CONFIRMED Senators/Congressman - Complimentary Kennedy Space Center Tickets

[gshumaker]

Here is my story and frustration and NO TICKETS!!!

I read here on DisBoards in the two links below that people were getting complimentary tickets to the Kennedy Space Center from their congressman and/or senator so I thought I'd give it a try too.

Kennedy Space Center - http://www.disboards.com/showthread.php?t=1797157
Complimentary Kennedy Space Center Tickets - http://www.disboards.com/showthread.php?t=1820193

I went to the house.gov website to contact my local rep here in VA and filled out the form online and a week later had not received any reply so I called the local office. The lady here told me to expect to hear something by the next day from they guy that handles setting up tours for them. When I got home that day I had a canned e-mail reply saying thanks for contacting them that they would be in touch which I assume was from the form that I had filled out online

The next day, my wife gets a call at home from a representative in DC saying they know nothing about this and can get us local tours of lots of places in DC including the Kennedy Center. So I call the guy back and he says that the only thing that anyone knows about for KSC was getting tours to VIPs and such.

He was very nice about it and willing to help me out and asked if I could get him some names of other congressman that have done this for their constitutes and he would contact them about it and see what he could do for us.

So I started reviewing these threads and I could see a lot of you were getting tickets and could figure out what state some of you were from based on your profiles but not which reps helped you out for the most part. But I put together a list of the ones I could find and e-mailed it to my congressman's rep and within 30 minutes he had talked to another office and had what he needed. We exchanged a couple of e-mails and within 90 minutes of my e-mail with the list of contacts who had helped others he had faxed my request to NASA's Headquarters.

UPDATE - No tickets for us this year since NASA has given out all the freebies for 2008.

So DisBoarders, here is my challenge to you all to help out everyone else out with this:

If you have received tickets from your congressman and/or senator please respond to this thread with the following:

Which state do you live in?
Which representative helped you out? At least their name and the district if you know it
How did you contact them? house.gov website contact page/phone/etc
What did you end up getting? e-mail/fax/actual tickets/etc.​

I'll may add them to the list below if it is necessary but you you can point the person you are talking to directly to this post to know which of their counterparts in DC they need to contact to see how they are doing it and do it the same for you.

Thanks and GOOD LUCK!!

 

[gshumaker]

How to try to get your complimentary tickets:

Make sure you are contacting someone that represents you in Washington DC. If you don't know who that is try http://www.house.gov/house/MemberWWW_by_State.shtml for your one congressman that represents your local district of your state or http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm for your two state senators.

And please only contact one of these individuals at a time. Contacting all three is a waste of their time. I'd start with your congressman at the house.gov site, they should be the best one and have your best interests since they represent you where the senators are much busier since they represent the entire state. If they can't help them try one of the senators and then the other.

Here is what info you will have to provide to them:

Group Leader’s Name and Contact info
Total Number of People
Children under 11
Dates Requested​

How not to get your complimentary tickets:

Contacting anyone that works in your state capital - they can't help you on this matter since NASA is a federally funded program.
Contacting a congressman or senator from another state. They don't represent you and more than likely don't care if they help you out or not.

 

[gshumaker]

Confirmed congressman/senators that have gotten their constitutes tickets based on what I've read on disboards....

Congressman
Georgia - Tom Price - 6th
Indiana - Steve Buyer -4th
Kentucky - Jim Bunning
Louisiana - Rodney Alexander - 5th
Massachusetts - Bill Delahunt - 10th
Missouri - Roy Blunt
Michigan - Fred Upton - 6th
New York - Mike McNulty -21st
Oklahoma - John Sullivan - 1st
Pennsylvania - Alison Schwartz -13th
Pennsylvania - Jim Gerlach - 6th (has KSC info on his website @ http://gerlach.house.gov/ConstituentServices/capitolbuildingandotherdctours.htm)

Senators
Iowa - Tom Harkin
New York - Hillary Clinton
Oregon - Gordon Smith

 

[gshumaker]

Sounds like no one is getting any more tickets at least for 2008 since NASA has given out all the freebies for this year.

If you are going in 2009 give it a shot and good luck!!

 

[Chelley00]

We got ours from Congressman Steve Buyer of Indiana. I called his local office, who then gave me the number of the Washington office and the aide I needed to talk to. He had never heard of it, but he did some checking and had my confirmation in about a week.

 

[horseshowmom]

Thanks so much for posting this thread. I contacted my senator yesterday but was going to start trying to find who to send him to if he didn't know what I was talking about. This list will save me (and others) some time and trouble.

