While it looks like she did a lot of work on Obama's position paper, that's about as likely as John Logsdon, Raoul.

While a strong space supporter and analyst, Lori's more academic and political, and shei has no engineering or industry experience.

Usually the pool is unknown to those outside, as the candidates come from industry. Undoubtedly both staffs will have their own head-hunters working this, something lilke what commercial firms do. The Senators and Representative from key space states will also be putting forth their candidates.

And undoubtedly the aerospace firms will do some promotion of their favorites, as Thiokol did with Griffin. Of course no one wants to lose their best senior managers.

But you have the lobbyists quietly working away in the background, and my guess is that Thiokol will heavily support McCain.

Would Lori and Logsdon consult with Obama's team? That seems likely.

An outside possibility is that perhaps after the Nova Columbia special some folks from NASA may be in the pool as well.

Whoever they are, they will go through a background vetting as well.