Snap Fact #350 - President Obama Goes where no President dared to go before. Americas Space Program Comes Rocketing Back Under His Leadership!

He reduced the U.S. human spaceflight gap by extending the Space Shuttle Program with two added missions, delaying its retirement until 2011. He completed the construction and extended the life of the ISS through at least 2020. And he sought to harness U.S. entrepreneurship and competitive spirit to develop safe, affordable, and made-in-America vehicles, while creating thousands of jobs as the commercial space industry develops. Four successful SpaceX launches from Florida's coast over the past three years -- two to the ISS -- have demonstrated the promise of robust aerospace activity.

The International Space Station (ISS), continuously inhabited since 2000, is the centerpiece of our human spaceflight program. Its continued operation depends on U.S. cargo launches from the Space Coast. Florida's universities, small businesses, government labs, and industry are engaged in cutting-edge research on the ISS designed to make future spaceflight more efficient, while providing lasting and significant benefits to life on Earth.

In August of 2012, NASA selected three U.S. companies with Space Coast facilities as the winners of a $1.1 billion competition. Sierra Nevada Corporation (SNC) of Louisville, Colo., Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX) of Hawthorne, Calif., and The Boeing Company of Houston will complete their spacecraft and launch vehicle designs, test their hardware, and then showcase how they would operate and manage missions from launch through orbit and landing. These companies represent U.S. innovation at its best, and bring to the table diverse design concepts and business models, innovative techniques, and unique technical strength that NASA could call on to carry astronauts into orbit in the future.

The proposals submitted by these three companies include processing and launching from the Kennedy Space Center or the center's adjacent Cape Canaveral Air Force Station (CCAFS), and would lead to new jobs along Florida's Space Coast.

*(SpaceX is a private company owned by management and employees, with minority investments from Founders Fund, Draper Fisher Jurvetson, and Valor Equity Partners. The company has more than 1,800 employees at its headquarters in Hawthorne, California; launch facilities at the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida and Vandenberg Air Force Base in California; a rocket development facility in McGregor, Texas; and offices in Houston, Texas, Chantilly, Virginia and Washington, DC.)

For more info check out The Rational Majority Snap Fact #213 - President Obama takes a page from the Moody Blues in His Stunning Space Program Victory!

http://www.therationalmajority.org/system/app/pages/search?scope=search-site&q=spacex

Sometimes facts become so obvious that they slap the liars in the face with their hard firm truth. The lie here is that the opposition has painted President Obama as everything from a communist from a socialist, to a fascist. Specifically he is accused of “taking over businesses” by the government. This lie has been proven for what it is by the auto industry save for one example. Today’s SNAP-CAP will present another example that proves how the President’s creative leadership has put government initiatives into the hands of capable private hands that can do th job more efficiently and more comically. The successful SpaceX* launch on October 7, 2012 marks another extraordinary new milestone in space. It also provides an opportunity to assess the significant advances we've seen in just four years on Florida's Space Coast.

When President Obama came into office, he inherited a human spaceflight program in crisis. The previous Administration's decision to retire the Space Shuttle by 2010 was exacerbated by the lack of a viable follow-on program. In 2009, an independent commission concluded that the program to replace the Shuttle suffered such significant underinvestment and was so behind schedule that the first crewed flight to the International Space Station (ISS) would not occur until more than a year after the ISS was planned to be deorbited into the ocean.

In his typical manner, the President took swift creative action to put our space program on track. He first cut programs to put NASA on a sustainable. At the same time he supported the growth of the private aerospace sector. As a direct result of his policies, we now have a comprehensive, achievable, and historic vision to push the frontiers of what we can do in space.

The President's plan extended the life of the International Space Station, fostered international cooperation in space, supported the growth of America's commercial space industry, and invested in taking on our pressing scientific challenges while continuing the nation's commitment to robust human space exploration, science, and aeronautics programs.

Under the President's leadership, we've seen more NASA-related launches over the past four years from Florida's shores than we would have under the traditional government run system that he inherited.