 

[gshumaker]

Thanks so much for posting this thread. I contacted my senator yesterday but was going to start trying to find who to send him to if he didn't know what I was talking about. This list will save me (and others) some time and trouble.

That is why I put it together - hopefully it will help out a lot of people!!

 

[Wilsonfamily4]

here is my question. We are going in January. Is there a time period these are good for?

 

[gshumaker]

here is my question. We are going in January. Is there a time period these are good for?

If you know your dates, request them now! The tickets that everyone seems to be getting are good for 2 days over a 7 day period after the first use but you must pick them up during the window that you said you would be using them.

I'm just going by what I've read on the threads about this since I'm too still waiting to hear back from Rep Scott's office on this.

 

[bb1955]

I'm from Virginia and I've had no luck yet either!!

 

[misricsmith]

thanks for the list

 

[gshumaker]

I'm from Virginia and I've had no luck yet either!!

who have you contacted?
have they told you anything yet?

 

[bb1955]

Moran and I've heard nothing

 

[margaretCT]

I just heard from my congressman's office in Connecticut. Since NASA recently used up all the allowable tickets for the year, I wonder if it was DIS board effect?

Anyway, I would be interested to hear if anyone gets tickets in the future.

Thank you for contacting Congressman Joe Courtney's office regarding tickets to Kennedy Space Center in Florida, as well as for your patience as we have been awaiting to hear back from NASA.

Unfortunately NASA recently had to stop distributing tickets to Kennedy Space Center through Congressional Offices because all allowable tickets for the year were distributed. NASA still encourages you to visit Kennedy Space Center, and you can find more information from their website at http://www.kennedyspacecenter.com/ were you can explore the different attractions, plan your visit, and purchase tickets in advance.

Please let me know if you have any questions.

 

[dis75ney]

I contacted both of my senators, after realizing that the staff for one of them is probably busy putting together a presidential campaign (Obama) and may not get back to me in time for our trip in October - at the height of campaign season. Surprisingly, his office was the first to respond...

Here was the response:

Good morning,

Hope all is well! Please send your phone number so we can submit your White House tour request. Thanks!

Erick

Haven't heard anything since, but since it took a couple of weeks to get the first response, I'm sure it will take that long to get a response this time...

 

[Jenna45]

I got the same email from Joe's office word for word


QUOTE=margaretCT;25267652]I just heard from my congressman's office in Connecticut. Since NASA recently used up all the allowable tickets for the year, I wonder if it was DIS board effect?

Anyway, I would be interested to hear if anyone gets tickets in the future.

Thank you for contacting Congressman Joe Courtney's office regarding tickets to Kennedy Space Center in Florida, as well as for your patience as we have been awaiting to hear back from NASA.

Unfortunately NASA recently had to stop distributing tickets to Kennedy Space Center through Congressional Offices because all allowable tickets for the year were distributed. NASA still encourages you to visit Kennedy Space Center, and you can find more information from their website at http://www.kennedyspacecenter.com/ were you can explore the different attractions, plan your visit, and purchase tickets in advance.

Please let me know if you have any questions.[/QUOTE]

 

[gshumaker]

It is not sounding very promising for those of us still waiting to here if we got tickets!!!

 

[gshumaker]

I contacted both of my senators, after realizing that the staff for one of them is probably busy putting together a presidential campaign (Obama) and may not get back to me in time for our trip in October - at the height of campaign season. Surprisingly, his office was the first to respond...

Here was the response:

Good morning,

Hope all is well! Please send your phone number so we can submit your White House tour request. Thanks!

Erick

Haven't heard anything since, but since it took a couple of weeks to get the first response, I'm sure it will take that long to get a response this time...

I'm assuming you requested tickets to KSC and not the White House?? I guess his staff is only thinking about one thing right now!!

 

[donnajon]

Lindsey Graham's from SC called today. They didn't know anything about it and didn't sound too interested in finding out. They said that the people able to get them must be on a certain committee. I was able to find one name of a Rep in NC who got the tickets. She looked her up and said she was only on the energy committee. Yeah, must be only energy committee people get the free tickets. Makes sense to me. About as much sense as anything else in Washington!

 

[Halbleib1]

I checked some of my congressmans websites here in PA and it does not mention anything at all about Kennedy Space Center. I see that someone contacted a congressman here in PA and got them though. Thats odd you would think they would all have the same info. Good luck to those of you waiting.