The Defense Department’s push for the use of synthetic fuels had lawmakers listening yesterday to witnesses discussing the environmental, technical and economic challenges for turning coal into liquid fuels. House Science and Technology Subcommittee on Energy and Environment Chairman Nick Lampson (D-Tex.) noted the “economic and strategic benefits of advancing coal-to-liquid technologies from both the regional and global perspectives,” but he believes there first needs to be “a comprehensive strategy to build an energy future that is sustainable.” Meanwhile, the Pentagon’s largest consumer of aviation fuel, the Air Force, is set to begin the certification process that will determine whether or not it can use syn-fuel on its C-17 airlifters. USAF already has declared it suitable for the B-52 bomber.
Special-ops aviators, a physicist from the intelligence community, and an enlisted Marine with decades of deployments: U.S. Space Command’s military and civilian leaders who spoke May 7 were as likely to come from strictly space backgrounds as not. These are some of the day’s insights from inside the command, which…