Lunar lander firm OrbitBeyond eyes Florida for new facility

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla., April 1 (UPI) – Lunar lander company OrbitBeyond is eyeing Florida for a new facility. That would make it the latest so-called Newspace commercial company to join growing space race momentum in the Sunshine State. The board at Space Florida, the state's economic development agency for space, moved toward an agreement Monday to provide $1 million worth of assistance or help obtaining financing to the New Jersey-based OrbitBeyond. Space Florida is negotiating terms of the final agreement to develop an assembly and integration facility for OrbitBeyond's lunar lander in Florida.

The firm was one of nine companies NASA chose in 2018 to compete for lunar transportation contracts for robotic landers in a program valued at $2.6 billion. Others include Astrobotic Technology of Pittsburgh; Deep Space Systems, of Littleton, Colo.; Draper, of Cambridge, Mass.; Firefly Aerospace and Intuitive Machines, of Cedar Park, Texas; Masten Space Systems, of Mojave, Calif.; Lockheed Martin Space Systems, of Denver, Colo.; and Moon Express, of Cape Canaveral, Fla.. The lunar landers would take science experiments and other equipment to the moon. The companies are funding the development of the landers themselves while vying for an eventual NASA contract.

In November, OrbitBeyond's chief engineering adviser, Jeff Patton, said "there has never been a more exciting time to be a commercial player in the cislunar (earth-to-moon) market." Patton is a former engineer and integration manager for heavyweight space company United Launch Alliance, a venture between traditional defense contractors Boeing and Lockheed Martin.

OrbitBeyond's arrival would add to a growing cluster of commercial space companies in Central Florida. Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin and Airbus affiliate OneWeb have large, new facilities just outside Kennedy Space Center at Exploration Park. Firefly plans to start construction soon there on a rocket plant. Blue Origin's Scott Henderson, the orbital launch director, provided a little more detail to Space Florida's board Monday regarding the company's planned expansion of its facility on 90 additional acres. He said Blue Origin, already hiring well over 300 people in the region, plans to add another 100 jobs. The company also is renovating a launch pad and building a facility to refurbish rockets.

Another much larger contract with an aspiring launch company, Relativity Space, of Los Angeles, was pulled from the agenda of Monday's meeting for more work. Relativity is eyeing Space Launch Complex 16 on Cape Canaveral for launch activity. The proposed contract had outlined a $42 million investment by the firm and 100 new jobs that would pay an average of $85,000 a year, while the state was to provide $6.6 million in Department of Transportation funds. Space Florida often helps aerospace firms lease facilities and tap into existing state funds or to arrange for other financing.

On Monday, it also approved two aerospace deals under code names in other regions of Florida, including Project Prime in the Miami area, which would secure $125 million in financing for aircraft simulation facilities while creating 73 jobs, and Project Midnight Blue in the Tampa area, which would include $12.3 million in financing and create 42 jobs.

Monday was the first time Lt. Gov. Jeanette Nuñez presided over a Space Florida board meeting as the new chair of the organization. Frank Dibello, president and chief executive of Space Florida, indicated big changes might be in store for the agency. "At some point, we may want to change the structure of our board to a paid board because they are contributing a lot of time," he said. Nuñez briefly referred to efforts to bring the military's Space Command to Florida, mentioning Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis's ties to President Donald Trump. The Space Command is currently being restarted as a more independent military branch. "The governor is not shy in utilizing his relationship with the president, in making sure that Florida is named home for the command," she said.

DiBello said Exploration Park has grown so fast that Space Florida is talking to NASA about acquiring more land for new development, taking "additional property to the west and to the east to support future industry growth and spaceport operations, as well as all the support operations that go along with that." He said Space Florida is conducting a study about establishing an advanced aerospace manufacturing center to support training and a growing workforce.

https://www.upi.com/Top_News/US/2019/04/01/Lunar-lander-firm-OrbitBeyond-eyes-Florida-for-new-facility/2891554143613/

Senate blocks McConnell's attempt to limit nomination debate time

April 2 (UPI) – The Senate on Tuesday blocked Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell's efforts to limit debate time on most judicial and executive nominations, increasing chances he'll invoke the nuclear option going forward. The Senate voted 51-48 in support of the resolution to have 2 hours of floor debate instead of 30 hours for the nominees. It fell short of the 60 votes needed to pass, though.

McConnell introduced the resolution after accusing Democrats of obstructing the confirmation process for nominees some of them ended up voting for. He said the delays are a re-litigation of the 2016 presidential election.

"It's been 354 days and counting in Senate purgatory for the president's nominee to head the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. Two-hundred eighty-seven days and counting for the under secretary of state for management. Noncontroversial lower court nominees have languished for weeks and weeks – for no discernible reason – before they, too, were confirmed unanimously," McConnell wrote in an op-ed posted on his website. "These are just a few examples of the historic obstruction Senate Democrats have visited upon President [Donald] Trump's nominees for two years and counting."

