Space Politics

When did space become such a partisan issue? It has not been so historically but it is beginning to come one.

A Republican started NASA through the National Aeronautics and Space Act in 1958. Then a Democrat said the now infamous words, "I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to the earth," in 1961. Over the years who is in office has seemed to have little effect on the U.S. Space Program and during the 80s and 90s the space program was largely neglected as compared to the height of the space race in the 50s, 60s and 70s. Our current president has pushed for a Vision for Space Exploration, but the public is largely unaware and the federal funding has been relatively unchanged. On a local level those running for U.S. congress often promote the space program should they have a NASA facility or related contractor in the district... providing jobs. The public seems to have lost interest in space as a whole, and few people vote with space as the most important issue on their mind. Yes there are a handful of Space related 501(c)(3)s that do their fair share of lobbying/informing the federal government on the issues, and a few that reach out to the public a little, but the push is not that strong.

Recently, space is getting political but not for its own good. The first formally political organization looking at space in 50+ years is Space Democrats. A group of less than 100 space minded individuals, many of them NASA employees or contractors who are just itching to get a Hatch Act Violation. In fact news has just come out about one Hatch Act violating NASA employee who was hit for soliciting funds for state and local elections through his blog back in 2006. So the group's mission is states: "Space Democrats is a social activist network dedicated to electing Democrats who support progressive space policies that maximize the positive impact of the US Space Program on the nation and the world." Yet a number of the members are Obama supporters, and even strong democratic bloggers attack Obama's space policy. Meanwhile, when the Obama and Clinton policies are put head to head, its clear that Clinton's is better... yet the Space Democrats have yet to make a single comment on Clinton's plan on their website. This would lead me to believe that only is this group partisan, but that they have already chosen a candidate to back!

I would like to thank Space Politics a website based purely on the facts of what is going on "inside the beltway" as related to space. This is a great resources of space politics related news without the biases. Also thanks to things like The Space Show, who is out there working to educate the public. I won't even get into NASA's failed PR campaigns... but its sad when I have encouraged more people to join the cause "Support Space Exploration" on Facebook than NASA employees paid to promote space exploration!

Space is our future, lets not ruin it by making it overly political... lets use it as a way to bring us together as a nation rather than to pull us apart!