NASA programs need to be consistently supported to keep costs stable on programs associated with national security, Michael Gass, the president and chief executive of United Launch Alliance, said yesterday.
Budget reductions for NASA must be carefully deliberated to maintain synergies between the space agency programs and ones for the military and national security, Gass said.
“Clearly our nation depends on synergies in NASA and national security missions,” Gass said during an event to mark five years since ULA’s founding. Any savings generated by cuts to NASA’s budget could be negatively offset by increases in national security programs, he said.
Gass said he was confident the White House and Congress will continue to support space programs but added there needs to be more consistency.
“We spend too much time starting and stopping programs,” he said. “We need that constancy of purpose.”
ULA was founded in December 2006 as a partnership of Lockheed Martin [LMT] and Boeing [BA] to meet the government’s desire to consolidate space launch services.
ULA has since carried out dozens of national security, NASA and commercial satellites.