Tag: Donald Trump

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Boeing wins $3.9B for new-look Air Force One jets

Air Force One
President Donald Trump salutes officials and military officers in April 2018 after disembarking from Air Force One in Key West, Fla. (White House Photo / Shealah Craighead)

The White House has confirmed that Boeing won a firm, fixed-price contract from the U.S. Air Force to deliver two Air Force One presidential jets for $3.9 billion, more than a year and a half after a purported price tag of $4 billion became a sore point for then-President-Elect Donald Trump.

And Trump says these will be jets of a different color.

In today’s statement, White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said the contract was formally awarded on July 17. The statement also claimed that the deal represented a savings of more than $1.4 billion when compared with an initial proposal for a $5.3 billion cost-plus contract.

“President Donald J. Trump has emphasized the need to minimize the cost of replacing the two existing Air Force One aircraft,” the statement read. “Yesterday’s action meets that objective and reflects the president’s commitment to our military and to protecting taxpayer dollars.”

In reality, the price for the Air Force One replacement project has been squishy.

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Trump directs Pentagon to create Space Force

Trump and Pence
President Donald Trump speaks at a White House meeting of the National Space Council, with Vice President Mike Pence standing beside him and Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao sitting in the background. (White House / NASA via YouTube)

President Donald Trump today directed the Department of Defense to create a Space Force as the sixth branch of the U.S. military, alongside the Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines and Coast Guard.

“We are going to have the Air Force and we are going to have the Space Force, separate but equal,” Trump said at a White House meeting of the National Space Council. “It is going to be something so important.”

He called on Marine Gen. Joseph Dunford, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, to carry out the assignment — and Dunford, a member of the council, accepted the job on the spot.

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Trump signs off on space deregulation directive

White House signing
President Donald Trump holds up Space Policy Directive 2 in the Oval Office, with Vice President Mike Pence at left. Standing at right are Scott Pace, executive secretary of the National Space Council; and Jared Stout, the council’s deputy executive secretary and chief of staff. (White House Photo / Shealah Craighead)

President Donald Trump has signed his administration’s second space policy directive, focusing on streamlining licensing procedures and turning the Commerce Department into a “one-stop shop” for commercial space companies.

Space Policy Directive 2 follows up on an initial directive that refocuses America’s space exploration vision on the moon, Scott Pace, executive secretary of the White House’s National Space Council, told reporters in advance of today’s signing.

Pace noted that NASA will be working with commercial partners to establish an outpost in lunar orbit and extend operations to the moon’s surface. “The Trump administration’s actions on space mean investments in high-tech, middle-class and blue-collar jobs that fuel our economy and secure our future,” he said.

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Trump revives policy debate over Space Force

Trump at Miramar
President Donald Trump addresses a military audience at Marine Corps Air Station Miramar in California. (White House via Facebook)

President Donald Trump today talked about creating a U.S. Space Force, breathing new life into a concept that’s been proposed by lawmakers but opposed by Pentagon leaders.

The subject of space policy came up during the president’s visit to Marine Corps Air Station Miramar in California, while he was addressing a crowd of Marines. His comments had an off-the-cuff tone, and made it sound as if creating a military service focused on defending the space frontier was his idea.

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NASA budget plan boosts private space sector

Image: International Space Station
The International Space Station has been continuously occupied since 2000. (NASA photo)

The White House’s proposed five-year budget plan would provide a bigger boost to commercial space efforts, including a potential handover of operations on the International Space Station by 2025 and private-sector moon landings.

It also calls for zeroing out funding for some high-profile Earth science missions, such as the Earth-watching DSCOVR satellite and the next Orbiting Carbon Observatory.

NASA’s $8.8 billion James Webb Space Telescope is still go for launch next year, and the budget supports the launch of a mission in the 2020s to study Europa, a moon of Jupiter that’s thought to harbor a subsurface ocean and perhaps life. But the next-next-generation WFIRST space telescope would be canceled.

During a “State of NASA” address delivered at Marshall Space Flight Center in Alabama, acting administrator Robert Lightfoot said eliminating WFIRST was one of the “hard decisions” that had to be made. He said the space agency would be “taking those resources and redirecting them to other agency priorities.”

Lightfoot said another hard decision would result in the elimination of NASA’s Office of Education.

