Kay Bailey Hutchison will not be running for reelection. Why?

Instead of putting my seat into a special election, I felt it was my duty to use my experience to fight the massive spending that has increased our national debt; the government takeover of our health care system; and the growth of the federal bureaucracy, which threatens our economy.

Hey, if she’s worried about spending, I know a line item at NASA that could be profitably cut. It starts and ends with an “S.”

NASA has told Congress that the Nelson rocket can’t be done within the schedule or budget. The GAO will back them up. This rocket is dead on arrival.

[Update a while later]

What’s happening here is that NASA is telling the truth because they think it will ultimately kill this legislated monstrosity, which they don’t want to build (at least at HQ). In the Shuttle days, they went along with an underfunded program because they feared that otherwise they’d have nothing (in terms of staying in the human spaceflight business). Today, they realize the the way forward is fixed-price contracts for services, not government rockets.

Maybe. I’d like to call in on the phone bridge to today’s press conference with Gerstenmaier and Shannon, but I don’t have a center press credential. I’m hoping that someone, perhaps Oberg, will ask what should be the obvious question today — what are the program consequences of shutting the system down now? It seems to me that the only reason that they wanted three more flights is to preserve the jobs as long as possible, and the only real lost capability will be AMS, which they could perhaps put up on something else (e.g., Falcon 9, if a Dragon were in place to tug it to ISS). Of course, as I noted over at Space Politics, Nelson et al don’t really care whether the Shuttle actually flies or not, as long as they keep spending the money. But it’s gong to look like a ripe place to cut.

Alan Boyle discusses the impact on the space program, and policy going forward. I don’t think if will have much effect on policy given that she is now in the minority, but I hadn’t considered the implications for whether or not Kelly will fly this spring. But in retrospect, it’s obviously a major issue.

People are making a big deal of the fact that the new New Mexico governor Susana Martinez has canned Rick Homans, taking it as a sign that she is opposed to the spaceport. Over at Space Politics, some are blaming it on the Tea Party.

My theory? It’s exactly what she says:

“The citizens of Doña Ana County and Sierra County have spoken. They’re the ones who voted on whether or not they wanted to have their tax dollars spent on spaceport,” Martinez said during an interview Thursday before her send-off gala. “We’re going to respect that.”

But Martinez said she wants to “make sure that the spending is in the best way.”

“We can’t just agree to give tax dollars and then not be accountable to the taxpayers,” she said.

Doña Ana County and Sierra County voters in 2007 and 2008, respectively, approved sales taxes to back spaceport construction. However, about three-quarters of financing originated from the Legislature.

Martinez said her transition team had requested information, such as a contract between Spaceport America and anchor tenant Virgin Galactic, from the Richardson administration and, as of Thursday, hadn’t received it. She said she wants to audit that contract and spending on the $200 million construction project.

In addition to scrutinizing spaceport agreements, Martinez said she’s also interested in “how we bring private industry to be part of the spaceport, so that eventually state tax dollars aren’t necessary.”

I actually think that she’s understating things here, and being politic. While I’m unaware of any particular issue with Homans himself, Governor Martinez is surely aware of just how corrupt the Democrat machine in Santa Fe is in general (some have characterized the state as “Louisiana with jalapenos”) and she’s simply assuming the worst, and wants to root out any problems if they exist as soon as possible, and start with a clean slate. I might do the same in her position.