Romney Visits The Space Coast But Makes No Promises

Presidential candidate mitt Romney paid a visit to Florida's Space Coast on Monday, but offered little more than vague support for NASA and the space industry. While he has expressed support for the space industry as well as the Vision for Space Exploration as outlined by President Bush (and made law by Congress), he declined, outright refused, to make any specific commitments to the space program during his visit.

"I do not have a budget for you on the gap," he said. "I'm not making promises, because I shouldn't make promises until I've studied something."

It's fair to note that Romney comes from a busines background, and was successful in his past endeavours. In business, promises shouldn't be made hastily or without knowing all the facts first. Perhaps that explains his slightly disappointing statements.

Romney definitely needs to do his homework. At one point he remarked, regarding the 5 year gay in U.S. human spaceflight beginning in 2010, "I would have guessed that would have been something we would have anticipated."

Well, in fact, the "gap" has been an unpleasant feature of the Vision since the beginning. Since the bulk of funding for Constellation (Ares V and the lunar lander, specifically) has to come from money freed up by retiring the shuttle, Constellation development won't be able to really ramp up until AFTER the shuttle is gone, and then it will take several years before it'll be operational.

The "gap" isn't a surprise to anyone except Romney. It is, however, a pending crisis which Giuliani recognized and spoke of it being "unacceptable." It would have been nice if Romney had, at the very least, voiced similar concern and desire to help.

I credit Mitt's lack of understanding to he and his staff not studying the issue closely (yet). There are a lot of other issues on the minds of Americans. Of course, before someone campaigns in the SPACE COAST, it might be a good idea to study up on the whole space program thing.

Hopefully, the Romney campaign will come up with some sort of science/space position paper before the primary. Other candidates have. Even Clinton and Obama have. As someone who professes to recognize the value of technology and R&D pre-eminence, Romney should realize that the space program is just about the biggest technology and R&D program in the country.

In spite of the tepid remarks during his visit, I actually expect Romney to be a strong supporter of space if he becomes president. I expect it because he understands the importance of national leadership in science, techology and, as I said, research and development. There's no mistaking that he wants to maintain the superiority of the U.S. in those areas, to strengthen the country at home and globally. I think that would translate over into his support for the space program.

I could be wrong, of course. In 2000, who would have thought that then Gov. Bush would end up being the President to set the country on a course back to the Moon and then to Mars. He certainly wasn't credited with having vision in 2000, but somehow (somewhat) it came through in 2004. In politics, there's always room for surprises.

Huckabee may visit Brevard County and KSC this week, but right now it looks like he won't. He'll be in Gainesville on the 22nd, then Ft. Lauderdale and Boca Raton on the 23rd and 24th. I didn't see a stop in Brevard in his schedule. He has, however, expressed support for the space program in the past.