It Is All Just A Big Ploy For More Intitlement Program Money

4/16/2010on floridatoday.com

President Obama visited NASA-KSC on 4/15/2010. Here are a few highlights from his trip:

- He arrived at the Shuttle Landing Facility (SLF) at approximately 1:30 PM.
- He was driven around KSC & CCAFS to see sites including Space X

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The President at Space X

- His motorcade proceeded not far from the building where I work. There is no picture for this historic moment in my life because every building on the military instillation near his motorcade was put into complete lockdown.

- The President then gave a 45 minute speech on his plans for NASA at the Operations and Control building. 1,000 employees were given paid leave to keep them out of the building the entire day. The O&C building was in lockdown from 7 AM to 7 PM including the surrounding parking lots.

- The speech was given to persons who rec’d a White House invitation.

- The President then flew out from the SLF around 3:45 PM.

The President came to “talk to us” about the future of NASA, but NONE of “us” were at his speech. Nor were we able to even wave to him as he drove around. Even his supporters that I work with were livid that they could not even walk out of the building to view his motorcade at a distance. One even stormed off from the single window facing the road he traveled & stated that America is not free.

I can understand the desire for safety for our President, but this was serious over-kill. The President was on a secure facility; surrounded by unarmed nerds w/federally investigated backgrounds. Many of the employees at NASA-KSC have been around since the beginning of the shuttle program. I can honestly say that I do not believe we would have been confined to our buildings or that entire buildings would have been shut down for an entire day if Bush had ever visited … or any other past President for that matter. We, as the media labeled us, truly were hostile territory for this President.

The President’s speech did not tell us anything more than what we could have read in Florida Today. We will still lose 8,000 jobs at just KSC alone. He will “save” 2,000 jobs … not really. Tho, his logic is very similar to the health care bill. We will spend (i.e. lose) 8,000 ($1 trillion dollars) jobs in order to save 2,000 jobs ($100 billion) in the future. He is still cancelling Constellation. He is still relegating us to the back of the bus in the space industry. We still do not have a private industry that can send humans into space. We will give foreign countries millions to employ their citizens in order to send our astronauts into space.

He has proclaimed that he is giving us a “new” direction much like JFK did when he proclaimed that America would go to the moon. Only, his new direction does not have us going to the moon or Mars or even the ISS! He wants us to find where the Easter bunny lives (i.e. Climate Change). This is not a direction for NASA. This is the destruction of America ’s lead in space.

This President spent hundreds of thousands of dollars to come & tell us everything we already knew.
He could have simply remained in D.C. & given the same worthless speech to save everyone time & money. Operations at KSC were shut down; some for the entire day.

For what? Well, we did learn something. When this President is around the “intelligent workforce that America ’s space industry cannot afford to lose,” we will be locked down & prevented from seeing him.