Tag: Mike Pence

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More coronavirus testing supplies sought

Inslee and Pence
Washington Gov. Jay Inslee meets Vice President Mike Pence’s handshake with an “elbow bump” during a March news conference at Camp Murray, Wash. (C-Span Video)

In a strongly worded letter, Washington Gov. Jay Inslee told Vice President Mike Pence today that the state has “nowhere near” the coronavirus testing capability needed to begin initiating pandemic recovery plans.

Inslee requested federal assistance to boost that capability through a robust national testing system.

The governor said state officials have been trying to procure the supplies for 2.5 million sample collection kits — including swabs, viral transport media and reagents. “We are nowhere near that today,” he wrote.

Charissa Fotinos, deputy chief medical officer at the Washington State Health Care Authority, told journalists during a follow-up teleconference that “we should have, by early next week, 30,000 kits that can be deployed across the state.”

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Washington governor promises virus relief

Gov. Inslee and VP Pence
Vice President Mike Pence gives an elbow bump to Washington Gov. Jay Inslee during a news briefing about the coronavirus outbreak. (Global News via YouTube)

Washington Gov. Jay Inslee and other state officials say they’re acting to reduce medical costs for people who have to be tested or treated for the COVID-19 coronavirus.

The state will cover the costs of testing for state residents who don’t have health insurance, Inslee said today at a news briefing in Olympia.

“For the uninsured in our state, whose doctors believe they need testing, I am announcing that we have the authority and intention to cover those costs by the state of Washington,” Inslee said.

The University of Washington’s virology lab is ramping up the Seattle area’s capacity for testing people who may have been infected with the COV-19 coronavirus, but the tests have to be ordered by health professionals.

Insurance Commissioner Mike Kreidler, meanwhile, issued an emergency order to Washington state health insurers, requiring them to waive copays and deductibles for any consumer requiring coronavirus testing.

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VP Mike Pence talks up space property rights

VP Mike Pence at IAC
Vice President Mike Pence addresses the opening session of the International Astronautical Congress in Washington, D.C. (NASA via YouTube)

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Vice President Mike Pence recapped the Trump administration’s plans to put astronauts on the lunar surface and promote space commerce today, with an added twist: emphasis on private property rights relating to space resources.

Pence, who chairs the White House’s National Space Council, also played up international space cooperation during his official welcome address to the International Astronautical Congress, meeting this week here in Washington.

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Space Council highlights moon, Mars … and nukes

Vice President Mike Pence delivers opening remarks during the sixth meeting of the National Space Council at the National Air and Space Museum’s Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center in Chantilly, Va. The space shuttle Discovery towers over him. (NASA Photo / Aubrey Gemignani)

The latest meeting of the National Space Council provided a forum to build support for NASA’s twin-focus plan to send astronauts to the Moon in preparation for trips to Mars – and for the idea of using nuclear-powered rockets to get there.

In contrast to some of the council’s past meetings, today’s session at the National Air and Space Museum’s Udvar-Hazy Center in Virginia produced no Space Policy Directives with capital letters. Instead, administration officials – led by Vice President Mike Pence – summarily approved a set of recommendations aimed at fostering cooperation with commercial ventures and international partners on NASA’s moon-to-Mars initiative.

Pence said the recommendations give NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine a 60-day timeline for “designation of an office and submission of a plan for sustainable lunar surface exploration and the development of crewed missions to Mars.”

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VP Pence sets 5-year deadline for moon landing

National Space Council meeting
Vice President Mike Pence addresses the audience attending a meeting of the National Space Council at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Alabama with an American flag, space artifacts and rocket models in the background. (NASA via YouTube)

Vice President Mike Pence today called for American astronauts to return to the moon in five years, laying down a challenge comparable to the 1960s Space Race.

“We’re in a space race today, just as we were in the 1960s, and the stakes are even higher,” Pence declared at a meeting of the National Space Council at the U.S. Space and Rocket Center in Huntsville, Ala., next to NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center.

For an example, he pointed to China’s Chang’e-4 mission, which put a lander and a rover on the moon’s far side in January. He also noted that Russia has been charging NASA as much as $80 million per seat for rides to the International Space Station in the wake of the space shuttle fleet’s retirement in 2011.

“But it’s not just competition against our adversaries,” Pence said. “We’re also racing against our worst enemy: complacency.”

Pence, who chairs the National Space Council, acknowledged that the cost of an accelerated push back to the moon would be great, but said that “the costs of inaction are greater.” NASA would be given authority to meet the five-year goal “by any means necessary,” Pence promised.