Overall, NASA would receive $19.9 billion for the fiscal year beginning in October, thanks to a prior budget agreement already passed by Congress. That’s $400 million above current levels, with more than half of that money set aside for exploration programs aimed at the moon and eventually Mars.

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What Donald Trump said (and didn’t say) about tech

Donald Trump
President Donald Trump delivers his State of the Union Address to Congress with Vice President Mike Pence and House Speaker Paul Ryan in the background. (White House Photo)

Immigration, tax cuts and crime loomed large in President Donald Trump’s first State of the Union Address, but technology and innovation went unmentioned tonight during a speech that lasted nearly an hour and a half.

The word “science” was used once, toward the end, when Trump paid tribute to the American people. “They push the bounds of science and discovery,” he said.

There was no mention of space exploration, as there was when Trump addressed Congress last year soon after taking office. The impacts of climate change, artificial intelligence and automation — trends that are already reshaping the nation and the world — went unaddressed. Not a word was spoken about the internet or net (non-)neutrality.

Such omissions didn’t sit well with science policy experts such as Rush Holt, a former Democratic congressman who now serves as the CEO of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

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To the moon! Trump puts his spin on space policy

Trump and space policy directive
Apollo 17 astronaut Harrison Schmitt gives an astronaut figurine to President Donald Trump after the signing of Space Policy Directive 1. Among the onlookers at far right are Apollo 11 astronaut Buzz Aldrin and NASA astronaut Peggy Whitson, who holds the U.S. record for cumulative time spent in space. A sample of lunar rock collected during Apollo 17 sits on Trump’s table. (White House via YouTube)

President Donald Trump today signed a space policy directive that calls on NASA to establish an outpost on the moon and send astronauts onward to Mars and beyond, but leaves the “how” and the “how much” for later.

Trump invoked the legacy of the Apollo space program during the Oval Office signing ceremony. And to emphasize that connection, the White House brought in Harrison “Jack” Schmitt, the former senator and astronaut who was part of the last Apollo mission in 1972.

“Today, we pledge that he will not be the last, and I suspect we’ll be finding other places to land in addition to the moon,” Trump said. “What do you think, Jack?”

“Yes, we should,” Schmitt replied. “Learn from the moon.”

The memorandum known as Space Policy Directive 1 codifies the moon as NASA’s next big target for human spaceflight. That policy reverses President Barack Obama’s 2010 decision to focus on visiting a near-Earth asteroid, and is more in line with the back-to-the-moon vision that President George W. Bush laid out in 2004.

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Boeing and China seal $37B in airplane deals

Xi and Trump
Chinese President Xi Jinping and President Donald Trump greet children in Beijing. (White House Photo)

With President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping looking on, Boeing and China Aviation Supplies Holding Co. today signed an agreement for the purchase of 300 airplanes valued at more than $37 billion.

The agreement provided a public relations boost to all sides: Trump and Boeing could herald a win for U.S. exports, while Xi could soften China’s image in the minds of the American public and policymakers.

“China is a valued customer and key partner, and we’re proud that Boeing airplanes will be a part of its fleet growth for years to come,” Kevin McAllister, president and CEO of Boeing Commercial Airplanes, said in a statement. “Boeing and China have a strong history of working together based on great mutual respect, and these orders build on that foundation.”

But Boeing didn’t say how many of the 260 single-aisle and 40 twin-aisle airplanes were the subject of previous agreements, repackaged for public consumption. Bloomberg News quoted unnamed sources as saying that most of the planes were in fact parts of deals going back to 2013.

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President Trump disbands 2 business councils

White House panel
President Donald Trump convenes a meeting of the White House Strategic and Policy Forum in April. (White House via YouTube)

President Donald Trump says he’s disbanding two of his business advisory councils, focusing on manufacturing as well as strategy and policy.

The move comes amid a wave of criticism and resignations sparked by last weekend’s deadly violence at a white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Va.

The Strategic and Policy Forum reportedly decided to disband today even before Trump’s announcement, which was issued via Twitter.

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Air Force One discount deal goes through

Air Force One
An Air Force One 747 jet flies over the Statue of Liberty. (DOD Photo)

The U.S. Air Force says it’s getting a good deal on two Boeing 747s that were built for a now-bankrupt Russian airline and will now be converted into presidential Air Force One jets.

However, it’s not saying exactly how good the deal is, at Boeing’s insistence.

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