Remember, McCain can't use a computer. He probably has never even been to a planetarium. And just for reference, the projection system at Griffith Park cost $7M to replace recently.

The Adler Planetarium has posted the following on their website:

"Last night, during the presidential debate in Nashville, Tennessee, Senator John McCain
made the following statement:

McCain: “While we were working to eliminate these pork barrel earmarks he (Senator
Obama) voted for nearly $1 billion in pork barrel earmark projects. Including $3 million for
an overhead projector at a planetarium in Chicago, Illinois. My friends, do we need to spend
that kind of money?”

To clarify, the Adler Planetarium requested federal support – which was not funded – to
replace the projector in its historic Sky Theater, the first planetarium theater in the
Western Hemisphere. The Adler’s Zeiss Mark VI projector – not an overhead projector – is
the instrument that re-creates the night sky in a dome theater, the quintessential
planetarium experience. The Adler’s projector is nearly 40 years old and is no longer
supported with parts or service by the manufacturer. It is only the second planetarium
projector in the Adler’s 78 years of operation.

Science literacy is an urgent issue in the United States. To remain competitive and ensure
national security, it is vital that we educate and inspire the next generation of explorers to
pursue careers in science, technology, engineering and math.

Senator McCain’s statements about the Adler Planetarium’s request for federal support do
not accurately reflect the museum's legislative history or relationship with Senator Obama.

The Adler has approached the Illinois Congressional delegation the last few years for federal
assistance with various initiatives. These have included museum exhibitions, equipment and
educational programs we offer to area schools, including the Chicago Public Schools.

We have made requests to Senators Durbin and Obama, as well as to 6 area Congressmen
from both political parties. We are grateful that all of the Members we have approached,
including Senator Obama, have deemed our activities worthy of their support, and have
made appropriations requests on our behalf, as they have for many worthy Illinois nonprofit
organizations.

As a result of the hard work of our bipartisan congressional delegation, the Adler has been
fortunate to receive a few federal appropriations the past couple of years.

However, the Adler has never received an earmark as a result of Senator Obama's efforts.
This is clearly evidenced by recent transparency laws implemented by the Congress, which
have resulted in the names of all requesting Members being listed next to every earmark in
the reports that accompany appropriations bills.


October 8, 2008"

I am so glad the internet has yet another Obama site...When we have a fully unchecked government controlled by the left...NO COMPLAINING!!!!!!!!

Editor's note You have obviously never been here before. Look on the right side for the Election 2008 links and you will see that I cover both campaigns equally. If McCain either does not release things about space - or says things like this, that is how he gets covered.

First of all, you may wnt to cut Sen. McCain a bit of slack, as it is more than a bit difficult for him to use a computer due to injuries he sustained while a POW. Trust me,you do not want to start a flame war on this specific point.

Second, why hasn't Adler been successful in raising the money from the private sector? A nifty campaign, with corporate support, some wealthy Chicagoland donors,and a broad public campaign, would be able to raise the money. And last time I checked, the number #1 issue in the campaign right now is the economic crisis, nd the record amount of personal, corporate, and especially-national debt that helped precipitate it. If people can find money to see "Transformers" or other sci-fi type fare, as well as the King Tut exhibit and otehr big-ticket exhibitions at science museums, they can do so for a planetarium.

I seem to recall that the recent upgrade to a digital system at the Science Place Planetarium at Fair Park ran to about $5Mn, although my understanding is that the funding came from foundations and civic contributions. The UTA Planetarium also got a digital upgrade, though I don't know the price tag on that one. There a lot of the funding came from alumni and the UT system. Noble Planetarium over in Fort Worth is doing an upgrade right now.

Now I'm wondering if there was federal pork involved...

Tell me again why it is the responsibility of the federal taxpayer to support a local organization such as the Adler?

In our city, we replaced our planetarium's old optics with new digital ones with corporate and private contributions, like mine, not with money taken at the point of a gun.

The taxpayer is not the source of money for every nice thing, nor is anyone who disagrees a luddite or an incompetent.

Pork! Pork!

BIG DEAL!

All the pork in a year comes to what? 15, 20B?

Has anybody noticed how much money came out of yours and mine IRA/retirement funds in the last few weeks? It was 2T a couple days ago. Does that make it 2.5-3T now? So the pork comes to less than 1% - and getting to be smaller, unfortunately.

Pork is a MAJOR RED HERRING!

Not only that, every "porky" project means jobs to many people. It's one of the places the government can spend money that actually HELPS the economy.

