According to this 2007 article at Salon.com the Floridian primary is on 29 January and I am beginning to wonder if the prospect of up to 5,000 job losses in the sunshine state, due to the Space Shuttle programme's retirement, will have an impact on the presidential race
Could we see any or all of the candidates, fighting it out for their party's nomination to be their presidential candidate, answer in the affirmative to questions during the pre-vote caucus that Shuttle's demise should be delayed?
Being a British engineer cum journalist I am straying off my home patch, or comfort zone if you will, when talking about the US presidential elections and entering Jeff Foust's domain but covering the very political US space programme it can't be helped
The Salon.com article says, "Florida potentially becomes Hillary Clinton's firewall state -- the primary in which she could launch a comeback even if she endures a string of early defeats."
At the Project Vote Smart website the dates for the primaries for both Democrats and Republicans, until Florida's on 29 January, are
Michigan 15 January
Nevada 19 January
South Carolina 19 January - Republican party
South Carolina 26 January - Democratic party
And the scores so far are;
Democratic party
Iowa - Obama
New Hampshire - Clinton
Republican party
Iowa - Huckabee
New Hampshire - McCain
With no clear winners so far and the reversal of fortune between Obama and Clinton in New Hampshire after all the confident exit poll declarations, it really is anyone's guess, in my humble opinion, how the vote will split and who will do well in Michigan, Nevada and South Carolina
One good data point for Hillary, allegedly, is that she is now doing better than former Democratic US president Bill Clinton did before his election in 2000. In that presidential race, according to Hillary's campaign manager when he was interviewed last night on Newsnight, the UK's British Broadcasting Corporation's flaship news programme, Bill lost his first six primaries
Perhaps some of my US readers may care to comment on the likely outcomes and the possibility of Shuttle programme unemployment pressure being brought to bear on Florida's primary?
im not from US, but Hillary could possibly announce the switch to DIRECT, which would result in no job losses, timely shutdown of shuttle, and getting lunar exploration underway sooner than current ESAS plan.
That would definitely be popular with everyone except a few NASA managers and possibly ATK Thiokol.
I am not so sure about the DIRECT Launcher proposal, I am not convinced it is necessarily cheaper or quicker
http://www.directlauncher.com/
As we have seen from Constellation's plans for its Moon capable Orion crew exploration vehicle, the four-segment SRBs have had to be changed substantially, the SSME's swopped out for the RS-68 for Ares V core stage, and abandoned again for Ares I and V's upper stages with the J-2 derivative engine J-2X being brought in, and there are issues with the Ares V core stage and EDS structures that if they are composite as planned, will have fabrication technology challenges; although I need to read DIRECT indepth at first glance I can't see how DIRECT would escape any of these issues
And NASA has considered a Jupiter 120-like launcher with its study of an Ares IV already
http://www.flightglobal.com/articles/2007/01/02/211318/nasa-quietly-sets-up-budget-for-ares-iv-lunar-crew-launch-vehicle-with-2017-test-flight.html