Tag: Space Policy
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Varda looks to Australia after delays in obtaining US reentry approval
Varda Space Industries says it has reached an agreement with a private range operator in Australia for spacecraft landings as early as next year after the US government declined to grant approval for the reentry of Varda’s first experimental mission carrying pharmaceuticals manufactured in orbit. After years of applications, reviews, and discussion, the Federal Aviation…
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Biden administration renews mandate for National Space Council
President Biden speaks with members of the Perseverance rover team at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory on March 4. Credit: White House photo by Adam Schultz President Biden will renew the National Space Council, a space policy group revived by the Trump White House after 25 years of dormancy, to assist in “generating national space policies,…
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Biden to nominate former Sen. Bill Nelson as NASA administrator
STORY WRITTEN FOR CBS NEWS & USED WITH PERMISSION Sen. Bill Nelson speaks during a Senate hearing in 2012. Credit: NASA/Paul Alers Former Democratic Sen. Bill Nelson, a longtime space advocate whose district included the Kennedy Space Center and who flew aboard the shuttle Columbia in 1986 as a congressional observer, is President Biden’s choice to serve…
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Lawmakers question NASA’s plan for a 2024 moon landing
José Serrano, D-New York, speaks during a hearing Wednesday before the House Appropriations Committee’s subcommittee on commerce, justice, science and related agencies. Credit: NASA/Bill Ingalls Amid questions from lawmakers about the cost of the Trump administration’s proposal to accelerate a human return to the moon’s surface to 2024, the chairman of the House subcommittee responsible…
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Trump reauthorizes U.S. Space Command
Air Force Gen. Jay Raymond, Secretary of Defense Mark Esper, President Donald Trump and Vice President Mike Pence participated in a White House ceremony Thursday to reestablish U.S. Space Command. Credit: Official White House Photo by Tia Dufour President Trump reestablished U.S. Space Command in a White House ceremony Thursday, setting up a unified combatant…
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Trump criticizes NASA over his own administration’s moon program
STORY WRITTEN FOR CBS NEWS & USED WITH PERMISSION President Donald Trump after signing Space Policy Directive 1 on Dec. 11, 2017, directing NASA to return to the moon. Credit: NASA/Aubrey Gemignani In a head-spinning tweet, President Trump blasted NASA on Friday for its plan to return to the moon, a plan set in motion during a…
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Pence rallies Johnson Space Center workers with promise of moon missions
STORY WRITTEN FOR CBS NEWS & USED WITH PERMISSION Vice President Mike Pence speaks to workers Thursday at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston. Credit: NASA/Joel Kowsky In what came across as a combination pep rally and old-time revival, Vice President Mike Pence asked flight controllers, engineers and astronauts at the Johnson Space Center Thursday to “rededicate”…
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Robert Lightfoot, NASA’s longest-serving interim administrator, to retire
NASA Acting Administrator Robert Lightfoot testifies to the House Science Committee’s subcommittee on space March 7. Credit: NASA/Bill Ingalls NASA Acting Administrator Robert Lightfoot, a rocket propulsion engineer and career civil servant who has led the space agency since the beginning of the Trump administration, said Monday he will retire from the space agency at…
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White House emphasizes industry over science in Space Council appointments
Vice President Mike Pence visited a United Launch Alliance hangar Tuesday evening at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, where a Delta 4-Heavy rocket is being readied for liftoff in July. Tory Bruno, ULA’s president and CEO, briefed Pence on the facility. Credit: Stephen Clark/Spaceflight Now A roster of representatives from the commercial space industry, astronauts,…
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President Trump makes moon missions NASA’s near-term goal
STORY WRITTEN FOR CBS NEWS & USED WITH PERMISSION President Trump shows off a new national space policy directive he signed Monday at the White House, putting NASA’s focus on returning astronauts to the moon as a precursor to eventual Mars flights. Standing to Trump’s left, just behind the president’s signature, is Harrison Schmitt, one of the…