Issue Position: NASA

Issue Position

I'm not sure whether it was the late 1950s or early 1960s, but I remember when NASA built its' first building on Telephone Road, just a few blocks from the house I grew up in. When the Russian Sputnik program was launched in 1957, I cut out all of the newspaper articles and kept a scrap book. So having the US space program moving in down the street was really exciting to me. My first professional pilot job was with Metro Airline in 1970. We were flying NASA and NASA contractors back and forth between the Metro Airlines airport which was located on Hwy 3, between El Dorado and Bay Area Blvd, to the Houston Intercontinental Airport. I Flew for Metro for six years and came into contact on a daily basis with many of the Astronauts and their support teams. I always felt as though I were contributing in some small way to the space program myself.

I believe that space exploration should always be a part of our national focus. However, I believe we must first get the national debt and the war on terror under control, before any escalation in the NASA budget should be considered. Anything else would be irresponsible.

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