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Astronaut Kent Rominger Talks About Utah's Aerospace Industry

buisness.utah.gov
Utah Governor's Office of Economic Development

Over 10,000 Utahns are employed by aerospace aviation companies.

Kent "Rommel" Rominger was a former space astronaut. He flew the space shuttle five times and was withNASA for 14 years. Rominger is also the VP for business development forOrbitalATK, a private aerospace company and builds defense and aviation systems.

Credit www.jsc.nasa.gov / NASA
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NASA
Former astronaut and NASA pilot Kent Rominger

Rominger said space exploration budgets are tighter because taxpayers want more bang for their buck.

 

"It is an interesting world for the aerospace industry," he said. "In the space world, NASA decided to pull on some of the private sector with contracting mechanisms that allow them to bring systems maybe at a more affordable prices."

Rominger said NASA relies on companies like SpaceX and Orbital ATK to supply the space stations.

"NASA is continuing to do the tough pieces of exploration that are really tough and take a lot of work such as putting humans on Mars," he said.

 

Orbital ATK is working on the project as well. They are helping build the mega rocket that’ll take humans to Mars.

 

Rominger also said ATK assists the Air Force and the Navy to create defense systems.   

"The strategic missiles that the Navy and the Air Force have, we do all of the propulsion for that right out of here in Utah," he said.

Credit FAS.org / FAS Military Analysis Network
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FAS Military Analysis Network
F-22

ATK is designing and building rockets that can help the Air Force put its satellites in orbit. Rominger said the F-22 is the peak in the limit, so it can do more than the human body can actually withstand.

 

"We're kind of at the limits of the human body," he said.

 

Rominger said the industry is moving toward more unmanned vehicles.

"As a pilot, it’s sad but it is unfortunately the right thing to do is start using unmanned vehicles more and more where they are going into harm's way and not putting human life at risk," he said.