Democrats, though, said the resolution was a "power grab." "It is motivated by the far right's desire to flood the federal judiciary with young, ideological nominees, many of whom – as we have seen time and again in the Judiciary Committee – are simply unqualified to serve on our nation's courts," Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., said."Post-cloture time is a critical tool for senators, especially those who do not sit on the Judiciary Committee, to vet nominees for lifetime judgeships." Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer of New York said McConnell is trying to "turn the Senate into a conveyor belt for conservative ideologues."

With the failure of the resolution, McConnell has indicated he'll use the so-called "nuclear option," in which he needs a simple majority vote, to confirm the nominations.

https://www.upi.com/Top_News/US/2019/04/02/Senate-blocks-McConnells-attempt-to-limit-nomination-debate-time/2961554233012/

McConnell slaps down Trump on healthcare, closing border with Mexico

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said Tuesday that he had told President Trump that Republican senators won’t be taking up comprehensive health care reform this year, despite Trump's surprise calls for the GOP to take another shot at replacing Obamacare. McConnell also denounced a threat by Trump to close the border with Mexico if the Mexican government doesn’t stop throngs of illegal immigrants from reaching the U.S. border. McConnell said that such an action “would have a potentially catastrophic economic impact on our country.” McConnell, R-Ky., who often acts as a strong advocate for Trump’s agenda, has been at odds with the president lately.

McConnell said he talked to Trump on Monday about Trump’s renewed quest to replace Obamacare, which the GOP attempted but failed to accomplish in 2017 after months of effort. “I made it clear to him we were not going to be doing that in the Senate,” McConnell, R-Ky., told reporters. “He accepted that.” Trump stunned GOP lawmakers last week when he visited the Capitol and urged them to try again to replace the health care law.

McConnell said he told Trump on Monday the GOP would not author a comprehensive healthcare bill while Democrats control the House. Instead, McConnell said, he wants Republican senators to continue working on legislation to lower prescription drug prices. “So we don’t have a misunderstanding about that,” McConnell said, explaining his conversation with Trump. “We will not be doing comprehensive in the Senate.”

Trump tweeted later Monday that Congress would vote on a new healthcare plan “right after the Election when Republicans hold the Senate & win the House.” McConnell said Trump would develop his own healthcare reform proposal and campaign on it. McConnell said he agrees with the president that “we certainly have a crisis at the border,” where thousands of immigrants are crossing in to the United States daily in a new and growing surge of mass migration from Central America. But McConnell discouraged the president from following through on his threat to shut the border, which would stop commerce between the two countries. “I would hope we would not be doing that sort of thing,” he said. The Senate has twice rebuked Trump in recent weeks. It voted to revoke his national emergency declaration used to spend federal money to build a border wall, and it voted to end U.S. involvement in the Saudi-led war in Yemen.

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/congress/mcconnell-slaps-down-trump-on-healthcare-closing-border-with-mexico

EXCLUSIVE: Trump To Pursue ‘Aggressive’ Executive Crackdown On Immigration

The White House is exploring all executive authorities in existing law that will allow an aggressive crackdown on illegal immigration and legal immigration fraud, senior adviser to the president Stephen Miller told The Daily Caller in an exclusive telephone interview. “There’s going to be an aggressive effort to utilize every existing authority in statute,” Miller announced, explaining that several authorities exist in immigration laws passed by Congress throughout history, including the 1996 Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act. Miller noted that the White House is “systematically reviewing all authorities that are already on the books, both in terms of cracking down on illegal immigration and […] the abuse of our legal immigration system.” The targeted abuse actions include illegal immigrants who overstay temporary visas, “combatting or addressing legal benefit seeking in the legal immigration system.”

Noting that there are approximately 1 million illegal aliens in the United States with final removal orders that still remain at large—in some cases for several years—Miller gave one example for the type of executive action the administration can take. The presidential adviser noted that existing law has a statute that allows for a “significant financial penalty” for every single day that an alien resides in the country after being ordered removed. “This law has been on the books for a very long time and has not been utilized. That’s the example of the kind of legal authority that already exists that is the kind of thing we can deploy to restore integrity to the immigration system.”

Miller stressed that legal immigration abuse will be targeted aggressively, particularly “welfare seeking” by legal immigrants or, in some cases, “welfare tourism.” He neglected to offer a timeline for when the orders will be implemented, but said that “this is going to begin right away.” Miller explained that the actions were designed to “dramatically raise the pressure on Congress and, in particular, the congressional Democrats” to pass laws reforming the U.S. immigration system. Explaining why it took so long into the Trump presidency to pursue such aggressive action on illegal immigration, Miller listed a litany of actions taken throughout the past two years. He also explained that many forthcoming regulations “are nearing their completion date,” and that they will “have transformative effects on our immigration system.” “Now that this crisis is upon us, it’s the time to take that effort to the next level,” he added.

https://www.dailycaller.com/2019/04/02/stephen-miller-crackdown-illegal-immigration/