Military bases could receive more than $337M for construction projects
Alabama military bases could receive $337.65 million under the Department of Defense’s funding bill passed by the U.S. Senate this week. The Senate’s version of the National Defense Authorization Act passed Thursday on an 86-11 vote, setting up a possible showdown with the House, which passed its version on July 14. The two sides must settle differences in conference before the $886 billion bill can go to President Joe Biden for a possible signature. The biggest proposed outlay is $197 million for new construction at Redstone Arsenal in Huntsville, which is the Army’s primary center for research, development, and doctrine for its missiles. Redstone would receive more than $77 million for a new ground test facility. Montgomery’s Maxwell Air Force Base, home of the Air Force’s officer training school, post-graduate Air University, and a training squadron for the MH-139 Grey Wolf helicopter, would receive $65 million to build new base housing. Senate appropriators plan to allocate $57 million to build a new Army reserve center in Birmingham. Montgomery’s Dannelly Field will receive $7 million in facility upgrades to prepare for the 187th Fighter Wing’s conversion from the now-departed F-16 to the F-35, the first of which arrive in December. Fort McClellan, which is located near Bynum, will receive $7 million to build a new enlisted barracks for the Alabama National Guard. Republished with the permission of The Center Square.
Terri Sewell and Robert Aderholt show support for Huntsville as the preferred location for U.S. Space Command Headquarters
U.S. Reps. Terri Sewell and Robert Aderholt released a joint statement in support of Redstone Arsenal in Huntsville as the preferred location for U.S. Space Command Headquarters. Redstone Arsenal in Huntsville, Alabama was chosen by the U.S. Air Force to be the permanent site for the U.S. Space Command headquarters. Alabama was selected over five other states, including Colorado, where Space Command is provisionally located. The Associated Press reported that Colorado officials lambasted the move, arguing that military officials had recommended to Trump that Space Command should remain at the Peterson Air Force Base in Colorado Springs. However, they claim they were “overruled for politically motivated reasons.” They did not say what those alleged political reasons were. Congressional colleagues from locations that lost the competition requested two government agencies, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) and the Department of Defense Office of Inspector General, investigate the U.S. Air Force’s basing process. The GAO report will be publicly released in the coming weeks. Sewell and Aderholt stated, “There is no better place for our nation’s Space Command headquarters than the Rocket City. Huntsville is the world’s premier hub for space exploration and innovation and we resoundingly support the 2021 decision to locate it there. We stand by the Air Force’s decision that Huntsville is the best and only home for U.S. Space Command. We look forward to reviewing the Government Accountability Office’s report and remain confident that an objective analysis of the facts will yield the same conclusion.” Sewell stated on Twitter, “There is no better place for the U.S. Space Command headquarters than the Rocket City and I am confident that an objective analysis of the facts will yield the same conclusion.” On March 8th, General James H. Dickinson, Commander of U.S. Space Command, was asked if a move of Space Command away from its temporary home might result in operational disruptions or delays to the mission. The General responded, “I would say we are a couple or three years away from full operational capability … wherever I’m located.”
Army defends decision to close space, tech library
The U.S. Army is defending a decision to close its historic 57-year-old space and technical library at Redstone Arsenal. Army officials said it was a joint decision made by interested parties. The Redstone Scientific Information Center, or RSIC, closed its doors Sept. 30, Al.com reported. The center was established in 1962 by a charter between the Army and NASA. It was overseen by a board of directors made up of senior leaders and scientists at Redstone’s various missile organizations. Dr. Wernher von Braun and Maj. Gen. Francis “Frank” McMorrow agreed to build the original facility, which held information about rocketry and space science used to advance United States rocket programs. In a statement released this week, the U.S. Army Combat Capabilities Development Command Aviation & Missile Center, or AvMC, said the collection had become too big and expensive to maintain. “The sheer size of the collection – approximately 450,000 items – demanded an increase in space requirements,” the statement said. But it added decreased funding and resources have made it untenable to continue managing the library. AvMC said the library is now virtual and “consists of online-only access to scientific journals and e-books” plus electronic versions of technical documents. The e-documents will not be fully available until July 2021. As for the rest, NASA documents were returned to NASA and “excess library materials” will be offered to other Defense Department or government libraries first locally and then outside Huntsville. The Army’s statement said there are “no plans at this time to create another local library approaching the size and scope of RSIC for the entire Redstone Arsenal community.” NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center said it “has acquired selected books and other documents from RSIC and is in the process of developing an on-site library, which will be a branch of the NASA agency-wide library system.” Marshall said its employees will “have access to RSIC’s online subscriptions through spring 2020.” After that, “the NASA agency on-line library will provide subscriptions for all centers including Marshall.” Republished with the permission of the Associated Press.