Finally, it is the JOB of each state's Representatives and Senators to bring some of the government's money and jobs into each of their states. This is the United STATES of America, NOT the Subservient Fiefdom of Washington, DC!

BTW, Has anyone noticed how many states get major NASA funding and have major NASA facilities? That's all pork too!

The previous comment is well put: Since when is such a projector a Federal responsibility? It's important, it's useful, it's educational. It's certainly a worthwhile expense for someone. But IMHO it's not a Federal responsibility.

I hope you yearn for the Dark Ages. The right will have us back there soon. Unless you are a multi-millionaire, they don't give a **** about you. Be careful what you ask for...

Kathy
USMC Vet
'69-'72

You can nitpick McCain's rhetoric all you want, but the message behind it is exactly what the country needs: STOP SPENDING! When a family's debts exceed their income, there is only one solution: cut spending. Why do we believe our government should be different? I don't like continuing to fund a government that acts irresponsibly. Unfortunately, we are trapped in that it is against the law to tell this particular obsessive/compulsive overspender "I am not going to give you any more money."

Great piece of indignant non-information by the Adler Planetarium. Has the projector failed completely yet? Has it been replaced yet? If it's been replaced, where did the funding come from?

Also not provided by them is any info about how it came to pass that they apparently did not plan ahead to save-up the money to replace an aging piece of very critical equipment with known, serious, supportability issues. I don't know the whole story but I'm left to wonder if maybe the Adler Planetarium should consider how to "educate and inspire" some of its managers regarding planning for critical infrastructure replacement without needing a Federal handout.

Now wouldn't it be interesting if the earmark request came through after several members of the planetarium board of trustees contributed several hundred thousand dollars to Obama's campaigns? Wouldn't that put a different type of indignation-spin on it?

See http://www.thenextright.com/davidb11171/change-you-can-earmark and check out its credibility.

Wow, a lot of people really hate publicly funded museums.

I guess you think that unless your parents are rich enough to buy you your own planetarium, you don't deserve to learn about space and science. Or hope some rich people to decide you need one.

The Adler Planetarium's projector is from the 1970's. Yes, it's starting to break. Zeiss doesn't even make parts for it anymore.

And it's not just a "regional" thing - people come from all over the world to visit the Adler. It's the most important planetarium in the Midwest.

Go ahead and vote for Palin, who believes the Earth is 6000 years old. She'll have a lot of use for us at NASA. Right.

Let's just try cutting education and public outreach funding, and see how long it takes for the public and legislators to decide that NASA is irrelevant and not worthy of support.

The fact that McCain called it an "overhead projector" just goes to show that he cannot be trusted to speak the whole truth, but can be trusted to bend the truth to meet his needs.

This is not a pro-Obama comment.

Keith states that he covers both sides fairly........after I stopped laughing I had to absorb this one. Keith you are so in the tank for OBAMA! Yet he claims to be fair! Please!

Jeepers, folks.

Pork isn't about the validity of the projects or the jobs created, it's about bribing Members of Congress with an ability to make their constituents happy with this or that pile of federal dollars.

It would be much better if NSF, whose funding has gone up tremendously under Bush43, simply had a matching funds competitive grant program. Museum XXX has to raise 60% of the cost of a new planetarium or what have you, and the federal government kicks in 40%, but with strings attached (X number of free passes distribute to students/teachers, etc...).

But instead my home town would rather pretend it cares about science education by allowing the Appropriators to give out a few Xmas presents to themselves and their supporters.

So that's the SUBSTANCE... Mr. McCain was stupid to use this example, but he has over 20 years of supporting science and science education in the Senate, so the blather here attacking him as a luddite is beyond ignorant.

(Just 25 more days of this crap to survive... if I just close my eyes maybe it'll be over soon.)

"First of all, you may wnt to cut Sen. McCain a bit of slack, as it is more than a bit difficult for him to use a computer due to injuries he sustained while a POW."

OK, I have to ask how is it that McCain can not type? I only use two fingers to type. You know the hunt and peck method. It works ok for me. By the way I am a veteran myself and know a lot of other veterans that do not look at themselves as Heroes nor do they want to be called a Hero. They were simply serving their country.

It is NOT our representatives job to rake the taxpayers over for as much pork tax money as they can get. That is why this country is drowning in its own debt.

It IS the responsibility of our representatives to make fiscally sound decissions, so that we live within our budget. Just as it is a homeowners responsibility to NOT take on more debt than they can afford.

