Feb. 2, 2015

Thank you, Bob (Cabana). Its great to be here today at the Kennedy Space Center, where so many giant leaps have been made and where so many of our future dreams will take flight.

It was just a few short years ago that President Obama stood here in the Armstrong Operations and Checkout building and committed us to a Journey to Mars, beginning with an unprecedented mission to send astronauts to an asteroid as part of a stepping stone approach to reach the Red Planet.

Thanks to the hard work of our NASA team and the work of our contractor, academic and entrepreneurial partners all across America -- weve made a lot of progress on that journey.

This includes progress in integrating all of our work in a structured roadmap that is leading us to breakthroughs in new advanced technologies, driving us to new destinations and generating the inspiration on which future generations will thrive.

Just behind me are some tangible examples of our progress. The Orion spacecraft, which recently performed a near flawless flight test on its first journey to space, is being taken apart right now so it can reveal its secrets about that amazing flight. What we learn will prepare us for its next launch aboard our Space Launch System rocket (SLS) and its future with astronauts aboard exploring farther into our solar system than ever before.

Thanks to grit, determination and American ingenuity, weve returned cargo resupply missions to the United States, insourcing these jobs and creating a whole new private market in low Earth orbit.

Now U.S. companies, large and small, are developing the new systems in which our astronauts soon will travel from right here on the Space Coast in Florida to low Earth orbit. This initiative, where we hand off low Earth orbit transportation to the private sector, is critical to our journey to Mars.

The Boeing CST-100 mockup behind me that features the companys first-generation weld structure is a prime example of how the American aerospace industry is rising to the challenge of increasing crew safety while bringing down the cost of space travel.

See the original post:

State of NASA Speech by NASA Administrator Bolden