Tag Archive for 'Arecibo'

Space Politics: Obama, Clinton, Feeny, Soyuz and Congress

Some interesting on-going discussions over at SpacePolitics.com….

Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama has picked up the endorsement of a major aerospace union, International Federation of Professional and Technical Engineers (IFPTE).

With a crucial Puerto Rico primary looming on June 1, Hillary Clinton is trying to save the Arecibo Observatory so it can continue to be used for radio astronomy and blown up in James Bond movies. (Probably more the former than the latter; what are the chances that a future Bond villain will launch another death star into orbit? Actually….pretty damn good, come to think of it.)

Down on Florida’s Space Coast, Republican Representative Tom Feeny and his Democratic challenger, Suzanne Kosmas, are fighting over who can best represent the region in Congress. What will the denizens of KSC decide?

Meanwhile, current members of Congress are fretting over the decision to retire the space shuttle in 2010 now that the Russian Soyuz has suffered its second Tower of Terror landing in a row. They don’t seem convinced by the Russian space chief Anatoly Perminov’s belief that we should simply limit the number of women aboard the space station. That’s definitely a sign of progress in at least one country….