Eileen Collins Almost Endorses Trump At Republican National Convention
Prepared Comments by Astronaut Eileen Collins Republican National Convention, RNC
“We need leadership that will challenge every American to ask, “What’s next?” We need leadership that will make America’s space program first again. We need leadership that will make America first again. That leader is Donald Trump.”
SU grad Eileen Collins skips Donald Trump mention in RNC speech, Syracuse.com
“According to the prepared transcript of the speech, she was supposed to end with “That leader is Donald Trump.” Those words even appeared on the teleprompter at the back of the arena floor. But she didn’t. Instead, she thanked the crowd and left the stage. At no point in the speech did she mention Trump by name.”
Keith’s update:
The take home message: Eileen Collins is mad because the Space Shuttle program was cancelled (by a republican President – shh!) and that the U.S. has no way to launch people into space (no mention of two private sector systems that will fly next year). She feels that great nations explore and that leadership in space contributes to leadership on Earth. She feels that the U.S. used to have leadership in space, that it currently does not have leadership in space, and that it needs to regain that leadership in space. There was no endorsement of anyone. Between mention in the party platform and prominence given at the RNC convention it will be interesting to see if the Democrats give space equal exposure.
Before Eileen Collins spoke the RNC aired a slick 3:44 long video about space exploration. Initially I thought it was rather odd that Collins had a professionally done, inspirational into – with a narrator and soundtrack tailor-made to introduce her when none of the other speakers had one. Indeed, all of the other speakers (except Cruz) endorsed Trump. Add in the prepared comments with an endorsement released to the media – and loaded into the teleprompter – and I get the impression that an endorsement from Collins was fully expected and that something changed at the very last minute.
Comments are open again. Be nice or I’ll turn them off again.
Keith’s update: Note the highlighted sentences below. Between the unused endorsement in the official prepared comments and what was said, the Trump campaign clearly had a hand in what she said.
RNC releases early excerpts of Wednesday convention speeches, Politico
“Eileen Collins, retired astronaut – “Nations that lead on the frontier, lead in the world. We need that visionary leadership again: leadership that will inspire the next generation to have that same passion. We need leadership that will challenge every American to ask, ‘What’s next?’ We need leadership that will make America’s space program first again. We need leadership that will make America first again.”
According to Donald Trump’s official Facebook page: “47 years ago our nation did something that NOBODY thought we could do – we were the first to put a man on the moon. It is time to be number one, again! Believe me, as President, we will once again, Make America First Again! #AmericaFirst #MakeAmericaGreatAgain #RNCinCLE”
Keith’s update: Tonight’s events start at 7:00 pm EDT. Eileen Collins is fourth on the list of speakers. These speeches have tended to be 3-5 minutes in length.
Space exploration will likely be a serious topic at the Republican National Convention, Mashable
“I will be talking about how the Apollo program inspired Americans to rally behind a cause: John Kennedy’s challenge to land a man on the moon and return him safely to earth by the end of the decade,” Collins told Mashable in a statement. “We landed on the moon ‘in peace, for all mankind’ and I know that is a message we can all get behind.” Collins also added that her three-minute speech at the convention is not meant to be political. “As another motive, this is a chance I could not pass up: We can raise awareness of how the U.S. human space program has slowed over the years,” Collins added.”
Keith’s update: I now find myself deleting 25% of what people post on these election 2016 postings because so many of you go immediately – and utterly – off-topic and post irrelevant political attacks – many of them hateful – from both sides. I am not going to spend the day cleaning up after you. Comments are closed. There will be a posting after Eileen Collins’ speech. She is nobody’s fool. Let’s hear what she has to say. If you folks get on the bus to crazy town again I may simply ban all comments for the duration of this campaign. Stay on topic – or go somewhere else.
Speakers at Donald Trump’s Convention: Tim Tebow, Peter Thiel, but No Sarah Palin?, NY Times
“There are several notable women speaking. They include … Eileen Collins, the first woman to command a space shuttle mission.”
