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
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.
This narcissistic, communistic
President has betrayed America over & over again. His reign of
destruction will prove difficult to fix when he is voted out in 2012.
Are you, America , up for the challenge?
