Jim Crisafulli is speaking about what’s going on in the Aloha State. Talking about yesterday’s NYT piece by Tom Wolfe about our lack of direction in space. Quotes from Tennyson’s Ulysses, “…to sail beyond the sunset.”

State of Hawaii and NASA are both fifty years old, and much Apollo training took place there, talking about telescopes on Mauna Kea, and Science City on Maui. Hawaii is one of the contenders for the new 30m telescope, and it will be announced tomorrow, planning a new solar telescope on Haleakala. U of Hawaii supports many NASA researchers. Have a space grant consortium to support education, has an Office of Aerospace Development. Have K-12 program for teaching students how to study space and astronomy. Hawaii schools part of the LCROSS telemetry team.

U of H has array of experts in adaptive optics, LIDAR/laser, remote sensing for astronomy atmostpheric/oceanic monitoring, terrestrial and coastal resource mapping. Several home-grown companies for commercial applications in these areas, including advanced air-traffic control. Working with FAA for evaluation of next-gen ATC technologies, also clean energy. Major space companies expanding outposts in Hawaii as stepping stones to Asian markets. Geographical location logical for space launch. Only state that can launch into any azimuth with no overflight. Looking at new launch modes that can improve further. Work closely with all NASA centers but most closely with Ames: here to renew agreement between Ames and the state.

Interested in space-related R&T, aerospace training and education, and commercial space launch, including space planes, sea/land-based vertical systems and airborne systems. Potential sea-launch capability based in Pearl Harbor that could ultimately take astronauts to ISS.

Working on Asian/Hawaiian consortium for space activities, focused initially on cooperation with Japan.

Working with Ames on lunar science, again to develop cooperative activities with Asia.

Passed a bill last week to get their commercial spaceport license, and hope to have a commercial license within two or three years. Also doing continued power beaming experiments from island to island as SPS demonstrators, looking at variable-buoyancy aircraft for island-island transportation, with potential for weddings at thirty-thousand feet. Also two new space tug companies forming. Encourages all to give office a call if you want to become a Hawaiian space company.

On a down note, in response to a question about job opportunities, he notes that Hawaii’s state finances are as bad as CA’s, and there are many people about to be furloughed or laid off, including himself…