Living on borrowed money is stupid. It's like living on credit card debt. It always catches up to you.

My first thought when reading the entry was that the fed govt should not be required to give money to non-fed entities. Stop expecting everything from D.C. My wife and I have recently scrubbed our family budget and left out many good and worthwhile things, because we don't have the money!!! McCain is right, stop spending more, more, more.
I also agree that the planetarium also should've saved up the money. Give me a break!
I do wish McCain would've framed it more in terms of the strict financial discipline and planning skills, and in terms of federalism (states responsibilities). It is unfortunate and counterproductive that earmarks are opposed by attempting to denigrate the worthiness of the project. I think the nobility of the expenditure, even if it involves our kids' education, is beside the point. We have no money, so lets not spend it! Let the people who have it (Illinois) spend it.

Let’s see...

"friends of planetarium"...the only post here that is worthwhile, a respectable added piece of information for all to consider...

"Patrick" saying the editor here at NASA watch is one more bit of a left leaning media basically? Umm...how is it the media is always left leaning to the thinkers of the right? I suspect it's that journalism thing about collecting both sides of a story and trying to make them into an understandable story for the public? This job probably attracts the wrong kind of people! Or changes them once they enter the business and have to do that "balancing"! Geez...looking at both sides! No wonder the media is full of such, uhh, left leaning types like Keith here. Both sides...ahhgg.

And "Paul B" using Sen Mccains Vietnam war injury to explain having poor advisors (who said it was an overhead projector?) or purposely mis-leading the public (ahh yes, most people won't ever read the projector was a planetarium star-machine) or simply as an excuse for being somewhat out of touch with technology like computers in an age where that's so important? At the least he should try to over-compensate by better advisors and a better technology investment plan for energy or NASA.

And getting caught up in this distraction over $18B in earmarks? The government loses that much more due to rounding, property tracking, and just accounting semantics probably every month in the federal budget! I know-I deal with these big $B dollar numbers.

So why not everyone ask what the other Trillions of dollars in the budget will be towards, where the efforts of hundreds of thousands will go on environment, energy, defense, healthcare, space, and much more. Ask where that goes, the "direction" - long term - of that great machine towards societies (that's us) needs, goals and desires. The rest is a tactical move from politicians and people looking for a blame game or a distraction from the real issues.

So why should the government foot the bill? Why not do it the old fassioned way? Rais the money!

What? Afraid of working for what you belive in? Cry me a river, build a bridge and get over it.

Hold a telethon, a bake sale, take donations, hit up corporations in the Chicago area (Like Boeing for instance), ask school children to pitch in a dime, hit up a lawyer, go door to door...

This time tested system has worked for other large programs (Like that big lady out at the mouth of NY Harbor?)

i.e. KEEP GOVERNMENT OUT OF IT!!!!

To paraphrase "Whiners talk about doing thier best... Winers go home and the Prom Queen.."

So put your money where your collective mouths are.

That's why I'm betting on Space X or Scaled Composites or some other private organisation to beat NASA to Mars....

One of the other posters hit the nail on the head. A new planetarium projector for Adler is NOT the responsibility of the Federal government - certainly not as the first source of funding. Many such needed big ticket items are often provided by private sector donations - and rightly so. Why didn't Adler make the effort to put a proposal together and go to Boeing or UAL or some of the other bigtime Chicagoland corporations that are always looking for this type of philanthropic opportunity (the Boeing all-digital planetarium at Adler, etc"). No one is being anti-science, least of all McCain, by making such a suggestion.

I assume most of the negative comments above are from McCain supporters. The rest of us need to remember that Republicans are notorious for their fear of science of any kind, from evolution to stem cell research, unless, of course, they need a knee replacement or cancer treatments.

You seem to miss the point about earmarks. The money went to the right place in this case, but it circumvents the processes and entities that are supposed to put the money into places like the center above.

There are earmarks for worthy things like cancer research. But who the heck are Congressmen to determine what cancer center gets research money. Isn't that what we have the NIH for? The biggest point in earmarks is that we pay directly for whatever interest gets the money in question and we neutralize the government agency that's supposed to do it. We lose twice when this stuff happens.

Yes, it's but a small fraction of the budget, but it's an ever increasing fraction, and allows interests to buy Congressmen, and misappropriates money. It's unfair to pull this nugget out and say that Sen. McCain is "anti-science".

