NSS/Western Spaceport Chapter

"The United States was not built by those who waited and rested and wished to look behind them. This country was conquered by those who moved forward, and so will space..."

-- John F. Kennedy

Address to Rice University, September 12, 1962

Political SpaceWatch

It can be argued we really haven't seen a lot of visionary space leadership in the political arena since President Kennedy committed this nation to landing a man on the Moon by the end of the decade during his State of the Union Address to Congress in May of 1961 (and even then, JFK's decision was politically motivated during the Cold War era, according to recently released White House audio recordings).

Since achieving that goal with Apollo 11 in July of 1969, many future plans, objectives and clearcut directions for NASA and private space ventures have become. . .well, "Lost in Space."

Our leaders and representatives on Capitol Hill and in the White House have, at best, given space advocates political lip service -- and at worse, turned a deaf ear and blind eye toward future space development. Some have even made concerted moves to draw down, scale back or outright kill promising new technologies or cost-cutting efforts to open the space frontier for everyone while protecting their own agendas and government funded, aerospace contractor "turf" that benefits from porkbarrel politics.

So where do your elected representatives (local, state, federal) stand on aerospace issues here in California? Have you taken an active role in voicing your opinions to them? Have you ever been motivated enough to call their office or write a letter to them asking for support on an aerospace issue? What about actually arranging face to face meetings with them or one of their staff members to discuss passing space-related legislation?

Don't know what to do? Don't even know who your elected officials or key staffers are? Then click on any one of the following sites for some helpful tips and politically savvy pointers on what to do to make your dreams a reality: