For Immediate Release

Los Angeles, CA

May 4, 2006

Press Contact:

David Sommers

Phone: (213) 974-1095

Fax: (213) 626-6941

DSommers@lacbos.org

Welcome Speech to the Space Venturing Forum

It is a great pleasure to be with you today and to join such a unique group of individuals committed to the goal of continuing space exploration and the goal of making spaceflight more affordable and accessible.
I am especially pleased you are meeting in my district, which is the home to many of history’s major aerospace companies and important milestones.
 

For over 70 years, aerospace has played a part in this area. It started back in the 1920’s when the region’s first airplane factory was built on a few acres not far from here in the city of Downey – which is also in my district.
 

Over the next several decades, the aerospace industry in the Fourth District grew to include corporate outposts and factories for Boeing, Northrup Grumman and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Parts of the Apollo program were designed and built right here, and today, Los Angeles Air Force Base, just a few miles from here, remains our nation’s most important facility for the development of space and missile systems.
We truly are in the middle of aerospace’s backyard.
 

We have had a few setbacks in recent years.
 

It looked for awhile as though we might see the closure of LA Air Force Base. But last year we were able to show Washington just how important this base is not only to our regional economy but also to our national defense. The last 717 passenger jet recently rolled off the assembly line at Boeing’s Long Beach plant and we are still fighting for the build out of the C-17 fleet which is also built in Long Beach.
 

Even with these developments, we still have a robust aerospace economy in Los Angeles County. Research and development is currently being done in the Antelope Valley on the latest generation on Unmanned Aerial Vehicles and the main fuselage body of Boeing’s 747 in built in nearby Hawthorne. The SeaLaunch Company operates out of the Port of Long Beach.
 

Even these corporate and government developments in aerospace, I know that part of the next big push in the space race will come from private citizens interested in affordable access to space and the skies.
America has always been a nation of dreamers, unwilling to let even the biggest obstacles stand in the way of success.

If we want to continue our push into space, we need the help of individuals like you, who will not let a lack of direction or funding block that goal. Project Apollo remains the last great act the federal government has undertaken out of a sense of optimism and of looking forward to the future.
 

Certainly we have had impressive follow-ups: Skylab, the Space Shuttle and the International Space Station.
More recently, we witnessed the incredible success of the private venture, Space Ship One. But, on a nationwide level, nothing has come close to the pride and optimism brought to us by Apollo.
It is the sense of purpose we felt then that seems as distant now as the moon itself.
 

I am still hopeful that sense of purpose can be found again and it will be found in the efforts of private enterprise and in efforts such as those we are here today to celebrate. If NASA has lost direction, it is only because we have chosen not to give it one or to fund it. Instead of letting the moon be our gateway to the future, we have let it become a brief chapter in our history.
 

The irony is that in turning away from space exploration – whose progress is directly linked to the future of mankind – we rob ourselves of the long-term vision we desperately need. Any society, if it is to flourish instead of merely survive, must strive to transcend its own limits. It is still as Kennedy said – quote – “Exploration, by virtue of difficulty, causes us to focus our abilities and make them better.” It is left to a future generation to return, to reach for the stars and to pick up where Apollo left off.
 

You are a group of people who can make this goal a reality. To echo the words of Elon Musk, when he addressed the House of Representatives subcommittee of Space and Aeronautics – ‘there is an increasingly positive future for space activities over the next few years. And the most important thing government can do is adopt a nurturing a supportive attitude towards these new entrepreneurial efforts.’
 

With that, I would like to invite Elon Musk to join me for a special proclamation and presentation.
 

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