NASA Administrator Bill Nelson will visit Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin space venture in Kent, Wash., to get a firsthand look at the Seattle area’s growing space industry.
Next Wednesday’s Washington State Space Summit will feature a trade show with nearly 20 regional space companies, plus a panel discussion that will focus on the economic opportunities opening up on the space frontier over the coming decade. The summit will be hosted by Sen. Maria Cantwell, the Washington Democrat who chairs the Senate committee that oversees NASA — and who played a leading role in passage of the $280 billion CHIPS and Science Act last year.
“Washington’s space industry has doubled in just four years, a success story our whole state can be proud of,” Cantwell said today in a news release announcing the summit. “More than 13,000 Washingtonians work in this growing industry, which will help send the first American woman to the moon and the first person to Mars.”
Cantwell said Nelson “will see for himself what new investments in the state can deliver for the nation – from high-rate composite aircraft manufacturing to building new space stations.” Boeing has been pioneering aerospace applications for carbon composites at its aircraft manufacturing facilities in the Seattle area, while Blue Origin and Marysville, Wash.-based Gravitics are among regional companies working on commercial space stations.
Nelson said that “NASA’s work with Washington commercial space companies and academic institutions demonstrates the power of investing in America.”
He took particular note of the role of Washington state companies in facilitating NASA’s Artemis program, which aims to land astronauts on the moon in the 2025-2026 time frame.
“NASA partnerships in the state are creating good-paying American jobs and fueling groundbreaking research and technology that will help propel humans back to the moon and onward to Mars,” Nelson, a former U.S. senator, said in today’s news release. “With the help of Washingtonians, NASA will make new and more exciting discoveries while also inspiring the Artemis Generation — the next generation of scientists, engineers, technicians and explorers.”
Blue Origin is the Seattle area’s largest space company, based on employment estimates, and its projects range from the New Shepard suborbital launch system to the orbital-class New Glenn rocket and the Orbital Reef space station concept. In May, NASA awarded $3.4 billion to a team led by Blue Origin to build a crew-capable lunar landing system that would provide an alternative to SpaceX’s Starship lander.
Blue Origin CEO Bob Smith will join Cantwell and Nelson for the summit’s panel discussion. Other industry representatives include Stoke Space CEO Andy Lapsa, Starfish Space co-founder Austin Link and Gravitics CEO Colin Doughan. Nikki Malcolm, CEO and executive director of the Pacific Northwest Aerospace Alliance, will also be there.
The STEM education community will be represented by Jihui Yang, vice dean of the University of Washington’s College of Engineering; Mary Rezac, dean of Washington State University’s Voiland College of Engineering and Architecture; and Kareen Morales Vincent, an aerospace manufacturing and maintenance instructor at the Sno-Isle TECH Skills Center. In addition, Washington state students have also been invited to sit in at the summit.
Stoke Space, Starfish Space, Gravitics, Ultra Safe Nuclear Corp., MagniX and Off Planet Research will be among the exhibitors at the trade show.