Amended in Assembly February 29, 2016

California Legislature—2015–16 Regular Session

House ResolutionNo. 37


Introduced by Assembly Member O'Donnell

(Coauthors: Assembly Members Bloom, Burke, Frazier, Gray, Irwin, Lackey, Low, Mathis,begin delete and Wilkend deletebegin insert Wilk, Achadjian, Alejo, Travis Allen, Atkins, Baker, Bigelow, Bonilla, Bonta, Brough, Brown, Calderon, Campos, Chang, Chau,end insertbegin insert Chávez, Chu,end insertbegin insert Cooley, Cooper, Dababneh, Dahle, