Republican former NASA administrator endorses Harris for president

WASHINGTON — A Republican former NASA administrator is endorsing Vice President Kamala Harris, a Democrat, for president.

Showing at an internet fundraising occasion Aug. 15, Sean O’Keefe, who served as NASA administrator from late 2001 via 2004 below President George W. Bush, stated he was supporting Harris for president partially due to her work on area points but additionally due to what he thought of to be an absence of a standard Republican opponent.

“Months in the past, it was obvious to me that there wouldn’t be a Republican within the 2024 race for the presidency, actually not a candidate with the rules and insurance policies I ever related to Republicans,” stated O’Keefe, referring to the Republican nominee, former president Donald Trump. “However irrespective of. Vice President Harris is a really lively candidate for president who helps area targets to the good thing about all humankind.”

He cited Harris’s function as chair of the Nationwide House Council and work in an administration that has largely maintained continuity in area coverage, such because the Artemis lunar exploration marketing campaign. He linked these insurance policies with the Imaginative and prescient for House Exploration that the George W. Bush administration launched in 2004 when he was NASA administrator, which additionally known as for a human return to the moon.

“All these targets have largely been sustained by bipartisan assist in Congress and by 4 totally different presidential administrations,” he continued. “If ever we wished to seek out proof that area is nonpartisan, that is it.”

That continuity was not all the time on a straight line, although. The Obama administration ended the Imaginative and prescient for House Exploration and plans to return people to the moon even because it accelerated improvement of economic capabilities began within the earlier administration. The Trump administration restored a human lunar exploration program that the Biden administration has continued.

O’Keefe known as Harris an “enthusiastic chief” that may proceed these exploration targets with worldwide partnerships. “For her dedication and dedication to those bigger objectives,” he stated, “I’m very proud to assist Vice President Kamala Harris to be president.”

O’Keefe was certainly one of two former NASA directors to talk on the “House Cadets 4 Harris” occasion. The opposite, Charles Bolden, was administrator through the Obama administration after a profession within the Marine Corps and as a NASA astronaut. That profession, he stated, had led him to remain out of politics.

“However this isn’t an odd time,” he stated, noting he had recognized Harris since her time in California politics when he was stationed at Marine Corps bases within the state. He additionally cited her work main the Nationwide House Council. “She obtained us to the purpose the place we’re all coordinated,” he stated, citing that as among the many causes “why I feel she is the very best individual to turn out to be president of the USA.”

The 2-and-a-half-hour occasion featured an eclectic mixture of audio system, together with a number of former NASA and personal astronauts in addition to actors who appeared on numerous Star Trek tv collection. Additionally talking have been Colorado Gov. Jared Polis and George Whitesides, the previous NASA chief of workers and Virgin Galactic chief government who’s working for Congress in California.

Lots of the audio system made little or no point out of area coverage, focusing as an alternative on broader electoral points. Those that did usually emphasised, like O’Keefe, the normal bipartisan nature of area coverage and the continuity in that coverage between the present and former administration, quite than to determine variations between Harris and Trump on these points.

“Fortunately, assist for area exploration and funding for NASA is, for probably the most half, bipartisan,” stated Emily Calandrelli, a science communicator, close to the tip of the assembly. “So, whether or not or not we are going to discover shouldn’t be actually my concern for this election, however who might be doing the exploring is.”

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