Statement by Eileen Collins: Hearing: The Space Leadership Preservation Act and the Need for Stability at NASA (Feb 2016)
“I believe program cancellation decisions that are made by bureaucracies, behind closed doors, and without input by the people, are divisive, damaging, cowardly, and many times more expensive in the long run. As a shuttle commander, I would never make a huge decision without input from all the experts, even the ones I do not agree with. So what will keep us from having surprises like this that set us back years? Answer: A continuity of purpose over many years, over political administrations, and over normal changes in leadership throughout the chain of command. I know there must be ways to do this through policy, organizational structure, and strong leadership.”
Keith’s note: In March of 1998 at a White House ceremony (then) First lady Hillary Clinton said Collins will take “one big step for women and one giant leap for humanity.” CSPAN video includes comments by Clinton about her interest in becoming an astronaut. In July 1999 Clinton went to NASA KSC to watch Collins’ first launch as a shuttle commander. Although a launch delay changed plans, the orignal plan was for Clinton to watch it along with Sally Ride and the U.S. Women’s Soccer Team.
Keith’s update: According to the RNC Eileen Collins will be speaking on Wednesday during “Primetime Program” which starts at 7 P.M. Her exact speaking time is TBD. “Eileen Collins, Astronaut (retired) – Eileen Collins is an astronaut and veteran of four Space Shuttle missions. She was the first woman to command a Space Shuttle mission and logged over 537 hours in space during her tenure at NASA.”
“As a nation, we must put politics aside to ensure that expanding the space frontier occupies a prominent place on our national agenda.” – Eileen Collins 2013
I guess unless its Republican politics.
Huh? Are you saying she can’t speak at a political convention or just a Republican one?
I would say at any overtly political event, without regard to any party, Dem, GOP, Green, Libertarian, Silly Party, whatever. The conventions and the campaigns are directly partisan and political, diluting the thrust of her 2013 comments.
She of course has the right to speak anywhere she damn well wants, but if she wishes to be effective in her stated goal, she should avoid the appearance of hypocrisy.
Maybe she will speak on issues besides space: military preparedness, for example.
It is the partisan platform, not the content, that is damaging to her credibility.
I think she should speak at both conventions.
That then assumes that the whole of the polity are either repubs or dems (only about 2/3rds). While I see your point, I still feel that her goals are best served by rising above the rancorous fray.
In addition, her previous comments have been blistering in her criticism of Obama’s cancellation of the lunar landing program, leaving her already a bit tainted in non-partisanship.
The fact that the bulk of the military figures in the country are right of center isn’t exactly news, Yale. Nonetheless I do think she is out of order.
On the whole it’s interesting to observe the ‘small government’ people when their particular ox -Constellation – is gored.
What’s the context of that remark? Context is very important and I’m not sure that such a statement would preclude her speaking at a political convention.
Let’s wait and see what she says. For example, she might make a speech about how political parties need to stop fighting with each other and start comprising and working together. That would be (1) consistent with the above quote, (2) perfectly appropriate for a political convention and (3) good advice to either party if they want to win the election. It might not be consistent with the likely Republican nominee’s personal style of dealing with people. But are (supposed to be) about more than just the nominee.
The elevation of such a figure to speaking at either convention is more likely to be good for the cause than otherwise.
In your dreams.
The space program in necessarily political, but it could be a disaster if it becomes partisan. If one of the parties becomes the anti-space party and wins …
Maybe she is vying for the NASA administrator position if Trump wins.
“Testifying alongside former NASA Administrator Mike Griffin — a Bush administration appointee who stepped down when President Barack Obama took office in January 2009 — Collins told the committee she and NASA colleagues were shocked by the administration’s 2010 decision to cancel Constellation, saying the timing of the decision, so close to the shuttle’s 2011 retirement, left the agency with few options.
“I believe program cancellation decisions that are made by bureaucracies behind closed doors, without input by the people, are divisive, damaging, cowardly and many times more expensive in the long run,” she testified.
http://spacenews.com/first-…
She is a big government program fan for rockets so I would imagine she will wrap the SLS in the flag.
In her complaint about “bureaucracies behind closed doors,” I originally thought she was referring to the Augustine Committee. I have been informed that this was not her reference. So if not the Augustine Committee, I can only think she is calling out the Transition Team, in which case she would also be wrong. The Transition Team met with a wide range of individuals and program delegations from the government, private sector, non-profit organizations, and academia. The only way this could be described as “behind closed doors” is because the meetings were held in our offices within NASA HQ. Are location was no secret.
