Another successful Space Shuttle launch for NASA during the early morning hours here on Florida’s Cape. Congratulations to the men and women on the launch team — my neighbors and friends — who meticulously assembled, tested, and launched all the parts that broke through gravity’s pull to orbit in the inky darkness of space.
We still marvel at the technical ability that vaults men and women into low earth orbit, weightlessly conducting experiments that benefit all of us earthbound humans. But the Marxist Usurper in the White House has decided instead that he wants the space program money for his ACORN and SEIU cronies to spread around come election time, so he’s decided to axe NASA’s manned flight programs. Including a return to the moon. The only thing standing between that eventuality or continued USA space exploration is Congress.
We’re watching, keeping a close eye on who votes against NASA’s budget. And we will take note on Nov. 2nd.
Some 7,000 Space Coast and Central Florida residents will lose their jobs, untold thousands more around the country. The residual economic ripple effect will be exponential, especially in communities like mine that rely on a vibrant space program that explores man’s last frontier.
But the Jug Eared Pinocchio who after all, was a “Constitutional professor” (!!!) and boy genius, expects you to revel in his decision to waste $8 billion of your tax money on a high speed rail system that very few want. But it’s sure to keep his union thug buddies employed and profiteering while building it. And that’s what counts in Obowma’s world.
You know, counting down is something we’re pretty familiar with here on the Space Coast. In fact, our area code is 3-2-1. So I’ve started my own countdown clock to the day in November when we re-tool congress into a conservative machine that will bring Obama and his Socialist radicals crashing back to earth. Or reduce them to orbiting in ever tightening circles until they fizzle out in a nearly inaudible pop in 2012.
On my mark… We are at T-Minus 269 days and counting.
Bill Lawson covered the space program as a broadcaster during the early space race days here at Cape Canaveral. He recently wrote to the White House occupant hell bent on destroying our commerce, our industry, our pre-eminence in the space arena and our national pride.
Dear Mr. President:
I vividly remember the first time I arrived on the east coast of Florida back in 1953. Uncle Sam graciously sent me on a vacation of sorts to an elongated barrier island on the ocean side of Brevard County. Cocoa was the nearest town on the mainland and the island was virtually inaccessible but for one rickety wooden bridge to an obscure little village called Cocoa Beach where the main street was State Road A1A north and south.
Patrick Air Force Base was about 2 miles south, give or take a few hundred yards, and that was my destination. There was no such thing as air conditioning….and the insect life thrived on the island. So did the reptile population. And the human population managed to do the same by watching where it stepped, using as much mosquito spray as possible and installing screening to keep out all the tiny “pests”… except for the “noseeums”. There was no stopping them. And It would have been a nightmare for anyone with arachnophobia.
Then along came a president with vision. I don’t need to remind anyone who that was. Because of him America became the greatest “space faring” country in the world. And with that came new prosperity. Thousands of new companies to support the space program…thousands of small businesses to support those new companies. And all of that meant hundreds of thousands of new employees, in the private sector. And, in one way or another, each was responsible for sending American Astronauts to the moon and a pride factor seldom seen throughout history.
What about this little barrier island? It grew in population and worldwide recognition. New businesses, big and small, sprang up. Large companies moved to the area. The infrastructure to support all of this was slowly developed as the population grew.
It was an undertaking seldom experienced by any place else in the world. And local leaders accomplished it. So well that most of us who live here love here.
It is a classic example of what Americans, with enough incentive and enough freedom, can accomplish. And what started here became thriving industries throughout this marvelous country built on the belief that Americans, given incentive, but not controlled by the government, can accomplish that which was once considered impossible.
But what now? What would President John F. Kennedy or any of those who succeeded him, say to what is happening now in Washington? How many would throw away a legacy…a dream…that helped make us a nation that leads rather than follows? How many would applaud the loss of thousands, perhaps hundreds of thousand of jobs despite the hollow claims of reducing unemployment?
I am no great political pundit. I certainly do not have the educational background nor political acumen necessary to be President of the United States. But I do have one requirement that seems non-existent today. Years of experience in being a citizen who has always believed in America and its constitution….who spent many of those years covering our space program and numerous other stories as a broadcast journalist. I remember my feelings of awe and inspiration watching our astronauts fly to the moon and return. I recall the feelings of pride as a pool correspondent on the recoveries of Apollo 14 and two skylab missions in the South Pacific.
I have but one question. Why destroy a program that has brought, and could continue to bring, so much pride, so many jobs and so much more to a country that has become a vision of hope…the shining city on the hill….to so many people around the world? There is none of that in what you propose.
Look around you. How much of what your “advisors” are advising is truly based on a love of this country and for what its founding fathers, and many others, fought and died. You have the opportunity to regenerate the American Dream of Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. Not guaranteed happiness…but the freedom to seek it through individual initiative, courage and ability.”
T- Minus 269… and counting.
