Tag: Politics
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Relativity Space CEO provides Congress with a teaser for his stealthy rocket venture
Relativity Space CEO Tim Ellis testifies at a Senate subcommittee hearing about commercial space vehicles (U.S. Senate via SpaceKSCBlog / YouTube) The hush-hush space startup Relativity Space is still in stealth mode, but CEO and co-founder Tim Ellis lifted the veil just a bit on the company’s business plan and eight-figure funding today in Washington,…
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NASA says it’s OK for VP Mike Pence to touch that hardware marked ‘Do Not Touch’
Even Vice President Mike Pence couldn’t resist tweeting a Photoshopped version of the “Do Not Touch” photo snapped during his visit to Kennedy Space Center. (@VP Mike Pence via Twitter) You know that viral photo of Vice President Mike Pence putting his hand on a piece of space hardware marked with a “Do Not Touch”…
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Vice President Mike Pence vows return to moon and ‘boots on Mars’ in NASA speech
Vice President Mike Pence addresses a gathering at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida with a prototype Orion spaceship as a backdrop. (NASA via YouTube) Vice President Mike Pence, the newly minted chairman of a revived National Space Council, said today that President Donald Trump is committed to a return to the moon and a…
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President Trump’s budget plan gets a bad review from the science community
President Donald Trump is calling for significant cuts in science spending. (Flickr / Gage Skidmore) President Donald Trump sent his budget request for the next fiscal year to Congress today, giving the science community a glimpse of what may be to come – and many don’t like what they see. The budget proposal cuts funding for most research…
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Blue Origin and other space companies urge Congress to boost FAA’s funding
Blue Origin’s New Shepard prototype spaceship blasts off in January 2016. (Blue Origin Photo) When senators asked executives from Blue Origin and other commercial space ventures what they could do to help them at a Senate hearing today, they received an unusual reply: Give more money to the regulators at the Federal Aviation Administration. “”It may…
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In video call to space station, President Donald Trump calls for speeding up trips to Mars
President Donald Trump chats with astronauts on the International Space Station from his desk in the White House’s Oval Office, flanked by NASA astronaut Kate Rubins on the left and Ivanka Trump on the right. (White House via YouTube) Humans on Mars by 2024? President Donald Trump set that time frame today, almost certainly in…
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Donald Trump gets an astronaut’s words thrown in his face from stratosphere
If someone can send a Donald Trump bobblehead tribute up into the stratosphere on a balloon, we suppose it’s only fair that a protest of President Trump’s policies can go up there, too. That’s what the totally unofficial Autonomous Space Agency Network did with its Aphrodite Program balloon launch of a printed-out tweet that’s addressed to…
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SpaceX’s Elon Musk isn’t smiling over NASA authorization for Mars missions
Elon Musk has his sights set on going to Mars. (SpaceX via YouTube) President Donald Trump may be beaming over a newly signed law that calls on NASA to look into sending astronauts to Mars by 2033, but not Elon Musk. SpaceX’s billionaire CEO is aiming to put his fortune behind a push to send up to…
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Why choose to go to the moon? Trump changes commercial space calculations
An artist’s conception shows Bigelow Aerospace’s lunar depot in orbit. (Bigelow Aerospace) Nearly 55 years ago, President John F. Kennedy said America chose to go to the moon and take on other challenges “not because they are easy, but because they are hard.” Now it’s commercial space ventures that are choosing to go to the…
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Jeff Bezos and Blue Origin propose ‘Amazon-like’ delivery to the moon in 2020
Jeff Bezos shows off the concept for Blue Origin’s New Glenn launch system during a 2015 news conference in Florida. The rocket could reportedly be adapted for moon missions. (Blue Origin Photo) Amazon billionaire Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin space venture has reportedly proposed sending a robotic lander to the moon’s south polar region by 2020,…