“Just like going out in a launch,” Cabana told the photographers and reporters huddled at the end of the walkway.I don’t know Gregory Washington, the president of George Mason University. Kennedy Space Center’s director, Robert Cabana, a former shuttle commander, exited the same way a few minutes earlier, accompanied by NASA’s acting administrator Robert Lightfoot. Flanked by two current astronauts, he walked down the hallway and out the door once used by Apollo and shuttle crews on their way to the pad on launch day. Pence got a treat after touring the Orion processing center. “We will get back to winning in the 21st century and beyond,” he said. As for the moon, President Barack Obama in 2010 canceled the Constellation program, a back-to-the-moon effort championed by his predecessor.Īmerica won the race to the moon in 1969, Pence reminded everyone. NASA is shooting for astronauts at Mars sometime in the 2030s, using Orion, the SLS rocket and other craft. He gave no timelines or details, however, on the administration’s plans for getting astronauts back to the moon and on to Mars. He said that will change and repeatedly called this a new era of American leadership in space. Since then, Pence said, “our government’s commitment” has not matched the level of excitement for space that exists among the general public. Pence said he will convene the National Space Council “before the summer is out.” This is its third reincarnation it was abandoned in 1993 under the Clinton administration. He attended several launches as a congressman and recalled how his son, now a Marine aviator, was inspired by seeing a liftoff up close.
This wasn’t Pence’s first visit to Cape Canaveral. Boeing and SpaceX are working to change that with their own crew capsules.Īpollo 11 moonwalker Buzz Aldrin was in attendance Thursday, as were Florida’s senators, Bill Nelson and Marco Rubio. It is NASA’s launch hub, but hasn’t seen any astronaut takeoffs since the shuttles retired in 2011. Florida’s Kennedy was the second stop on his grand NASA tour. Last month, Pence visited Johnson Space Center in Houston to help introduce America’s newest astronauts. “I was praying for rain at the Kennedy Space Center so we might see that rocket go up today,” he said. Pence said he was sorry to have missed the launch. On Wednesday night, SpaceX successfully launched a Falcon rocket with a communications satellite, and so the pad was empty Thursday. He was driven past the former shuttle launch pad that will serve as the departure point for SLS flights, as well as the pad from which astronauts rocketed to the moon and space shuttles soared, now leased by SpaceX. Later, Pence got to see an Orion spacecraft being prepared for flight in 2019 atop NASA’s as-yet-unflown megarocket, the SLS or Space Launch System. The backdrop included three capsules: the first SpaceX Dragon to carry supplies to the International Space Station, NASA’s Orion that flew into space on a test flight, and a training version of Boeing’s Starliner crew vessel. The highlight of Pence’s afternoon tour - his second NASA stop in as many months - was his address to approximately 1,200 people inside the massive Vehicle Assembly Building, once used to stack moon rockets and space shuttles.
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