Tag: Maria Cantwell

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Milestone moon mission gets a boost from the Northwest

Sen. Maria Cantwell and L3Harris' Brent Urke pointing to a model of Orion space vehicle at L3Harris' Redmond facility
Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., and Brent Urke, program manager for L3Harris’ facility in Redmond, Wash., check out a model of the Orion spaceship that’s due to take four astronauts around the moon as early as this week. Cantwell is pointing to the model’s set of eight R-4D thrusters. An actual R-4D thruster, manufactured in Redmond, is sitting on the table at far left. (GeekWire Photo / Alan Boyle)

NASA’s most powerful rocket is due to send four astronauts on a round-the-moon journey as early as this week, and although the launch team has to make sure everything goes right in Florida, the mission’s success will also depend on hardware that was built in the Seattle area.

During a visit to two of the contractors for NASA’s Artemis moon program, U.S. Sen. Maria Cantwell said that when it comes to spaceflight, it’s important to get the little things right.

“A lot of people think, ‘Oh, well, we know how to build big rockets,’ right?” the Washington state Democrat said at Karman Space & Defense’s manufacturing facility in Mukilteo, Wash. “But do we know how to separate payloads and return them, and do all of that? That’s what we’re doing here in Puget Sound. … I think that’s the untold story that people don’t understand.”

NASA’s big story will focus on the first humans to go from the Earth to the moon since the Apollo 17 mission in 1972. Artemis 2’s crew won’t land on the lunar surface during what’s expected to be a 10-day mission. But because their figure-8 route takes them 4,700 miles beyond the moon’s far side, they’ll set a new distance record for human travel beyond Earth.

The first opportunity for liftoff from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida is scheduled for 6:24 p.m. ET (3:24 p.m. PT) on April 1, with backup dates available through April 6. NASA plans to provide live video coverage of the countdown and launch via YouTube, starting at 12:50 p.m. ET (9:50 a.m. PT) on launch day.

This will be the second launch for NASA’s Space Launch System rocket, which sent an uncrewed Orion space capsule around the moon for the Artemis 1 test mission in 2022. The Artemis 2 crew — including NASA astronauts Reid Wiseman, Christina Koch, Victor Glover and Canadian astronaut Jeremy Hansen — will be the first people to ride an Orion into space.

If all goes according to plan, Artemis 2 will clear the way for NASA to test the lunar landers built by Elon Musk’s SpaceX and Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin space ventures in 2027, then for Artemis 3 to put astronauts on the surface of the moon in 2028. And that’s just the start.

“Ultimately, Artemis is about returning to the moon and building a permanent moon base that can then be used for accelerating our travel to Mars,” Cantwell said.

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Whistleblower report raises NASA safety concerns

NASA logo sign at headquarters building
NASA's "Worm" logo sign is unveiled at the space agency's headquarters in 2023. (NASA Photo / Joel Kowsky)

U.S. Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., today released a report that quotes NASA whistleblowers as saying they’ve “already seen safety impacts” affecting the space agency, due to budget cuts that are canceling out previously appropriated funding.

One whistleblower is quoted as voicing concern “that we’re going to see an astronaut death within a few years” because of the Trump administration’s “chainsaw approach.”

“Like other premier science agencies, NASA has thrived on consistent, bipartisan investments, which are essential to America’s economic prosperity and technological supremacy. But today, NASA faces an existential threat under the Trump administration,” the report says.

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Tech leaders explore new public policy frontiers for AI

U.S. Sen. Maria Cantwell and AI2's Chris Emura
Sen. Maria Cantwell gets a briefing from Chris Emura of the Allen Institute for Artificial Intelligence. (GeekWire Photo / Alan Boyle)

ChatGPT and other next-generation strains of artificial intelligence have revolutionized the tech world over the past year, and policymakers are ramping up their efforts to respond.

U.S. Sen. Maria Cantwell, the Washington state Democrat who chairs the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee, says the situation reminds her of the way the G.I. Bill opened up opportunities for veterans returning home from World War II.

“Now, instead of a G.I. Bill, we need an AI education bill,” she said today during a Future of AI Forum conducted in downtown Seattle. “We need a bill that says, how do we educate for the future, given the impacts of AI? How do we offer the training and the skill set so people can adapt now in the workplace?”

Cantwell’s forum provided an opportunity for AI startups in Washington state to show how their ventures could bring fresh innovations to a wide variety of fields — and provided an opportunity for leaders from government, academia, industry and labor to lay out their ideas for supporting and regulating AI.

“We tend to use the phrase ‘It’s Day One’ in the age of internet,” said Swami Sivasubramanian, vice president of database, analytics and machine learning at Amazon Web Services. “But in this phase, I would say it’s Day One, we just woke up and we haven’t even had a cup of coffee yet.”

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NASA’s chief is coming to Seattle area for space summit

NASA Administrator Bill Nelson with Blue Origin logo in background
NASA Administrator Bill Nelson announces a lunar lander contract award to Blue Origin in May. (NASA Photo)

NASA Administrator Bill Nelson will visit Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin space venture in Kent, Wash., to get a firsthand look at the Seattle area’s growing space industry.

