Members named to Texas Space Commission to help shape industry
Gov. Greg Abbott on Tuesday unveiled the 18 people who will lead Texas’ efforts to remain competitive in civil, commercial and military space.
The nominees — including representatives from Elon Musk’s SpaceX, Lockheed Martin, smaller commercial space companies and academia — will guide the Texas Space Commission and the Texas Aerospace Research and Space Economy Consortium. The Texas Legislature created the organizations last year to keep Texas competitive with Florida, Colorado and other states capitalizing on the new era of space exploration.
“In this past session, one of the most forward-looking things we did was to create the Texas Space Commission,” Abbott said Tuesday during a news conference at NASA’s Johnson Space Center.
The Texas Space Commission will be tasked with developing a statewide strategy that promotes innovation, creates incentives (including grant funding) and develops workforce training.
It initially has $350 million to work with, $150 million budgeted for grants and $200 million for a new research and training facility built by the Texas A&M University System.
The Texas Aerospace Research and Space Economy Consortium, which is part of the Texas Space Commission, will identify research and development opportunities and find ways to further integrate space into the Texas economy.
Texas is already home to major space exploration companies. SpaceX is developing and launching the world’s most powerful rocket in South Texas while Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin launches its suborbital rocket from West Texas. Houston is home to NASA’s Johnson Space Center as well as private companies pushing beyond Earth’s atmosphere. Intuitive Machines last month became the first private company to make a soft landing on the lunar surface. Axiom Space is developing a commercial space station.
Speaker Dade Phelan said the 18 positions on the commission’s board of directors and the consortium’s executive committee were some of the most soughtafter appointments that he and
his staff had seen in decades.
“We have the best and the brightest standing behind us right now ready to serve the state of Texas,” said Phelan, RBeaumont.
The appointees will determine more specifics about how the two organizations operate and choose the executive director of the Texas Space Commission.
At a news conference at Johnson Space Center, the new appointees stood clustered behind Abbott, Phelan, state Rep. Greg Bonnen, R-Friendswood, who authored the legislation creating the organizations, and Vanessa Wyche, director of the NASA Johnson Space Center. Their names were announced in a news release sent out after the event.
Those tapped by Abbott, Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick and Phelan to serve on the Texas Space Commission include representatives of major space companies, including SpaceX, Lockheed Martin and the Boeing Co. Also on the board are Houston-based Venus Aerospace Corp., which is developing a hypersonic spaceplane, and Houstonian Gwen Griffin, CEO of Griffin Communications Group and executive director of Blue Origin’s nonprofit education foundation Club for the Future.
Representatives of several Houston-based businesses and organizations were also tapped to be on the Texas Aerospace Research and Space Economy Consortium, which included appointees from Texas A&M University System, Rice University and the University of Texas System.
The Houstonians include Jack “2fish” Fischer, a former NASA astronaut and the vice president of production and operations at lunar lander company Intuitive Machines; Brian Freedman, president of the Bay Area Houston Economic Partnership; Stephanie Murphy, CEO of space and technology company Aegis Aerospace; Matt Ondler, president of the commercial space station and spacesuit company Axiom Space; and David Alexander, director of the Rice Space Institute.
“We’re so excited for what the Texas Space Commission will bring to the state of Texas and our flourishing aerospace industry,” said Wyche, director of Johnson Space Center.