While lauding a new partnership among Florida universities and Kennedy Space Center, Gov. Ron DeSantis shoehorned in a pitch to have NASA headquarters leave the nation’s capital in favor of the Sunshine State.
“There is an interest in moving the headquarters of NASA right here to Kennedy Space Center and I’m supportive of that,” DeSantis said noting he had discussed it with KSC Director Janet Petro ahead of a ceremony held at the space center Wednesday.
“They have this massive building in Washington, D.C., and like nobody goes to it, so why not just shutter it and move everybody down here? I think they’re planning on spending like a half a billion to build a new building up in D.C. that no one will ever go to either,” he said. “So hopefully, with the new administration coming in, they’ll see a great opportunity to just headquarter NASA here on the Space Coast of Florida. I think that’d be very, very fitting.”
DeSantis spoke during an event that saw Petro sign a memorandum of understanding with the Florida University Space Research Consortium, a group created last fall with the help of Space Florida, the state’s aerospace finance and development authority. Founding partners in the consortium include the University of Florida, University of Central Florida and Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University.
It now officially acts as the state’s space research entity to help with awarding NASA research grants in partnership with KSC.
DeSantis touted that partnership as fitting for the Space Coast.
“If you look at the first American satellite in 1958, John Glenn becoming the first American to orbit the Earth in 1962 and, of course, the Apollo 11 mission in 1969, which put a man on the moon, every single one of those missions were launched from right here in Cape Canaveral in Florida. This is really special ground when it comes to space,” he said.
He highlighted other facets of Florida’s space footprint noting Space Florida’s efforts, such as attracting new aerospace manufacturing and launch facilities, are projected to add $1.1 billion annually now for the next several years.
He said the state had more than 2,700 aerospace and aviation establishments, 21 commercial airports and three spaceports: Cape Canaveral, Jacksonville and Titusville.
“They’ve allowed Florida to lead the nation as space exploration has flourished in recent years, of course, now with private sector investment,” he said.
And he also noted the choice of Patrick Space Force Base as the future headquarters of STARCOM, the Space Force training and readiness command.
“We think that this is fitting to be in the state of Florida and as the most military friendly state in the country and the most space focused state in the country. We think it’s a great fit,” he said.
DeSantis used all of those facets to float the idea that maybe NASA could consider shifting its headquarters to Florida.
“We have an opportunity, of course, to bring down more federal resources. We also have an ability to fuel innovative research initiatives and allow for the development of national space policy right here in the Sunshine State” he said. “So the possibilities are significant.”
Putting the focus back on the university partnership, he noted that no other NASA facility has a similar partnership with a group representing multiple universities.
“It just shows that Florida is committed to leading and continuing to make great progress on the issues that really matter to a lot of people,” he said.
DeSantis alluded to the potential that President-elect Donald Trump’s decisions could be buoyed by new adviser Elon Musk and Trump’s nominee to become NASA administrator, Jared Isaacman.
“So I personally, as governor, am looking forward to what we have in store in the years ahead. I think there’s going to be a lot of momentum in terms of space with the incoming administration,” he said. “Happens to be some people that are close to the incoming president that care a lot about space — I know that for sure — that are famous and many of you may know, so I think you’re going to see a lot of great momentum, and you’re going to continue to see a lot of great things.”