Shutdown squeezing the Alabama city of Huntsville — built on federal spending
Once known for its cotton trade and watercress farms, Huntsville, Alabama, is now the ultimate government town: About 70 federal agencies are located at the Army’s 38,000-acre Redstone Arsenal. More than half of the area’s economy is tied to Washington spending. Empty parking lots and darkened offices at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center on Redstone have translated into vacant hotel rooms because out-of-town government workers and contractors aren’t coming. Restaurants frequented by federal workers who travel on government spending accounts are struggling, too. Transportation Security Administration employees working without pay at the city’s airport say they are spending their own money to bring in quiches and breakfast rolls as a morale booster. Moms are sharing tips online about free entertainment and buying food in bulk to save a few bucks. The largest credit union has already provided hundreds of bridge loans for struggling families. “It’s a fog with no end in sight,” said Michael Northern, an executive with a small company that runs three restaurants outside a main arsenal gate. The lunch crowd is still OK, he said, but dinner dollars have dried up, and business is off at least 35 percent. “People are just going home and nesting, trying to conserve resources,” said Northern, vice president of WJP Restaurant Group. “Imagine being in that posture and hearing Donald Trump say, ‘It could be a year.’” The closure persists because the president and congressional Democrats can’t agree on $5.7 billion in funding for a border wall, which Trump touts as vital to U.S. security and critics see as pointless and immoral. The jobs of some 800,000 workers hang in the balance. A little more than half are still working without pay, and hundreds of thousands will miss paychecks Friday. Economic statistics lag real-time events, so it’s hard to gauge the effects of a shutdown that’s been going on less than a month. But in Huntsville, a city of about 195,000 people where more than 5,000 workers are affected, frustration and worry are building. Located at the base of a mountain in the lush Tennessee Valley, Huntsville was just another Alabama city until the government decided to build rockets at Redstone Arsenal at the dawn of the space race. The influx of people and federal dollars that arrived with NASA transformed the city into a technical and engineering hub that only grew as Army missile and materiel programs expanded on the base. That heavy reliance on federal spending has Huntsville residents wondering what will come next. Jack Lyons, a lifelong space geek who thought he’d hit the jackpot when he got a job as a contractor working on massive rocket test stands for NASA, is spending the furlough on his small side business making props for marching bands. A solid Republican voter until 2016, when he couldn’t bring himself to vote for Trump, he’s frustrated and saddened by what’s going on in Washington. “They’re trying to use people as bargaining chips, and it just isn’t right,” Lyons said. Unlike civil service workers who expect to eventually get back pay, Lyons doesn’t know if he’ll ever see a dollar from the shutdown period. Just back from maternity leave following the birth of her second child, Katie Barron works at home for a private company not connected to the government, but her husband is a National Weather Service meteorologist forced to work without pay because his job is classified as essential. They’re canceling this Saturday’s date night to save a couple of hundred dollars, and the purchase of a new refrigerator is on hold. They’ve also put off home and car maintenance, but the $450-a-week bill for day care still has to be paid, as do the mortgage and utility bills. “We’re a little bit buffered, but our lives are basically based off dual incomes,” Barron said. While Barron frets over the loss of dental and optical insurance because of the shutdown, she said her family has some savings and will be fine for a while. Others are struggling. Redstone Federal Credit Union already has provided hundreds of low-interest loans of as much as $5,000 each to families affected by the shutdown, with no payments due for 60 days, and it’s also letting members skip payments on existing loans for a $35 fee, chief marketing officer Fred Trusty said. “As the days go on, we are seeing more and more traffic head to our branches,” he said. The timing of the shutdown couldn’t be worse since many families already were stretched thin by holiday spending or starting payments for upcoming summer travel, Trusty said. Jeff and Sabine Cool, who own a German-style food truck that operates in the heart of the NASA complex, say their income is down about $600 a week since the beginning of the shutdown. “It kind of hurt a little bit. We’re just rolling with the punches,” Jeff Cool said Wednesday as he set up tables outside Hildegard’s German Wurst Wagon on a bright, windy morning. “I’m glad I’m retired Army and have an additional income, but I feel for the other people.” Cool’s sympathy extends to people like Sandra Snell, a TSA officer working without pay at Huntsville International Airport. She hasn’t gotten a paycheck since December and wonders what will happen once her savings run out. The bright spots of the shutdown, she said, are the co-workers who share food and airline passengers who realize that the people checking their identification cards and staffing the X-ray machines are working for free. “They’ll say, ‘Thanks for being here.’ It helps. It’s nice when they realize your value,” she said. Republished with permission from the Associated Press.
FBI bringing 1,350 jobs to Redstone Arsenal in Huntsville
The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) will continue to grow at Redstone Arsenal in Huntsville, Ala. as part of an expansion project. The Redstone Arsenal FBI Director Robert Hamilton announced Thursday the federal agency will move 1,340 personnel and contractors from the Washington, D.C., area to Redstone. During a presentation to local Huntsville business and community leaders Hamilton explained that expects the building to be ready for occupancy in early 2021. “Alabama is on a roll. Each new development spawns two more. If you can’t find a job in Alabama, you are doing something wrong,” State Auditor Jim Zeigler said of the expansion. Currently, the FBI has around 300 employees working on its two Redstone campuses. According to the Associated Press, Huntsville Mayor Tommy Battle anticipates the FBI expansion at Redstone will reach between 4,000 and 5,000 jobs.
