Full Replay: 1st National Space Council Meeting with VP Mike Pence [bestandroiddoubledinheadunit950.blogspot.com]

Full Replay: 1st National Space Council Meeting with VP Mike Pence [bestandroiddoubledinheadunit950.blogspot.com]

Update for 12:44 pm ET: Vice President Mike Pence’s first meeting of the revived National Space Council has ended. You can watch a full replay above.

Pence convened the meeting from the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum’s Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center in Virginia. Acting NASA Administrator Robert Lightfoot will also participate, along with Trump Administration cabinet members and senior officials as well as aerospace industry leaders. There were three panels of speakers covering ongoing civilian space exploration work by Boeing, Lockheed Martin and Orbital ATK; new commercial space projects by SpaceX, Blue Origin and Sierra Nevada Corporation; and presentations on space as a national security asset by former NASA Administrator Mike Griffin, Admiral James Ellis (ret.), a former head of STRATCOM and astronaut Pamela Melroy, DARPA’s former deputy director of the Tactical Technology Office. Here are Pence’s opening comments: 

SpaceX President Gwynne Shotwell spoke during the second panel on commercial spaceflight. She outlined SpaceX’s ongoing work for reusable rockets and spacecraft, including the “Big Falcon Rocket” and “Big Falcon Spaceship,” which the company plans to use to transport humans to Mars, the moon and around the Earth. Watch Shotwell speak here:

Blue Origin CEO Bob Smith gave council members an update on his company’s goals of flying passengers and payloads to space using its suborbital New Shepard rocket and spacecraft, as well as the New Glenn rocket. Smith said Blue Origin, which was founded by Amazon billionaire Jeff Bezos, will begin flying people to space within the next 18 months on New Shepard. The company is also planning to begin testing its new BE-4 rocket engine “soon.” See Smith’s comments here: 

Rounding out the commercial spaceflight panel for the council was Fatih Ozmen, CEO of Sierra Nevada Corporation, which is building the uncrewed Dream Chaser space plane to fly cargo to the International Space Station for NASA. Ozmen stressed the need to extend the life of the ISS as part of a long-term future in space. See his opening remarks here:

The National Space Council was last active in the early 1990s, and this new incarnation, reestablished June 30 by executive order, is also intended to give direction to U.S. space policy. In addition to Pence, the National Space Council’s members include:

• Rex Tillerson, secretary of state;
• James Mattis; secretary of defense;
• Wilbur Ross, secretary of commerce; 
• Elaine Chao, secretary of transportation; 
• Elaine Duke, acting secretary of homeland security;
• Mick Mulvaney, director, Office of Management and Budget; 
• H.R. McMaster, national security advisor; 
• Daniel Coats, director of national intelligence; 
• Robert Lightfoot, acting NASA administrator;
• Michael Kratsios, deputy chief technology officer of the United States; 
• Gen. Paul J. Selva, vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

Space.com managing editor Tariq Malik and senior producer Steve Spaleta contributed to this report.

Email Sarah Lewin at slewin@space.com or follow her @SarahExplains. Follow us @Spacedotcom, Facebook and Google+. Original article on Space.com.

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https://www.space.com/38366-new-national-space-council-meeting-webcast.html Full Replay: 1st National Space Council Meeting with VP Mike Pence

[bestandroiddoubledinheadunit950.blogspot.com]Full Replay: 1st National Space Council Meeting with VP Mike Pence