Republican Presidential candidate and former Florida governor Jeb Bush told a New Hampshire newspaper yesterday that he is a “space guy” who would increase funding for NASA.

During an interview with the New Hampshire Union Leader in Manchester, NH, which was televised by C-Span, Bush was asked what he would do about NASA funding. He replied: “Up! Up! I’m a space guy. I think we need to be aspirational as a country.” He went on to support investment in research and development (R&D) in general as the proper role of the government: “We should spend less on the here and now, and more on these long term things because no one else will do it.”

The exchange comes at 44 minutes into an almost hour-long discussion of the broad range of issues facing any presidential candidate. As a former Florida governor, it is not unexpected that he has given some thought to the space program. What’s surprising is that the Union Leader would ask him about it. Space activities usually are, at best, a tangential issue in presidential campaigns and New Hampshire is not one of the prominent states with space industries or NASA centers.

One might hope that the Union Leader will ask all the presidential candidates about their views on space, but the newspaper’s own write-up of the Bush interview did not mention the exchange about NASA or R&D.