Mo Brooks pitches Redstone Arsenal for Donald Trump’s new Space Command
Alabama 5th District U.S. Rep. Mo Brooks wants Alabama’s Redstone Arsenal to be the home of the President Donald Trump‘s new Space Force. Brooks made the suggestion Friday morning when he participated in a joint hearing entitled “Space Situational Awareness: Whole of Government Perspectives on Roles and Responsibilities,” before the Space Subcommittee of the Science, Space, and Technology Committee, of which Brooks is Vice-Chair, and the Strategic Forces Subcommittee of the House Armed Services Committee, of which Brooks is a member. During the hearing, Brooks took the opportunity to opportunity to tell his influential peers of the suggestion. “Forgive me for diverging from the primary focus of this hearing, but it occurs to me that each of you has significant persuasive influence on where the new space command will be headquartered, so I am going to touch on that for a moment,” said Brooks. “In that vein, I hope you will help make Redstone Arsenal a finalist in the space command headquarters debate. Redstone Arsenal has a lot to offer.” Transcription of Brooks’ opening monologue: Forgive me for diverging from the primary focus of this hearing, but it occurs to me that each of you has significant persuasive influence on where the new space command will be headquartered, so I am going to touch on that for a moment. In that vein, I hope you will help make Redstone Arsenal a finalist in the space command headquarters debate. Redstone Arsenal has a lot to offer. We have related to space command— either related a lot or related a little— the following space command activities: United States Army Aviation and Missile Command; Aviation and Missile Research Developmental and Engineering Center; PEO Missiles and Space; United States Army Space and Missile Command; Army Forces Strategic Command; United State Missile Defense Agency; Defense Intelligence Agency’s Missile and Space Intelligence Center; NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center, which is the home and birthplace of America’s space program; a wealth of intellectual talent; engineers, we have the highest concentration of engineers in the United States of America; physicists; mathematicians; scientists. In conclusion, I hope you will concur that Redstone Arsenal and space command seem like an excellent fit.
Ceremony marks opening of Alabama computer forensics lab
A new lab specializing in digital forensics is operating in Huntsville, Alabama. The FBI and local leaders held a ceremony Wednesday to mark the opening of the Tennessee Valley Regional Computer Forensics Laboratory. The center is one of 17 such facilities in nationwide specializing in training and the analysis of digital evidence. The FBI will provide the facility, equipment and training for the lab. Local agencies will provide staffing for the center including the city of Huntsville police; sheriff’s departments in Etowah and Madison counties; and the Alabama National Guard Counterdrug program. The U.S. attorney’s office for north Alabama will help as a prosecuting agency. The lab is located at Redstone Arsenal. Republished with the permission of the Associated Press.
On this day in Alabama history: Wernher von Braun was born in Germany
Rocket engineer Wernher von Braun was born in Wirsitz, Germany. Credited with inventing the world’s first ballistic missile, the V-2, for Nazi Germany, von Braun secretly moved to the U.S. in 1945 and Huntsville in 1950. While at Redstone Arsenal and, later, the Marshall Space Flight Center, von Braun led the development of the Redstone family of rockets responsible for launching the first U.S. satellite into space, America’s first two manned spaceflights, and the Apollo 11 moon landing in 1969. Von Braun received the National Medal of Science in 1975 and was posthumously inducted into the U.S. Space and Rocket Center Hall of Fame in 2007. Read more at Encyclopedia of Alabama. Republished with permission of Alabama NewsCenter.
Alabama native to interview President Obama at White House
Destin Sandlin, Alabama native and founder of the popular YouTube channel “Smarter Every Day,” will interview President Barack Obama at the White House this week as part of a public outreach effort. Sandlin is an engineer at the Redstone Arsenal Army base near Huntsville, in Madison County. On his regular video blog, he discusses scientific, social, and political issues in a breezy, well-informed manner. Obama is participating in the event as part of an “#YouTubeAsksObama” to engage the great many Americans who rely more and more on the Internet as a source of news and information, and will field questions from two other big-name YouTubers as well, namely Ingrid Nilsen and Adande Thorne, better known as “sWooZie.” Sandlin says he will ask the commander in chief scientific, as well as personal questions. He boasts about 3.5 million subscribers, and something similar to that large figure is likely to view his exclusive with Obama. “We have a huge opportunity here,” Sandlin said. “The format is going to be really cool. They created a small version of my office that’s going to be there at the White House so we can just hang out and talk like we always do, except the president’s there.” You can submit a question for Sandlin to ask the President by tweeting at him – @smartereveryday – using the hashtag #YouTubeAsksObama.
