TAMPA – Barack Obama launched a new national television ad today that prominently features Apollo Astronauts as Obama recounts how they inspired his early days. In the 60-second ad entitled “Buster,” Obama speaks directly to the camera about the lessons he learned from the early space program and what it taught him about America.

The ad is the first by either presidential candidate to highlight the space program. Obama has pledged to increase NASA funding to save Florida jobs and maintain America’s leadership in space. Senator McCain has pledged to freeze discretionary spending in his first year, which would negatively impact the space program.

To draw attention to the growing space gap between the candidates, Obama’s Campaign for Change teamed up with the Space Coast Labor Council yesterday to phone bank Space Coast residents and contrast Obama’s plans to invest in the region with McCain’s spending freeze. Prior to the phonebank, the campaign held a press conference with two workers recently laid off at Cape Canaveral. Rick Rinaldi, 58, and Kelvin Davis, 43, explained that they’d both been the victim of “budget cuts,” and were concerned about supporting their families and maintaining their quality of life. Davis told reporters of Obama’s plan to invest in saving Space Coast jobs, “my family and other families that have been affected by these layoffs, an these cut backs, would highly appreciate it. and would like it.” Rinaldi added of McCain’s plan to freeze spending, “how can you grow jobs if you are freezing government spending?”

The new Obama television spot can be found HERE. It is running in Florida and other key battleground states.

The ad script follows:

I’m Barack Obama and I approve this message.

BO: One of my earliest memories going with my grandfather to see some of the astronauts brought back after a splashdown, sitting on his shoulders waving a little American flag. And my grandfather would say you know boy American’s we can do anything that we put our minds to.

VO: His grandfather fought in Patton’s army, his grandmother worked on a bomber assembly line. But it was his mother who would see in him a promise.

BO: My mother said to herself, my son he’s an American and he needs to understand what that means. She’d wake me up at 4:30 in the morning and we’d sit there and go through my lessons. And I’d complain and grumble and she’d say this is no picnic for me either buster.

VO: His life was shaped by the values he learned as a boy.

BO: Hard work, honesty, self-reliance, respect for other people, kindness, faith. That’s the country I believe in.