To the comment from Paul B, "you may wnt to cut Sen. McCain a bit of slack, as it is more than a bit difficult for him to use a computer due to injuries he sustained while a POW". It is not one's disability which prevents one from aquiring technological knowledge. Many disabled veterans including quadraplegics have learned how to use a computer.
Last time I looked Sen. McCain had functional eyes, ears, two arms and two legs, and a Brain. The latter I could not see, but I'll cut him some slack on "that one". The point is why does Sen MaCain have to resort to a blatant "LIE's" about a Planetarium Projector, which is a far cry from an "overhead project" in a school or office. I believe there is a legitimate debate over the merits of "Government vs Public funding" for such projects. Sen. MaCain could have shown himself to be more honorable by approaching his campaign against "pork" by simply stating the truth. Sen Obama did join in an appropriations request, along with several other representatives and Senators requesting $3 millon for this funding. It was not acted upon and Sen Obama did not vote on it. Sen MaCain statement “While we were working to eliminate these pork barrel earmarks he (Senator
Obama) voted for nearly $1 billion in pork barrel earmark projects. Including $3 million for
an overhead projector at a planetarium in Chicago, Illinois. My friends, do we need to spend
that kind of money?” is not only a vail attempt to mislead the American people it is a contemptous "LIE" The Straight Talk Express has no more wheels left.

It's clear the government could have just bought the "toxic" projector for 10M dollars. That way, new projector, and the entire Adler board could have gone on a retreat to Mackinaw Island and gotten their nails done. However, this week's new mantra would suggest Adler should have been "partially nationalized".

The suggestion that UAL or Boeing should have been tapped... do you really want your night sky becoming the "Friendly Night Skies" with Dreamliners zipping all over the show? You think those guys would miss an advertising opportunity? Please...

Seems like I need to post this again, with the comment that the claims seem to be well documented.

See http://www.thenextright.com/davidb11171/change-you-can-earmark for some overlooked (and deeply buried) context on this controversy.

The problem with earmarks by ANY politician is that they have come to be a method to buy political contributions by unilaterally -- no review, no competition, no public disclosure -- passing out taxpayer money.

The website above appears to have reliable evidence that Obama's proposed earmark coincided curiously with several hundred thousand dollars of contributions to his campaign by members of the planetarium's board of trustees.

The pathetic space-angle is that by using a beloved recipient of the earmark (instead of a private company, or, say, his wife's employer) he has pushed the right buttons on eager-believers who think his earmark showed any specific appreciation of astronomy, as opposed to cash in his own war chest.

Gee whillikers, people, turn your adult judgment circuits back ON, please, with the 'cynicism gain' set somewhere above zero.

KK made an excellent point about how Federal (or local) money for Adler-type situations should be allocated. If a functional state-of-the-art projector in the Adler Planetarium is an important part of NASA education outreach, or an important part of Chicago public schools science education initiatives, then Adler should have gone to NASA and/or the City of Chicago for funding first. Did Adler do so? If so, were they turned down? If turned down, why? Why did Adler or its sponsors decide to ask a US Senator for an earmark for this specific purpose? (None of this sort of info was in their post-debate press release - why not? What's the real story of how the 2008 earmark came to be requested by Senator Obama and but ultimately not approved?)

McCain was simply using the Adler-Obama earmark request as an example to expose a costly and corrupt, or at least corrupting, nation-wide system that has grown larger and larger each year; he was not being anti-science, anti-science education!

Truth hurts those who distort it, especially when you were kmown for your integrity. McCain hired Bush"s campaign hacks and lost all integrity. I"m an ex-Republican.

Wow. I can not believe that, after all the corporate horrors and rumors of worse, there are still (--redacted--) who expect corporations to take responsibility for public science education! CORPORATIONS! As if corporations give a cat's whisker about the public or science. HA HA!

With all due respect, I'd lke to ask the Ayn Rand reading, private this and private that, anti-community wingnuts to get out of way.

Corporations are not the solution. Corporations are the problem! HA HA HA!

The point is that McCain doesn't have a clue about technology and could care less. My 84 year old grandmother who is partially paralyzed from a stroke uses the computer - we IM every day. She installed her own cable modem. By picking on the planetarium, McCain demonstrates his ignorance of science and its value. It was a low blow, basically picking on schoolkids. You can bet that he sure won't care about NASA much, either.

