White House « Space Politics

The task force and one reaction

By Jeff Foust on 2010 May 5 at 6:57 am ET

Late Monday the White House issued a memo formally creating the “Task Force on Space Industry WorkForce and Economic Development”. (The memo itself did not appear on the White House web site until Tuesday, or at least very late Monday night.) As Florida Today reported Sunday, the task force will be co-chaired by NASA Administrator […]

Olson: “willing to work” with the White House on NASA

By Jeff Foust on 2010 April 23 at 3:37 am ET

Congressman Pete Olson (R-TX), who has expressed his strong opposition to the administration’s new plan for NASA, said Thursday he would be willing to talk with the White House to fashion some kind of compromise. “I just want the opportunity to sit down and talk with the administration and work though some of the things,” […]

Another step forward for export control reform

By Jeff Foust on 2010 April 21 at 12:52 pm ET

On Tuesday the administration took another step forward in efforts to reform export control policy in the US, a source of considerable distress for many in the space industry. The goal of the new plan, as laid out in a speech by Secretary of Defense Robert Gates in a speech, is to simplify the current […]

Additional reaction to the president’s speech

By Jeff Foust on 2010 April 16 at 5:54 pm ET

While published Congressional responses tended to be more negative than positive, the opposite was true in responses from companies and other organizations, although not without some caveats. Not surprisingly, SpaceX founder Elon Musk—who got to give the president a brief tour of the company’s facilities at Cape Canaveral prior to the speech—was pleased with the […]

The speech and some “instant analysis”

By Jeff Foust on 2010 April 15 at 4:41 pm ET

While a few hundred people got to see President Obama speak in person about NASA and his new plan for the agency at the Kennedy Space Center, I sat in a far larger audience at the National Space Symposium in Colorado Springs to watch a video of the speech. Some highlights:

For those who wanted […]

White House responds to Armstrong criticism

By Jeff Foust on 2010 April 15 at 7:39 am ET

While what Neil Armstrong and two other astronauts wrote in a letter this week about NASA’s new exploration plan—concerns about loss of prestige have been raised in many quarters—that fact that the publicity-shy moonwalker put his name to it got enough attention that it came up during Wednesday’s White House press briefing. Press secretary Robert […]

Bolden: President “strongly committed” to future in space

By Jeff Foust on 2010 April 14 at 12:52 pm ET

One of the highlights of yesterday’s National Space Symposium sessions was a speech by NASA administrator Charles Bolden at the beginning of the morning session. (His speech had been scheduled for Thursday afternoon, but moved up after the White House announced plans for a space conference in Florida that day.) It was unlikely that he […]

Additional notes about the revised plan and other developments

By Jeff Foust on 2010 April 14 at 8:50 am ET

The White House released late yesterday a fact sheet about the new space exploration plan, an amalgam of details from the budget proposal released in February as well as the changes announced yesterday. “Our goal is to take advantage of the best work undertaken in the Constellation program,” it states in the section about Orion, […]

Obama’s visit, his speech, and growing support

By Jeff Foust on 2010 April 10 at 10:21 am ET

With few officials details released yet about next Thursday’s space conference at KSC, the space community is seizing upon any bit of information about the event. That was the case yesterday when Florida Today reported that, according to the White House, President Obama will spend only two hours at KSC on the 15th, arriving at […]

Differing predictions for April 15

By Jeff Foust on 2010 April 6 at 6:29 am ET

With still few details publicly announced about next Thursday’s presidential space conference at the Kennedy Space Center, there’s no shortage of speculation and predictions about what may be announced there. On SpaceRef Keith Cowing sees signs of a compromise that would preserve Orion in a scaled-down “Orion Lite” version, along with a shuttle sidemount HLV […]

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