Irene Klotz is Senior Space Editor for Aviation Week, based in Cape Canaveral. Before joining Aviation Week in 2017, Irene spent 25 years as a wire service reporter covering human and robotic spaceflight, commercial space, astronomy, science and technology for Reuters and United Press International. She also worked with Discovery Communications, Discovery News and was a founding member of Space.com.
Irene cut her teeth on the space beat at Florida Today newspaper, a business writer enchanted by the colorful entrepreneurs who wanted access to Air Force launch facilities and assets after commercial payloads were taken off the space shuttles following the 1986 Challenger accident. Commercial space remains the focus of her work, along with a keen interest in the search for life beyond Earth.
A graduate of Northwestern University, Irene is the 2014 recipient of the Harry Kolcum Memorial News and Communications Award, named in honor of the late Aviation Week managing editor and Cape Canaveral senior editor who was among Irene’s earliest mentors.
CAPE CANAVERAL — Florida’s space development agency will give $500,000 to a Space Coast startup that is working to parlay its parent company’s aerospace expertise into a fuel-efficient diesel-hybrid sports car designed and built in Brevard County. Avera Motors of Rockledge, Fla., an offshoot of Mainstream Engineering Corp., also of Rockledge, will turn over its first prototype to Space Florida, which plans to tap Kennedy Space Center expertise for product and manufacturing assessments under a proposed Space Act Agreement with NASA.
Bipartisan support is growing in both houses of Congress for a faster start on the heavy-lift launch vehicle President Barack Obama said he wants regardless of what happens to his plan to scrap the Constellation Program. A bipartisan group of 62 House members is urging Obama to initiate “the immediate development and production of a heavy-lift launch vehicle that, in conjunction with the Orion crew exploration vehicle, may be used for either lunar or deep-space exploration to an asteroid and beyond.”
Frank Morring, Jr. (Washington), Irene Klotz (Cape Canaveral)
A small groundswell is rising in Congress for a faster start on the heavy-lift launch vehicle President Barack Obama says he wants, but it may be swamped by the backwash from growing irritation over NASA’s sluggish production of justification for its “game-changing” new approach. A bipartisan gang of 62 House members wants Obama to initiate “the immediate development and production of a heavy-lift launch vehicle that, in conjunction with the Orion crew exploration vehicle, may be used for either lunar or deep-space exploration.”
