Colorado Politicians Had Two-Week Lobbying Blitz To Help Save Orion Project

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President Barack Obama's speech Thursday laying out a new vision for spaceflight was also a major victory for Colorado politicians, the end of two weeks of nearly non-stop lobbying to save the Orion capsule and 4,000 state jobs.

In phone calls and back-channel conversations with White House officials, the state's leaders made a clear case: The loss of so many high-paying jobs in a swing state would be directly attributable to the Democratic president.

But with the clock ticking, it was also a matter of the old axiom that politics is personal. In other words, it was a question of who could get to the right people in time.

"It was calling people up and saying, 'Look, I know this guy at the White House or I'm going to call this person. Who can you call?' " said an aide to Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper, detailing the efforts that began early last week, after the announcement that Obama would speak in Florida. The aide and other sources spoke on condition of anonymity.

"It was basically coordinating who's got the best contacts and how best to push on this."

U.S. Sen. Michael Bennet, D-Colo., called Rahm Emanuel, White House chief of staff and the man with the president's ear.

Hickenlooper called Jim Messina, Emanuel's deputy, who handles day-to-day political operations for the White House.

Earlier criticism

The elimination of the Orion capsule -- and the larger Constellation program of which it was a part -- had been announced with the administration's budget in February, and Colorado officials had been criticized for failing to act aggressively enough since then.

After nearly two months, notice of Obama's speech suddenly created a short timeline. Once Obama had publicly laid out the new direction for spaceflight, reviving Orion would be almost impossible.

"The timing was the president's speech. It suggested this is our one shot to make the very best case," said an aide to Sen. Mark Udall, D-Colo., who spoke over the past several days with both NASA head Charles Bolden and John Holdren, the White House's top science adviser, among others.

Udall and others made the case that Orion should be treated differently from the rest of the Constellation project, which also includes the rockets that would lift the capsule into space.

A blue-ribbon panel known as the Augustine Commission had said as much, noting that a version of the capsule program should be maintained.

"The arguments for Orion were easy," said U.S. Rep. Ed Perlmutter, D-Colo. "You could restructure the mission, but there was still a role for the capsule to play."

By late last week, Perlmutter was talking to White House aides on an almost daily basis.

"By then, it was a full court press," he said. "It was a very coordinated effort, and it worked."

Advantages to Orion

Although other states, including Utah, are likely to be hit hard by the cancelation of Constellation, Colorado had several advantages others didn't.

There was a viable Plan B for Orion, which will now be scaled back and made into a rescue vehicle for the international space station. And the state is delicate political terrain for Democrats, with several critical races this year that will be close, including those involving Bennet and Hickenlooper, who is running for governor.

"There are a lot of reasons for the White House to be on the side of Colorado at this point," said one top Colorado Democrat.

By the time Udall and Bennet met with Bolden on Tuesday morning, there were glimmers of hope, said aides familiar with the meeting.

By that evening, the White House made it official, sending e-mails to key members of the delegation to tell them -- with only the barest of details -- that Orion would stay, a $4 billion program saved from the scrap heap by a hairbreadth.

White House aides recast the president's speech, and Obama announced Thursday that the Orion capsule "will be part of the technological foundation for advanced spacecraft to be used in future deep space missions."

"In fact," said Obama, standing in a hangar at the Kennedy Space Center, "Orion will be readied for flight right here in this room."

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