BRAC commissioners continued to press Pentagon officials about their proposal to remove all active forces from New England and close Otis ANGB, Mass. DOD offered renewed assurances that the area would be adequately protected with forces based elsewhere. Commissioners seemed unconvinced. Retired Adm. Harold Gehman Jr., former head of JFCOM, noted, “To remove essentially all active-duty military activity—not just air—out of the New England area causes me some discomfort.”
NASA, SpaceX, and United Launch Alliance are all preparing to launch their next-gen rockets from Florida’s Space Coast, two of them before the year is out. One is expected to liberate the U.S. launch enterprise from its reliance on Russian-made RD-180 engines, while all three rockets could eventually carry astronaut crews.