Tag: Donald Trump

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Trump reactivates National Space Council

Trump with executive order
President Donald Trump shows off an executive order reviving the National Space Council. NASA astronaut Alvin Drew, Apollo 11 moonwalker Buzz Aldrin and Vice President Mike Pence, the council’s chairman, are at far right. (Shannon Augustus / C-SPAN via Twitter)

After months of foreshadowing, President Donald Trump today signed an executive order to revive the National Space Council, a move that’s likely to open the way for space policy changes that have been largely put on hold during the White House transition.

The order was signed at a White House ceremony on the eve of a long Fourth of July weekend. Among those in attendance: members of Congress, Boeing’s Dennis Muilenburg and other aerospace executives, and astronauts including Apollo 11 moonwalker Buzz Aldrin.

“Today’s announcement sends a clear signal to the world that we are restoring America’s proud legacy of leadership in space,” Trump said.

Vice President Mike Pence will serve as the council’s chairman, and the members will include top-level administration officials including Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, Defense Secretary James Mattis, the heads of the Commerce, Transportation and Homeland Security departments and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

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Elon Musk: I’ll dump Trump over climate pact

Elon Musk, the CEO of SpaceX and Tesla, has long voiced climate concerns. (Tesla via YouTube)

Tech billionaire Elon Musk says he’ll have no choice but to leave his posts on the White House’s advisory councils if President Donald Trump decides to withdraw from the landmark Paris climate accord.

Multiple news reports, attributed to unnamed administration officials, suggest that Trump is leaning toward doing just that – although there may be some added “caveats” that complicate the outcome.

Musk, a strong proponent of a revenue-neutral carbon tax, said he’s been urging the president to abide by the Paris pact, which calls on nations to reduce their carbon emissions in accordance with voluntary plans.

“Don’t know which way Paris will go, but I’ve done all I can to advise directly to POTUS [president of the United States], through others in WH [White House] and via councils, that we remain,” Musk tweeted.

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UPDATE: Trump nixed the pact, and Musk dumped Trump.

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Trump puts quake alert on shaky ground

ShakeAlert graphic
A simulation shows the kind of alert that would be generated by an 8.0 quake. (PNSN via YouTube)

The Trump administration wants to eliminate federal support for the West Coast’s ShakeAlert earthquake warning system, but its backers in Congress won’t let it go without a fight.

“Defunding the earthquake early warning system isn’t just irresponsible – it’s dangerous,” Rep. Derek Kilmer, D-Wash., told GeekWire in an emailed statement.

“This is about giving people a warning of an earthquake or a tsunami.  A few precious seconds of warning can be the difference between life and death for a child in a school on the coast or a physician doing surgery in a local hospital,” Kilmer said. “This cut to public safety is just plain wrong, so we’re going to fight for a budget that doesn’t put people at risk.”

ShakeAlert was pioneered in California, but in April the monitoring and alert system was extended to Oregon and Washington state, where seismologists say there’s the potential for a catastrophic magnitude-9 quake nicknamed the Really Big One.

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Trump calls for speeding up trips to Mars

Trump in Oval Office
President Donald Trump chats with astronauts on the International Space Station from his desk in the White House’s Oval Office, flanked by NASA astronaut Kate Rubins on the left and Ivanka Trump on the right. (White House via YouTube)

Humans on Mars by 2024? President Donald Trump set that time frame today, almost certainly in jest, during a congratulatory video call to the International Space Station and its record-setting commander, NASA astronaut Peggy Whitson.

The purpose of the orbital linkup from the Oval Office was to recognize Whitson’s new status as the U.S. record-holder for most cumulative time in space – “534 days and counting,” Trump noted.

But the topic soon turned to Mars, and how soon humans would be journeying to the Red Planet. When Trump asked Whitson what the time frame was, Whitson noted that the bill he signed into law last month called for the journeys to begin in the 2030s.

“Well, we want to try and do it during my first term, or at worst during my second term,” Trump replied. “So we’ll have to speed that up a little bit, OK?”

“We’ll do our best,” Whitson said, amid smiles and laughter.

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Stratospheric protest aimed at Donald Trump

Protest tweet
A protest tweet is suspended from a balloon in the stratosphere. (ASAN via YouTube)

If someone can send a Donald Trump bobblehead tribute up into the stratosphere on a balloon, we suppose it’s only fair that a protest of President Trump’s policies can go up there, too. That’s what the totally unofficial Autonomous Space Agency Network did with its Aphrodite Program balloon launch of a printed-out tweet that’s addressed to Trump. The message? “LOOK AT THAT, YOU SON OF A BITCH,” with our beautiful planet seen in the background from a height of 90,000 feet. The command was inspired by the late Apollo astronaut Edgar Mitchell.

