Mattis: 'Now is the time' for another BRAC round
Defense Secretary Jim Mattis says the Defense Department is operating at 19 percent excess capacity and is urging Congress to authorize another round of base realignment and closures, according to a new report sent to Capitol Hill and obtained by Inside Defense. "Now is the time to authorize another round," Mattis writes in an Oct. 6 letter accompanying the report. "I must be able to eliminate excess infrastructure in order to shift resources to readiness and modernization."
153 GOP lawmakers back Trump call for $700B defense budget
More than half of House Republicans are backing President Trump’s call for a $700 billion defense budget. Led by House Armed Services Committee Chairman Mac Thornberry (R-Texas), 153 lawmakers “fully support your commitment to increase funding for our military to reverse a mounting readiness crisis and to deter serious and complex threats around the world,” they wrote in a Wednesday letter to Trump. Trump last month at the United Nations General Assembly in New York touted th
What the First Meeting of Mike Pence's Space Council Tells Us About America's Future in Spac
What's old is new again. As the newly resurrected National Space Council met for the first time on Thursday, spaceflight seems back on the table as a national priority. The council is a mix of NASA officials and Trump cabinet members. Its purpose is not immediately clear. Is it a public relations exercise, a power shift to coordinate government efforts, or a think tank? Whatever the answer turns out to be, this first meeting showcased the main players in space, as members ask
Why the Trump administration wants to return to the moon in partnership with industry
In opening the first meeting of the resurrected National Space Council, Vice President Pence said Thursday that the United States would regain a leadership role in human space flight by embarking on a return mission to the moon, building the foundation to go to Mars. Pence offered no specific timeline. Speaking before a group of cabinet members and the chief executives of several top space companies, he said the moon would be a “steppingstone, a training ground” that would ev
