Senator Bill Nelson, Democrat from Florida, is backing a bill that would give tax breaks to companies trying to develop private, human-rated spaceships. The bill would also establish up to five economic development zones around the country to attract commercial space firms to those areas, where they would receive further special treatment from the federal government to help them grow their businesses.
If the bill passes into law, it will have little to do with space policy, however. Congress is concerned with saving and producing jobs across the economic board. Sen. Nelson, it's fair to say, wants to be seen as working to provide alternative employment for those NASA workers who will be let go when the space shuttle program ends-- most of whom live in Florida. There is also an unease in Congress about America having to rely on the Russian Soyuz to put astronauts in space after the shuttle is retired. The quickest way to break that Russian monopoly, it seems, is to encourage the development of private craft.
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