Reader Armin Ellis attended a debate this week among Democratic Party candidates for President and was kind enough to send in a writeup on the responses he got when he asked some of them about space following the main event. This is a non-political blog but I think it is quite interesting to read their responses even though they are brief.

If you are attending debates or other types of events with candidates for President or Congress (or for whatever office people run for in your country), you might try to get in a question about space. It's not so much that their answers off the cuff will be illuminating as it is that they may get the impression that this is an topic about which a non-zero percentage of the voters care about. To me it's not about getting more funding for NASA but about urging leaders to think about how the money is spent and what long term goals are to be achieved.
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Presidential Question: "What is your vision for America's space program?"

Having a firm vision for America's space program can be a litmus test for a presidential candidate to indicate depth of knowledge about a non-mainstream issue, understanding the role of research and development, new arenas of economic growth, the ability to have and execute a vision and much more. As such I felt that it would be interesting to see how various candidates would react to a simple question: "What is your vision for America's space program?"

Last night I attended the Democratic Party's presidential candidate debate at Dartmouth College. Since my question was not read on air, I decided to take the question to the candidates themselves after the televised debate. Sadly Edwards, Clinton, Obama and Gravel were immediately escorted out of the room and were at that point beyond reach. Nonetheless the remaining answered my question in 15 seconds or less. The following is a mildly paraphrased version of the conversations.

Bill Richardson:
BR - "It's important. We need it for the health of the nation and I want more Apollo style projects and not just for space. I think we should also encourage private companies. We have a great program like that in New Mexico."

Chris Dodd
CD - "I think we're doing okay - thanks a lot for the question"

Joe Biden
JB - "I like the robotic programs"
AE - "How about the manned missions, with clear leadership we could"
JB - "With clear leadership we can do anything, good luck"

Dennis Kucinich
DK - "I think we should double spending across the board on civilian projects and privatize where we can"
AE - "How about the manned programs?"
DK - "I would double that too, I think we can do much better than we are. By the way Glen Research Center is in my district. Did you know that?"

The above is to the best of my recollection, since audio recorders weren't allowed.

With New Hampshire's importance in the primaries, I hope to have the opportunity to pose this question to more presidential hopefuls passing through. It would be interesting to also get some of the Republican views on this topic.

Armin Ellis