Presidential campaigns are always in search of elusive swing-state votes and valuable donor pools. Adopting a coherent space policy would deliver on both. Last week’s explosion of a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket and a satellite that held Facebook’s dreams of African Internet coverage presented the perfect opportunity. Yet Americans heard nothing from Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump.
The loss of an unmanned rocket is hardly noteworthy — nearly 10 percent of space launches fail — but the dramatic video of the explosion dominated the Internet, because Americans love a good explosion and are fascinated by the prospect of commercial space travel. Some 50 years after “Star Trek” premiered, our faith in humankind’s bright future among the stars, the allure of space still crosses boundaries of politics, class and race. While John F. Kennedy and Ronald Reagan both wielded the powerful leverage of this positive shared vision, our current presidential candidates foolishly eschew it in favor of intractable and divisive issues.
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