All posts by Rand Simberg

Just A Stage Prop

I predicted in comments in this post that Senator Kerry would have nothing to say about space policy during his visit to Kennedy Space Center today.

I was right.

Well, at least it’s consistent with the party platform. There is zero evidence that he has any interest in space, and the president’s vision, such as it is, is almost certainly dead if he’s not reelected. At best, it appears that a Kerry space policy would be a return to the Clinton policy, based on the few things that he has said about it. As I said at the time, Democrats who are space enthusiasts are going to face a very tough choice in the voting booth this fall.

[Tuesday morning update]

Keith Cowing and Frank Sietzen have a relevant passage from their new book, on Kerry’s views on space.

What A Shock

There’s no mention of space policy in the Democrat Party platform. It mentions Apollo, but only as an example of how the nation can accomplish great (non-space-related) things when it sets its mind to it. As I noted in a comment there, it’s the old “if we can send a man to the moon, why can’t we solve world hunger?” platitudes.

No shock–there’s been no visionary space initiative on the part of any Democrat president since Kennedy (and I’d argue that even Kennedy’s wasn’t that visionary, since the vision was mainly to beat the Russians to the moon).

I would expect to see the president’s new vision in the Republican Party platform. It would be a monumental screwup, and indicative of its true priority, if it’s not.