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Richard Branson fears Trump will ‘blow it’

Richard Branson
Richard Branson isn’t shy about his political views. (GeekWire Photo / John Cook)

Virgin Atlantic founder Richard Branson is clearly unhappy with President Donald Trump – and he thinks that a different sort of business leader, such as former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, would have been much better for America.

But the way Branson sees it, even Bloomberg may have a problem now.

“There is a danger that Trump will have blown it for any business person to ever follow into the White House,” Branson told GeekWire today during an exclusive interview in Seattle. “I hope not, because I think there are lots of extraordinarily good entrepreneurial types of business people out there, both male and female, who would make very good presidents.”

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Elon Musk isn’t smiling over NASA legislation

Elon Musk
Elon Musk has his sights set on going to Mars. (SpaceX via YouTube)

President Donald Trump may be beaming over a newly signed law that calls on NASA to look into sending astronauts to Mars by 2033, but not Elon Musk.

SpaceX’s billionaire CEO is aiming to put his fortune behind a push to send up to a million settlers to Mars, starting as early as the mid-2020s.

In a back-and-forth series of tweets with Recode’s Kara Swisher, Musk made clear that he’s looking for much more than words from the federal government when it comes to Mars missions.

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Trump signs off on NASA’s Mars agenda

Donald Trump signs NASA bill
Flanked by astronauts Chris Cassidy and Tracy Caldwell Dyson, President Donald Trump shows off a flight jacket he was given after signing a NASA authorization bill into law. (NASA Photo / Bill Ingalls)

President Donald Trump today signed legislation laying out the broad agenda for NASA’s journey to Mars – but not to a near-Earth asteroid – and signaled that Vice President Mike Pence would revive a panel to oversee U.S. policy beyond Earth.

“In very short order, the president will be taking action to relaunch the National Space Council, and he’s asked me to chair that, as vice presidents have in the past,” Pence said during the Oval Office signing ceremony. “And we’re going to be bringing together the best and the brightest in NASA and also in the private sector.”

As Pence was speaking, Trump nodded his head and said, “Right.”

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Boeing exec named as deputy defense chief

Pat Shanahan
Boeing executive Pat Shanahan speaks at the opening of the company’s Seattle Delivery Center in 2015. (GeekWire Photo / Jacob Demmitt)

President Donald Trump today announced his intent to nominate longtime Boeing executive Patrick Shanahan as deputy secretary of defense, the Pentagon’s No. 2 civilian spot.

Shanahan, 54, currently oversees Boeing’s manufacturing operations and supplier management functions as senior vice president for supply chain and operations. He’s the chair of the University of Washington’s Board of Regents, a UW engineering grad and a member of the Washington Roundtable.

His background also includes management roles for the 737, 747, 767, 777 and 787 commercial airline programs, as well as work with Boeing Missile Defense Systems.

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Scientists sound alarm over Trump’s budget

Helion Energy tour
Helion Energy CEO David Kirtley shows off a prototype for a fusion reactor during Washington Gov. Jay Inslee’s visit to Helion’s headquarters in Redmond, Wash. The research is funded in part by the U.S. Department of Energy’s ARPA-E program, which is slated for elimination. (Jay Inslee via Flickr)

Today’s White House outline for a “skinny budget” covering $1.15 trillion in discretionary spending aims a sharp blow at federally funded research on topics ranging from agriculture to zoonotic diseases – and is prompting sharp responses from researchers as a result.

Among those hardest hit would be the Environmental Protection Agency and the National Institutes of Health. The EPA would be in for a 31 percent overall cutback, and research into climate would be eliminated. NIH’s $31.7 billion budget would be reduced by 18 percent.

Spending for the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Science would be reduced by nearly 20 percent. The Energy Department’s Advanced Research Projects Agency, or ARPA-E, which is funding fusion research at Helion Energy in Redmond, Wash., would be completely eliminated.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Sea Grant program, which funds marine research and outreach at the University of Washington, would face the same grim fate.

The “America First” budget blueprint released by the Office of Management and Budget calls for reductions across a wide spectrum of agencies in order to balance big increases for defense and border enforcement, including a wall along the U.S. border with Mexico.

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