingrich was talking about a moon colony, even 60 minutes, hardly a right-wing news outlet, had to admit to the dishonesty of the 2008 campaign visit to Florida.
It's a sad truth that many of the space advocacy groups are far more into partisan politics and helping politicians fool their members that they are into actual space policy; Space policy pays nothing, but you can make a good living consulting for and organizing groups of supporters for, national political campaigns. AFAIK none of the people who setup that 2008 event in Florida have ever apologized to any of the thousands of Space Coast workers who were fooled into voting for Obama and then lost their jobs (and in many cases l
The Republicans put Ted Cruz as their guy for the head of the Senate subcommittee on Space and Science. Ted Cruz says a lot of stuff, but very little of it is about NASA. He has yet to answer the lack of budget, to design payloads for the SLS. In 2012, Newt Gingrich pushed for a moon base, he fizzled out. Unless Bill Nelson, the only person in the Senate, whom arguably knows a decent amount of rocket science, becomes president, it aint going to happen.
there is so much empty space between the ears of the candidates. As americans are wont to say "God bless America".
Unless humanity leaves the prison planet we will all die. Everyone, including whiney liberals who spend all their time worrying about antropogenic climate change.
Logically the two priorities of any candidate should be:
1:) Getting off the planet, thereby protecting humanity from imminent disaster
2:) Protect the citizens of the United States by defending the borders against the horde of foreign invaders coming from South America.
This will never happen because the candidates are all compromised and receiving monies from amongst other things foreign nations. The media who controls and shapes opinion and reality for USAians (yes even liberal /. readers) will always concoct a story that space is for faggoty nerds, and an uncontested illegal invasion shows how compassionate just you are.
If they American Indians had been so magnanimous and allowed all the European conquistadors in, they would not have been rounded up and put on the reservation. Similarly with space. We need to colonize the galaxy. If we do not surely some less beneficent race of tentacly monsters will colonize us.
Which is tantamount to saying that it's important that the government just spends money, regardless of the end purpose, no?
How about we make the Antibiotic Future the issue, as that right now has the highest success rate of ending it all, in under 10 years?
The area around Cape Canaveral, in Florida, was destroyed by the loss of the space program. The economy in that area went into abysmally, bad, condition. The Cape had attracted large numbers of engineers, scientists and others as well as also causing some tourism on launch days. The area is still suffering and the restoration of the space program would restore hope to that area.
It's pointless to try to get the politicians to care until after you've got the voters to care.
"Care" of course means more than agreeing in principle that having a space exploration plan would be a good thing; it means when progress doesn't happen you get upset. Most people think some kind of space exploration plan would be a good thing, but very few care when it doesn't happen.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
Ah, I detect a combination of envy and an inferiority complex.
Florida: let's be real.
You have nothing but tourism and a space port. The Tourism part is doing well, but because of the social welfare, arse backwards lazy political strategy of the state (no taxes, lax regs), you're out of money... money that was once supplied by the space port monopoly.
Get real: monopolies die, just tell people you need the money--not how important space flight is... The industry already would rather launch in Texas, NM, or CA.
they wouldn't need more space.
The first one can be a part of the CIA budget - NASA doesn't have to be the one involved. The second should belong to the Verizons and AT&Ts, and they could work partnership deals w/ SpaceX to launch their satellites. Get that out of government and politicians need no longer agonize over whether to spend money on space vs food stamps
I couldn't agree more.
With the exception of JFK's Presidency, Presidential candidates have long focused on simple status quo management related issues.
As a leader. You would think the President would actually forge new directions for the country.
I'd personally resolved to vote for myself in the next election just to make a statement.
But if there was ANY candidate - Republican Democratic, or otherwise who had a firm plan for the expansion, colonization, and exploration of space and made this their central platform. And actually let the managers be managers and instead focusing their sights as a leader on forward looking goals....
I'd vote for that candidate in a heartbeat.
If several did.
I'd vote for the best plan - and add weight to whoever would be most likely caught streaking in the White House during visitors hours.