Source: Space Politics
At the Utah Republican Party convention in Salt Lake City yesterday, delegates effectively ousted Sen. Robert Bennett, failing to nominate him for a fourth term. Bennett didn’t make it past the second round of balloting, which ended with two candidates, Tim Bridgewater and Mike Lee, selected to face off in a primary next month. The convention all but ends Bennett’s political career, unless he attempts a write-in campaign, something he has not explicitly ruled out but currently appears unlikely.
Given Utah’s demographics, whomever wins that June 22 GOP primary will likely win the general election in November. So how do Bridgewater and Lee stack up on space policy compared to Bennett, who sharply criticized NASA’s plans to cancel the Ares launch vehicles—which could lead to the loss of hundreds or thousands of jobs at ATK’s Utah facilities—during a Senate Appropriations Committee hearing last month? The two candidates haven’t touched on this much yet. Lee doesn’t mention space on the issues page of his web site. Bridgewater, though, does answer the question of whether he supports the president’s plan “for the privatization of NASA” in the negative. “The same rockets that send a man to the moon could send a missile across the world to defend our nation,” he claims (bringing visions of a Saturn 5 or Ares 5 being repurposed as an ICBM). “NASA plays a vital role in the security of our nation and the strength of our military.”