Does “meeting with a wide range of individuals” mean collecting information or making decisions? I don’t know about the transition team, but I’ve seen plenty of policy-making committees meet with lots of different people, listen to what they have to say, and then go off “behind closed doors” to make the decisions, discuss what to say in the report, etc.
As for example the Bush energy policy.
Eileen Collins would be an excellent choice for NASA Administrator, seemingly not afraid to speak her mind. She’s my hero—-bravely commanded the first Shuttle flight (STS-114) after the Columbia accident (“Return To Flight”). She had the “intestinal fortitude” to call out the contractor responsible for the External Tank during her flight, when it was discovered that the insulation foam was still coming off the External Tank during ascent and still posing a flight risk. She should speak at both Conventions, put space exploration back in some sort of spotlight.
The 60 day 2005 ESAS LAS with SRBs was underestimated at 4218kg due to shut down time delay. The LASS mass grew to the same as the capsule (~ 10 mT) depending on the conditions and Ares I could not loft Orion+SM+LAS, negating ‘gap closing; advantage of using one stack of SRMs vs the 70 or 130mT larger variant. CxP could not do the job.
So its a surprise that someone would not know why CxP was cancelled and thinks it was politics, unless one considers that any message can be delivered by one way media. The real disappointment however is the statement about decisions behind closed doors, which is how the 2000s Congress discarded depot centric, then introduced three flaws in the VSE that allowed ESAS to retain shuttle derived with the flawed rendezvous risk and “less than 3 launches” –>HLV.
A trend is now emerging where a group creates all these failed policies with backroom deals, the simply accuses the other group of doing the same thing when they try to right them, e.g., of course you need to raise taxes when the tax cuts, subsidies, LVs, Medicare Part D, etc cost more than assumed. It is not surprising the one way media can destroy reason?
http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3…
Note the mass comparison(~ 6:30) ignored in ESAS.
https://www.youtube.com/wat…
Please remember that the NASA Administrator serves at the pleasure of the president and serves that person’s agenda, not their own. Collins is a USAF Colonel and will follow the orders issued. If she started spouting off her own opinion, she’d find herself on the street really quickly.
“Maybe she is vying for the NASA administrator position”
Just what we need, another astronaut with no political experience.
I agree, another couple years of someone like Bolden will probably kill NASA even more quickly than it might go otherwise.
Bolden sets the Congressional budget and defines what the House and Senate will fund and not fund?
Bolden is supposed to go to Congress with a coherent plan and set of proposals. Prepared for different funding profiles.
Except that he doesnt.
It was my understanding that congressional staffers are in constant communications with their counterparts at NASA passing on what congressional members will go for and not go for..
I think that’s what we need actually. Put someone in charge of NASA that has had skin in the game and knows that the hell they are talking about. When you reverse it, you get politicians directing NASA to build stuff like SLS that wastes 10’s of billions. The President and his cabinet should support the NASA direction/vision and bring the political backing NASA would need.
You do realize that the Senate actually will only confirm a NASA administrator that will be friendly to them … correct?
President Bush’s “The Vision for Space Exploration” called for no new rockets.. When O’Keefe took that message to capital hill, and that 14,000 would be laid off after the shuttle was retired and no new rockets would replace it.. He was soon offered his “dream job” and he was gone and in comes Griffin and TWO new rockets we could not afford.. that sure didn’t bother congress, it keep the lights on at their centers, the brooms got pushed, the power points got created the cost plus, fixed fee, sole sourced, development contracts got awarded to the usual suspects and everyone was happy.
Congress confirms who THEY want running NASA.
I’m aware of the process, doesn’t make what I said unless vaild. Congress confirms the presidents choice, it’s not the other way around
Actually the Senate informs the President that their choice will not be confirms and here is a suggestion, pick this person instead.
Obama wanted Scott Gration, Senator Nelson said he would not be confirmed pick Bolden instead the senate will confirm him.
