U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth on Monday praised Blue Origin for its contributions to U.S. military operations and space exploration, speaking at the company\u2019s rocket manufacturing facility in Cape Canaveral, Florida.<\/p>\n
During remarks delivered at the site, Hegseth reviewed Department of Defense activities carried out during the first year of President Donald Trump\u2019s second term and said Blue Origin-developed launch systems had been critical to several operations. He underscored the importance of speed and efficiency in defense manufacturing. \u201cYou guys were under budget and ahead of schedule,\u201d Hegseth said.<\/p>\n
Hegseth also emphasized the strategic importance of space to U.S. national security, calling it \u201cthe ultimate high ground\u201d and arguing that the United States must maintain what he described as \u201cAmerican space dominance.\u201d<\/p>\n
Blue Origin, founded by Jeff Bezos, has recently said it is shifting resources away from space tourism to support U.S. efforts to return to the Moon and establish a sustained presence there. \u201cThe decision reflects Blue Origin\u2019s commitment to the nation\u2019s goal of returning to the Moon and establishing a permanent, sustained lunar presence,\u201d the company said in a statement last week.<\/p>\n
Bezos, who attended the event, also addressed the audience. \u201cThe systems we\u2019re building today provide the asymmetrical advantages that America needs to lead,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Hegseth\u2019s visit coincided with preparations for NASA Artemis 2, which is undergoing a \u201cwet dress rehearsal\u201d on Monday. Artemis 2 is set to be the first crewed mission around the Moon since Apollo 17 in 1972. Earlier in the day, Hegseth met with NASA officials and viewed the rocket ahead of the test.<\/p>\n
The stop at Blue Origin is part of Hegseth\u2019s nationwide \u201cArsenal of Freedom\u201d tour, which the Pentagon has described as an effort to revitalize U.S. manufacturing capacity and strengthen the defense industrial base.<\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth on Monday praised Blue Origin for its contributions to U.S. military operations and space exploration, speaking at the company\u2019s rocket manufacturing facility in Cape Canaveral, Florida. During remarks delivered at the site, Hegseth reviewed Department of Defense activities carried out during the first year of President Donald Trump\u2019s second term […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[783,509,1695,6521,2539,2361,1046,190,5812,6522,449,5840,5841],"class_list":["post-20241","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-artemis-2","tag-blue-origin","tag-cape-canaveral","tag-defense-manufacturing","tag-donald-trump","tag-florida","tag-jeff-bezos","tag-nasa","tag-north-america","tag-pete-hegseth","tag-space-security","tag-u-s-department-of-defense","tag-united-states"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20241"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20241"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20241\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20241"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20241"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20241"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}