NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine has expressed full support for President Donald Trump’s proposed military Space Force but added that it will have a role separate from NASA.
Bridenstine said in New Orleans that NASA’s responsibilities involve science, space exploration and technology development. As for defense and national security, he wants to be an agency that maintains its independence from those capabilities.
Bridenstine was touring the Michoud Assembly Center, where workers are putting together major parts of systems that are planned to return Americans to the moon and, eventually, take them to Mars.
In a towering building, Boeing workers are building parts of the 322-foot rocket known as the Space Launch System. Lockheed Martin workers are building the spacecraft called Orion.
