The problem with politics...
... is that you never find a candidate that you can agree with 100%. What I really hate is when I find a candidate that I really like, but find ONE position that is a deal breaker. Which is why I just sent the following letter to the Barack Obama campaign:
I've been a life-long Democrat, and I've been very excited about Barack Obama as a presidential candidate. However, while I like to think of myself as not being a "one issue voter", his stance on one issue makes it currently impossible for me to support him.
NASA.
I've worked at Johnson Space Center for 19 years. I am an avid supporter of our nation's space program. Barack's proposition to delay the Constellation program by five years to pay for new education programs will effectively kill the Constellation program. Without a Shuttle replacement vehicle, we effectively lose the International Space Station as well and, to all intents and purposes, kill manned space flight in the United States.
NASA to me is a fundamental resource of our country. The educational benefits, the technological benefits, the scientific benefits are all huge, far more than the cost of the space program. By one estimate done in the 1990's the pure economic benefits of the public domain patents generated by NASA alone is on the order of 100 TIMES the total NASA budget. NASA actively helps and supports education in this country, especially in the sciences and engineering. This is both done both directly through outreach (my company helped develop a web-based tool to allow blind students to study mathematical equations and graphs as part of a NASA outreach program), and indirectly through inspiration to thousands of children and by aiding companies that need those engineers and scientists.
NASA is often a target for budget cuts because it is the largest federal program outside the big spenders of the military, Medicare/Medicaid, and Social Security. But it is really a very small part of the federal budget, around one half of one percent. To destroy an agency that gives back so much more to the country is to me incredibly short sighted.
I've been a life-long Democrat, and I've been very excited about Barack Obama as a presidential candidate. However, while I like to think of myself as not being a "one issue voter", his stance on one issue makes it currently impossible for me to support him.
NASA.
I've worked at Johnson Space Center for 19 years. I am an avid supporter of our nation's space program. Barack's proposition to delay the Constellation program by five years to pay for new education programs will effectively kill the Constellation program. Without a Shuttle replacement vehicle, we effectively lose the International Space Station as well and, to all intents and purposes, kill manned space flight in the United States.
NASA to me is a fundamental resource of our country. The educational benefits, the technological benefits, the scientific benefits are all huge, far more than the cost of the space program. By one estimate done in the 1990's the pure economic benefits of the public domain patents generated by NASA alone is on the order of 100 TIMES the total NASA budget. NASA actively helps and supports education in this country, especially in the sciences and engineering. This is both done both directly through outreach (my company helped develop a web-based tool to allow blind students to study mathematical equations and graphs as part of a NASA outreach program), and indirectly through inspiration to thousands of children and by aiding companies that need those engineers and scientists.
NASA is often a target for budget cuts because it is the largest federal program outside the big spenders of the military, Medicare/Medicaid, and Social Security. But it is really a very small part of the federal budget, around one half of one percent. To destroy an agency that gives back so much more to the country is to me incredibly short sighted.