I find it ironic that those who rail the loudest against the government are on this website of all places - NASAWatch. Presumably most of the readers work for...wait for it: NASA! I guess it's okay to complain about the govt as long as you don't have to give up your own good jobs. If you hate the govt so much, then put your money where your mouth is and quit working for it. By your own logic then NASA, like all govt agencies, is just so much white collar welfare. After all, if we can't make an immediate monetary profit from space exploration, it must not be worth doing! Surely private companies will be willing to take the risk of investing in projects that may not yield commercial profits until, oh, 25 years down the road!

We would be able to afford planetariums, NASA, and education if the Republican party was not burning almost the equivalent of the entire NASA budget every month in the Iraqi desert. Earmarks are a drop in the bucket compared to that. Republicans have zero credibility when it comes to balanced budgets. So quit acting like you have any moral authority about spending, and quit defending someone who picks on science museums.

The Adler Planetarium draws in people from all across the Midwest. The Adler also creates programs for planetariums that are distributed all over the country, so its presence is more than municipal. Also, the Adler, like most museums, has funding drives & a building fund (http://www.adlerplanetarium.org/support/membership/index.shtml), so I think it's a bit of a slap to say that they're *just* depending on the Feds for a handout here. According to an interview with the head of the Adler Planetarium (http://www.npr.org/blogs/politics/2008/10/planetarium_president_defends.html), 70% of the money the museum needs has been raised, & the Adler Planetarium approached all of the Congressional delegation of Illinois for help, not just Senator Obama.

Boy do I feel like odd-man-out, again (it's a posture I'm long familiar with). NO-body seems to comment on the alleged link between Obama's suggested expenditure and campaign contributions to his own warchest. Quid pro quo? Naw, with Obama, the media motto (and NASA Watch's) is 'nil nisi bonum'.

Editor's note: OK Jim. How is this relevant to space? The Examiner used a Nazi-themed video to make a point about space policy.

First, raising money through fund raisers is NOT that difficult. I have run fund raisers and have personally gone out to companies to request donations. Most have been very ready to give, especially if it related to their community.

I'm not saying that you ask one or two companies for 10 million. You ask hundred of companies and thousands of individuals for whatever they can afford to give. If it is something important to the community, they often give very readily.

If after making a serious effort to raise the money, you don't have enough, then you go to the appropriate goverment agency. You can then say to them, "look, we raised this much money. This is something that is very important to our community, but we are still short. Can you help us?"

That is much better than saying, "we have done nothing to raise the money ourselfs, but someone here had a connection with a senator or congressman. So we want you to give us the whole thing."

Who will benifit most from a planetarium? Why the local people who would be using it. Not someone who lives 4 states away. Ask those closest to you first. You will find that companies want the good will of their community.

According to comments and press releases posted here so far, the Adler Planetarium is important to NASA, Chicago-area schools, people from all over the Midwest, and to planetariums across the country. Did Adler request funds from NASA or any local education-related government agencies, or from the planetariums it creates program for? If no, why not? If yes and they were turned down, I submit that NASA and the others who may have turned-down Adler are the real Luddites on this, not John McCain. Or they are free-loaders, relying on Adler to provide services but not providing sufficient funding in return. If Obama was truly their last resort, then great, he was trying to ride to the rescue and I applaud him. Is that the situation on this? I'd just like to know the complete story behind the earmark request. Then I can point fingers at the true Luddites, free-loaders, shining knights, etc.

Very well said Gref. We don't know what other efforts had been made to raise money. We don't know if any other efforts had been made at all. It would be nice to know.

Oh, quit your whining, since you're both probably feeding from the government trough yourselves. What a couple of hypocrites.

Besides, I really doubt that McCain even knows the difference between a planetarium projector and a transparency projector.

Since you can't argue logically Shep, you throw out mindless barbes about something you nothing about. I for one have never worked for the goverment in any way and have never received an entitlement of any kind. How about you?

It's easy to say spend more money. Lets open up the goverments pocketbooks and start shoveling it out. But that kind of thinking has led us to where we are. 10 trillion in debt and growing fast.

The old Soviet Union collasped under its debt. The British empire once spanned the world. If you think it can't happen to us, then you are a fool. It is more than our right as American citizens to complain about rampant spending and waste, it is a duty.

At least McCain is saying no to some spending. Obama is promising money that we don't have. The biggest trouble with the goverment, is the only way they can think of to get out of financial trouble is borrow and spend more money. A line must be drawn somewhere and if you don't know that, then I feel sorry for you.

I work at a planetarium. It's not that easy to raise money, especially in an economy this bad.

I'd like to know - where is the outcry about funding a war that benefits the war profiteers?