President Obama’s Visit and Speech at Cape Canaveral Was Closed to NASA Employees-Fiction!
Summary of eRumor:
This is a forwarded email about President Obama’s visit to the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida that took place on April 15, 2010. The President delivered a speech on the future of the Space Program to an audience of 200 invited guests. The eRumor said that not one person in the audience was a space worker nor were they permitted to view the President’s motorcade.
The Truth:
A spokesperson for the Kennedy Space Center told TruthOrFiction.com that NASA employees were present along the route of the motorcade when President Obama visited the Space Port on April 15, 2010 . He said that there were security protocols in place for the President’s protection which included the locking down of the Operations and Checkout Building where he spoke but no other buildings in the Space Facility were locked down to prevent employees from exiting to view the motorcade.
After a historic tour of the facility, the President spoke to a selected group of 200 guests, according to an April 16, 2010 article by Florida Today. The article said that Obama spoke at the Operations and Checkout Building to a gathered crowd that “included congressional legislators, NASA astronauts, senior NASA and contractor managers, people from space policy and advocacy groups, and community leaders.” Click for article
In a similar report on April 15, 2010 the Newsbusters website posted video of NBC correspondent Jay Barbree reporting on the speech from the Space Center saying, “He is speaking before 200, extra hundred people here today only. It’s invitation only. He has not invited a single space worker from this space port to attend. It’s only academics and other high officials from outside of the country. Not one of them is invited to hear the President of the United States, on their own space port, speak today.”
This appears to be either a letter by a disgruntled space worker or someone who is not a fan of the present administration.
updated 5/17/10