Quick comparison between Obama's space policy speech on Thursday and Kennedy's Moon speech

Counting words in a speech isn't the same as analyzing content. However, it does provide some quick and interesting clues, especially when contrasted with speeches of similar scope and ambition. That's why I love Wordle. Here's a quick comparison between Obama's space policy address at Kennedy Space Center on Thursday, April 15 and Kennedy's "Moon" speech at Rice University.

Obama's Address on Thursday

Kennedy's famous Moon speech

Some quick observations:

"Jobs" appears more often than "research" and "science" combined. Floridians are really, really worried about jobs post-shuttle, post-Constellation. There's a $40 million jobs program in NASA's proposed budget.

Also, "want" appears 17 times. About half are from acknowledgments to politicians up for reelection, and half are aspirations for the space program. I don't know whether it's a speech habit he has, or if it really does reflect the vague, not-quite-strongly-held ambitions Obama has for US space exploraton.

Contrast that with Kennedy's address at Rice University outlining the Apollo program, where he prefers using the word "must". Also, Kennedy prominently uses timeframes, emphasizes firsts, and places the program as part of a historical trend toward progress, while Obama sticks to the “future”, whatever that may bring.

In other words, Obama’s proposed space agenda remains far more vague than the speech outlining the Apollo program.

But context is important. This isn’t the Cold War, and despite the trumpeting of the March jobs figures (which look less exciting when you take away part-time Census jobs), a lot of Americans remain in severe economic distress. Given the context and appropriately limited objectives, it perhaps deserves the somewhat positive response by actors and analysts in the space industry, and predictably negative reaction from certain members of Congress.

The tone was definitely different between the two speeches, as well as the reputation each president had in the space community prior to their respective addresses. It deserves more analysis, but I need to write up the DWP stuff first.