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VP Mike Pence revs up lunar gateway’s schedule

Mike Pence at JSC
Vice President Mike Pence is flanked by portraits of NASA’s Orion space capsule and a space station in lunar orbit as he speaks at Johnson Space Center in Texas. (NASA via YouTube)

During a pep talk to NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Texas, Vice President Mike Pence today highlighted what he saw as the mistakes of past space policy and touted an ambitious plan to put American astronauts on a new space station in lunar orbit by the end of 2024.

Pence said the Trump administration was working with Congress on a $500 million initiative to move NASA’s Lunar Orbital Platform – Gateway “from proposal to production.” The first element of the outpost, known as the Power and Propulsion Element, is due for launch in 2022.

NASA’s first crewed launch of its heavy-lift Space Launch System rocket is currently scheduled for 2023. That mission would send astronauts around the moon and back in an Orion deep-space capsule. Pence suggested that a follow-up SLS launch would send astronauts to dock with the Gateway sometime during the following year.

“Our administration is working tirelessly to put an American crew aboard the Lunar Orbital Platform before the end of 2024. … It’s not a question of if. It’s just a question of when,” Pence told the audience at Johnson Space Center.

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VP Mike Pence details plan to ramp up Space Force

Vice President Pence
Vice President Mike Pence outlines the Trump administration’s plans for raising the profile of space defense, leading to the establishment of the Department of the Space Force, during a Pentagon address. (White House / DOD via YouTube)

The Trump administration is taking immediate steps to raise the profile of the Defense Department’s space operations, and asking Congress to create the Department of the Space Force as a separate military branch by 2020.

“The time has come to write the next great chapter in the history of our armed forces, to prepare for the next battlefield where America’s best and bravest will be called to deter and defeat a new generation of threats to our people, to our nation,” Vice President Mike Pence said today during a speech at the Pentagon. “The time has come to establish the United States Space Force.”

But the plan doesn’t mean new platoons of space troops will be patrolling the heavens anytime soon. Instead, the four-step plan calls for consolidating and beefing up satellite defense operations that are already being done under the aegis of the U.S. Air Force and other government entities.

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NASA’s newly sworn-in chief touts bipartisanship

Pence and Bridenstine
Vice President Mike Pence stands behind NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine after his swearing-in ceremony. (GeekWire Photo / Alan Boyle)

WASHINGTON — Just hours after his resignation from the House took effect, Jim Bridenstine was sworn in today as NASA’s 13th administrator and signaled that he’d try to mend the partisan divisions that marked his nomination.

Vice President Mike Pence, chairman of the National Space Council, officiated for the swearing-in ceremony here at NASA Headquarters.

The three NASA astronauts aboard the International Space Station played supporting roles during a live space-to-ground video hookup that was only slightly delayed by a glitch in the connection. (“Did we pay the bill?” Pence joked during the wait.)

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VP Mike Pence addresses the space traffic jam

Mike Pence
Vice President Mike Pence addresses the Space Symposium in Colorado Springs. (Space Symposium via YouTube)

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. — The Trump administration is getting set to sign off on a new set of procedures for managing space traffic and minimizing space junk, Vice President Mike Pence said today.

During an opening address to the 34th Space Symposium here, Pence talked up efforts to boost human spaceflight, set a course for the moon and Mars, and trim back regulations on the space industry.

“Under President Donald Trump, America is leading in space once again,” said Pence, who chairs the White House’s National Space Council.

Pence called on the Senate to confirm Trump’s choice for NASA administrator, Rep. Jim Bridenstine, R-Okla., whose nomination has been stalled for months. He also announced that Jim Ellis, former commander of the U.S. Strategic Command, would head the space council’s Users Advisory Group.

But it was Pence’s comments on a new space traffic management system that drew the most attention.

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Space council targets regulations – and China

Mike Pence
With NASA’s Orion deep-space capsule serving as a backdrop, Vice President Mike Pence speaks at a meeting of the National Space Council at Kennedy Space Center in Florida. (NASA via YouTube)

Space industry deregulation, and the potential perils posed by China’s space program, shared the spotlight at today’s meeting of the National Space Council, presided over by Vice President Mike Pence.

Commercial space ventures and NASA’s vision for deep-space exploration also got shout-outs when members of the council, newly named advisers and other VIPs gathered inside the Space Station Processing Facility at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

“As we continue to push further into our solar system, new businesses and entire enterprises will be built to seize the infinite possibilities before us,” Pence declared. “And there will be no limit to the jobs and prosperity that will be created across this country.”

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