Sen. Ted Cruz tours the SpaceX test facility near McGregor Texas

Source: Blasting News | August 13, 2016 | Mark Whittington

Cruz expresses support for commercial space activities in the Lone Star State

A few days after he visited NASA’s Johnson Spaceflight Center south of Houston, Sen. #Ted Cruz, R-Texas toured the #SpaceX test facility near McGregor Texas, according to KWTX. Cruz expressed warm support for the commercial #Space industry, which is increasingly making its presence felt in the Lone Star State. “I am an enthusiastic advocate of competition and allowing the private sector to innovate, and I will continue to work closely with the commercial space industry to ensure that companies like SpaceX have the freedom to thrive.”

Cruz was instrumental in passing commercial space legislation last year which, among other things, allowed space mining companies such as Planetary Resources and Moon Express to keep the minerals they would extract from asteroids and the moon. The junior senator from Texas has also supported space exploration programs at NASA, in his capacity as chair of the Senate subcommittee that oversees the space agency. He recently decried President Barack Obama’s cancellation of the Constellation space exploration program.

The SpaceX facility near McGregor has seen plenty of activity in recent years. The commercial space company has tested the technology that has allowed the first stage of its Falcon 9 rocket to land after it separated from the rest of the launch vehicle at the test site. SpaceX recently shipped a prototype of its next generation Raptor rocket engine to the McGregor facility. The Raptor is said to be capable of generating 500,000 pounds of thrust and is planned for the mysterious Mars Colonial Transport super heavy launcher SpaceX envisions to take people to the red planet.

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