Senator Barack Obama Space Policy

Presidential candidate SENATOR BARACK OBAMA of ILLINOIS has provided his most detail position yet on Space Policy. He wrote to the Democratic leadership stating that "AMERICA needs to renew its commitment to NASA and to provide sustained, stable direction with an honest budget and sufficient resources for success across all of its critical missions: human spaceflight, science, and aeronautics research."It was also reported that he supports the extension of the authority to buy seats on future SOYUZ spaceflights for the U.S., Canadian, European, and Japanese astronauts after it suppose to end in 2011. Obama also supports funding more shuttle missions to the INTERNATIONAL SPACE STATION and close the gap in time between the end of shuttle and first flight of the ARES/ORION system.(Ref Sept 29, 2008 issue of AVIATION WEEK & SPACE TECHNOLOGY, Washington Outlook by John M. Doyle. )Note: It has been reported on other news sites that Presidential candidate John McCain also has voiced his ojbections to the Manned Space Flight gap that will follow the retirement of the shuttle.