Veterans Affairs Secretary Eric Shinseki on Tuesday unveiled an ambitious five-year plan to end homelessness among the nation’s veterans who make up a comparatively large portion those living on the streets. The Associated Press reported Tuesday that Shinseki, speaking at a VA summit in Washington, D.C., said the VA will spend $3.2 billion next year towards that goal and is working to strengthen partnerships with other government agencies and service organizations. “Even in tough economic times, this is still the wealthiest, most powerful nation in the world and no veteran should be living on the streets without care and without hope,” he said. The new initiative will focus both on preventing vets from ever going homeless and removing those already on the streets from that condition. (For more, see the Washington Post’s Nov. 4 report (requires free registration).
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.