West Virginia Launches Intentions For Space Academy
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FAIRMONT - That's one giant leap ... for Almost Heaven.
Gov. Patrick Morrisey said Wednesday he wants West Virginia to be the home of the U.S. Space Academy.
That's the interstellar initiative President Donald Trump fronted in August, as a way to advance the nation's ideals beyond the surly bonds of Earth.
Officer candidates in a newly formed federal Space Force would train there, along with existing NASA astronauts and others flying on missions for the country's burgeoning civilian space flight program.
Morrisey made the announcement that afternoon at the I-79 Technology Park in South Fairmont.
The high-tech campus is already home to at least one contractor working on NASA's ongoing Artemis missions for an eventual manned flight to Mars.
Such a space pedigree, the governor said, is already showing the world the Mountain State is serious in the out-of-this-world arena.
"We're nimble," he said. "We have the resources."
Which is important, he said, since neighboring Ohio is the home of Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Dayton, which pioneered the test flights in the 1950s which begat the space program.
But West Virginia has what Wright-Patt doesn't, the governor said: a Hidden Figure and a Rocket Boy.
That's in reference to Katherine Johnson, the NASA human computer from Greenbrier County, and Homer Hickam, who began experimenting with rockets as a high-schooler in the coalfields of McDowell County.
Johnson once famously assured John Glenn it was OK for him to board his Mercury space capsule and went on to figure the launch trajectories for Apollo 11.
Hickam was a NASA engineer who trained astronauts and specialized in the payload efficiencies of the rockets carrying people to the stars.
With the deadline for applications set for Oct. 26, the governor wants to hear your ideas.
Submissions may be made at wvspaceacademy.com.