Tje Washington State Space Summit on July 5 will feature a trade show with nearly 20 regional space companies, plus a panel discussion that will focus on the economic opportunities opening up on the space frontier over the coming decade. The summit will be hosted by Sen. Maria Cantwell, the Washington Democrat who chairs the Senate committee that oversees NASA — and who played a leading role in passage of the $280 billion CHIPS and Science Act last year.

“Washington’s space industry has doubled in just four years, a success story our whole state can be proud of,” Cantwell said today in a news release announcing the summit. “More than 13,000 Washingtonians work in this growing industry, which will help send the first American woman to the moon and the first person to Mars.”

Cantwell said Nelson “will see for himself what new investments in the state can deliver for the nation – from high-rate composite aircraft manufacturing to building new space stations.” Boeing has been pioneering aerospace applications for carbon composites at its aircraft manufacturing facilities in the Seattle area, while Blue Origin and Marysville, Wash.-based Gravitics are among regional companies working on commercial space stations.

Nelson said that “NASA’s work with Washington commercial space companies and academic institutions demonstrates the power of investing in America.”

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‘Bezos Bailout’? Lunar lander battle gets political

Blue Origin's Blue Moon landers
An artist's conception from Blue Origin shows a pair of lunar landers on the moon's surface.

The tussle over NASA funding for lunar landing systems has touched down in the Senate — with one leading senator seeking additional funding that could go to Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin space venture, and another leading senator arguing against a “Bezos Bailout.”

The senator on the pro-funding side is Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., who chairs the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee. Her amendment to the Endless Frontier Act could put Kent, Wash.-based Blue Origin and its space industry partners back in the running for billions of dollars of NASA support for their human landing system.

Sen. Bernie Sanders, D-Vt., is on the anti-funding side: This week, he submitted an amendment that would “eliminate the multi-billion dollar Bezos Bailout.”

This all has to do with NASA’s decision last month to award a $2.9 billion contract to SpaceX for a Starship lunar lander that’s designed to carry astronauts to the lunar surface for the space agency’s Artemis program, as early as 2024.

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Privacy bill addresses COVID-19 tracking apps

Sen.Maria Cantwell chats with GeekWire Chairman Jonathan Sposato at the 2015 GeekWire Summit. (GeekWire Photo)

Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., is one of the sponsors of bipartisan legislation aimed at ensuring that coronavirus tracing apps protect consumer privacy.

The Exposure Notification Privacy Act relates to automated contact tracing tools that are currently being developed by companies ranging from Apple and Google to PricewaterhouseCoopers and Juniper Networks.

Such systems typically involve monitoring a user’s movements, and issuing an alert if it’s determined that the user has previously come in close contact with another user who tests positive for COVID-19. The proximity data is typically uses Bluetooth data to monitor proximity.

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Bill aims to keep space station going until 2030

Starliner and space station
An artist’s conception shows a Boeing Starliner space taxi approaching the International Space Station. (Boeing Illustration)

Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., has joined with three other U.S. senators in introducing a NASA authorization bill that aims to extend federal support for International Space Station to 2030.

The bill voices support for NASA’s Artemis campaign to explore the moon in preparation for missions to Mars. But it doesn’t mention NASA’s 2024 deadline for the astronauts’ first landing. Instead, the legislation urges NASA to “collaborate with commercial and international partners to establish lunar exploration by 2028” — which had been NASA’s plan until April.

It also backs NASA’s plans for a space-based infrared survey telescope designed to scan the skies for potentially hazardous near-Earth objects, and sets a 2025 launch deadline for that project.

Cantwell is a co-sponsor of the bipartisan bill in part because she’s the ranking Democratic member of the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee, which plays a lead role in NASA-related matters.

The other co-sponsors are Roger Wicker, R-Miss., the Commerce Committee’s chair; Ted Cruz, R-Texas, who chairs the Senate aviation and space subcommittee; and Kyrsten Sinema, D-Ariz., that subcommittee’s ranking Democratic member.

The upshot of the bill is that the senators are in favor of what NASA is aiming to do, but not necessarily on the same timetable.

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Senator talks quantum with Microsoft’s president

Sen. Maria Cantwell and Microsoft's Brad Smith
Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., and Microsoft President Brad Smith discuss the challenge of quantum computing during a fireside chat at the Northwest Quantum Nexus Summit at the University of Washington. (GeekWire Photo / Alan Boyle)

The Pacific Northwest may be known for tech icons like Microsoft and Amazon  but when U.S. Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., was asked what advice she’d give to the researchers and executives who are trying to up their game when it comes to quantum computing, she invoked a slogan used by a totally different kind of industry leader.

“To borrow from another Northwest icon, ‘Just Do It,’ ” she said, referring to Nike, the Oregon-based sportswear powerhouse.

During today’s fireside chat with Microsoft President Brad Smith at the kickoff summit of a public-private consortium called the Northwest Quantum Nexus, Cantwell said quantum computing could become as much a part of the Pacific Northwest’s tech scene as Boeing and Microsoft, Amazon and Blue Origin.

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