Daily Times - Sen. Kaine Upbeat on Future Wallops Outlook

News Article

By Carol Vaughn

U.S. Sen. Tim Kaine talked with Chincoteague officials and business representatives about economic concerns and toured a damaged launch pad on Wallops Island on the first day of his two-day tour of the Eastern Shore of Virginia.

Kaine sounded bullish on the Wallops spaceport's prospects, despite the setback caused by a rocket failure in October.

Along with fellow Democratic Sens. Mark Warner of Virginia and Barbara Mikulski of Maryland, he was instrumental in securing $20 million in federal funding for repairs to the damaged facility, included in federal spending legislation passed last week.

It was Kaine's first chance to sit down with all involved parties at once -- NASA, Orbital Sciences Corp. and the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport -- since an Antares rocket launched from Wallops failed shortly after liftoff in what would have been Orbital's third commercial cargo supply mission to the International Space Station.

"I was kind of interested, because this was my first time with everybody in the room, to see was there a lot of finger-pointing behavior. ... There wasn't," Kaine said.

"I saw a real plan about how we're going to keep the space station stocked, how we're going to do the repairs and how we're going to move forward," he said. "The good news is, NASA sees what a valuable asset this is."

Kaine was Virginia's governor when the state dedicated money to making improvements on Wallops Island to allow large, liquid-fueled rockets like Orbital's Antares to be launched there.

His impression after meeting with the three entities involved in the commercial launches that have taken place there since was that NASA is happy with the spaceport, despite the recent setback.

"NASA really likes it -- they really like having an East Coast facility. For a variety of reasons, this is a much better facility for them than Cape Canaveral or Vandenberg out in California," including low cost and a superior trajectory for certain launches, Kaine said. "They want to make this a long-term investment and continue to grow it -- that's the NASA position."

Now that Congress has approved money for the launch pad repairs, Kaine said he wants to make sure the state also continues to invest in the spaceport.

"It needs to continue to be a partnership," he said.

The long-term goal is for additional customers, including other private companies as well as the Department of Defense, to use the facility, the senator said.

"There are some space missions that I think we ought to be doing from here, and I'm certainly going to make that pitch through (the Department of Defense)," he said. "The more activity we can get there, research activity, whether it's DoD, NASA, university research ... I view it all as a positive. ... More activity to me means more jobs, more educational opportunities that really excite kids' imaginations to do math and science."

Source