We had a guy with skin in the game the last 8 years, named Charlie Bolden. He was a Marine Corp 3 star general and a Shuttle commander. And thanks to Charlie, have you heard, we are now on the way to Mars, except we no longer have much of a space program. Everyone is waiting with baited breath to see if Elon Musk can get us back into the space game.
Has Collins confirmed that she is speaking at the convention? I ask because Tebow is listed as a speaker but he said he wouldn’t be.
I hope not. No matter what she would speak about, her appearance at the convention that will nominate Trump sends the wrong message to aspiring women everywhere.
For someone who says she wants to get politics out of the space program, speaking at the Republican Convention isn’t helping. Plus, the only way to do that is to commercialize as much of it as possible (which she seems to be against). Typical astronaut mentality – the tax-payer should pay hundreds of millions of dollars for me to go in space and who does the (democratically elected) President think he is for canceling it! More proof that the qualifications for being an astronaut are completely different than those required for senior policy and leadership positions.
Refreshing….
This is very cool! Excited for this. I remember STS-93 like it was yesterday – true professionalism from the crew and ground.
Well, since Yale Simkin didn’t want to provide the context of his SINGLE sentence I’ll do it for him. See: http://www.huffingtonpost.c…
The point of the co-authored piece (with Nick Lampson) is that the United States should set aside politics to retain its place as a leader in exploration. Yes, the article is very friendly to NASA, but it also points out that competing nations like Russia, India and China are making large investments in their government programs. (Although in fairness, Russia, for obvious reasons, is no longer planning on those increases.)
I think the most important point in the story comes directly after the sentence Yale quoted: “We need strategic, adequately funded and aggressively paced programs to
keep America at the summits of technical innovation and exploration.”
Anybody got a problem with that? We can talk about waste, flawed designs driven by jobs programs, and other things all day long, but Collins’ point is that if we don’t make these investments, we risk losing whatever lead in space we may still have. .
Its not that I didn’t want to provide the context. It is that I have a life that otherwise requires some of my time. ;-P
It is easy enough to find the full speech by googling the quote.
In this case, the full speech was totally irrelevant (whether one concurs or disagrees with her points) since I was speaking to the dis-junction between her request not to politicize the issue and her desire to participate in the most dramatic extravaganza of political partisanship.
Yes on two fronts. 1) ‘Aggressive schedules’ for TRL 9 and the requirement for TRL 5 by PDR eliminated all R&D for decades…one of the 3 flaws introduced at the last minute to the VSE “moon by 2020”, not to mention multiple parallel paths for engine development only, redo Apollo, and nothing else.
2) Deceit. Mingle all these words in one way messages, yet the actions produced the exact opposite architecture geared to local interest, at the expense of innovation and other social needs. 2005 ESAS, it was *known* Ares I could not do the job, yet cancelling CxP was all ‘politics’. Any crew objections to flying on LVs with solids, why certify a LV for crew that will be retired, and why certify a new LV that has non-common configurations for Class A payload and crew? Ever study the effects to all the decades of lost opportunity on ‘leadership’?
“In the days of the Apollo program, human exploration systems employed expendable, single-use vehicles requiring large ground crews and careful monitoring. For future, sustainable exploration programs, NASA requires cost-effective vehicles that may be reused, have systems that could be applied to more than one destination, and are highly reliable and need only small ground crews” Yet, SLS/Orion/mothballed engines…
https://youtu.be/hQifKbJEeG…
Chris Holmes wrote: “but it also points out that competing nations like Russia, India and China are making large investments in their government programs.”
I would like to see what the baseline numbers were so that 20% increase could be put into perspective relative to NASA’s budget. I know they have lower labor rates so they get a little better bang for the buck but they are still government agencies and they have the same problems that we do.
I like the headline from the Wahington Post:
The first female space shuttle commander will speak at the GOP convention. Huh?.
LOL
I can not imagine she is going to go there and ruffle any feathers. I can only imagine she will wrap the flag around the Space Launch System and say how important it is to keep funding it. She will hit all the feel good points and applause lines and that will be it.
I am not often afforded the opportunity to see one of these back-and-forth discussions about someone I had the opportunity to work closely with over an extended period.
I find it most fascinating (and not unexpectedly disappointing) to see the difference between real & unreal laid out so starkly. Sigh.
Well, since you know the lady, perhaps you could add a touch of reality to the discussion?
Clarify
So, what is the takeaway? Does she think Orion/SLS is the answer? Like Keith said, no mention of the two CC companies which will fly american astronauts in less than 2 years.
She didn’t mention SLS/Orion either. She might have felt that since she was addressing an audience that didn’t know much about space exploration she should stay away from discussing specific programs.
You’re right. I will give her a pass, this time around. =)
I don’t think she was upset with the space shuttle retirement decision. (at least I didn’t get that impression in the speech) Pretty much everybody agreed that they needed to be retired. What was upsetting is that we didn’t have a follow-on system ready to go after the shuttle was gone.
I wish she had mentioned the commercial crew program and SLS/Orion. However, she might have wanted to avoid specifics given that most people in the audience likely had no clue those programs existed.
All in all I thought it was a great speech. I would feel comfortable with someone like Eileen Collins as NASA admin.
Until launch costs dropped by ~10x and multiple technologies were developed, ‘what next’ was not going to happen. It was odd that a ‘what next’ challenge was a lack of US crew launch for 5 yrs, and did not cite the exciting new capabilities. NIH?
The follow-on system: 2009 Ares IX — retire shuttle 2010. The flawed policy kept all LVs separate. Ares I could not do the job due to solids and the effects on LAS mass. CxP cancelled. It costs alot if you start with the wrong hardware +architecture. 6B/yr to build/operate/mothball old stuff. Congrats?
Very positive statement about the space program from both Col Collins and from the film. I hope Trump was watching on the chance he gets elected. He is probably the one guy these were meant for. I don’t think the speech or film was covered on any of the TV networks, I could not find them at the appointed time. So the only way most people are seeing it is on their Facebook pages or on blogs like NW, which means they are mainly preaching to the choir.
It would have been hilarious if she actually had endorsed Trump, particularly since, when publicly asked, he explicitly said NASA wasn’t a priority for him.
Interesting (and good) that she decided not to say Trump’s name specifically, but her appearance is seen as a defacto endorsement anyway. Too bad she wasn’t politically savvy enough to realize this sooner. Many people who didn’t attend and wouldn’t speak stayed away because their participation would be taken as supportive. Sadly, this will now forever be a part of her “legacy”. Also, more bad campaign staff work – whoever vetted Eileen and arranged for her remarks has got to be in trouble!
She’s a very smart lady worthy of my respect certainly without consideration of her political views – which, by the way, she left at the door.
Nope. On balance my views of her haven’t changed and I think she did the right thing.
I agree with both those points. I would have liked her to speak in a separate forum — perhaps calling on both major parties to do more in space.
I didn’t hear any ‘political BS’.
She made some good points on the role of NASA… which she believes to be to explore and to go places and do things that have never been done before… to take the lead in space exploration. Right now, NASA’s role has been more of a ‘let’s figure out how to do space on the cheap’ and spur a commercialized space economy… i.e. commercial crew, cargo. Proponents of commercial space will agree with the latter role – but is it really commercial if NASA is subsidizing (or partly subsidizing) it?
“Astronaut Eileen Collins Was Supposed To Endorse Trump In Her RNC Speech, But Didn’t
The prepared text of her speech said Trump “will make America first again,” but she didn’t say it.”
http://www.huffingtonpost.c…
Are any space advocates on the list of speakers for the Democratic convention? I did a search but AFAIK only the headliners have been announced (the 3 Clintons, Barack Obama, Joe Biden, Bernie Sanders.)
It is beyond sadness when an astronaut such as Miss Collins says ” We need leadership that will make America first again”. I thought maybe space is the only place that all borders and differences are becoming meaningless…I thought, space is the place that we are realizing all humans are the same… I think I was wrong… Thanx Miss Collins and Thanx NASA for having such an astronaut….
Both America and NASA have shown a demonstrable bent towards international cooperation.
But this is an internal and political event. One would hardly expect otherwise in context.
I listened to her speech but cannot determine what point she was trying to make.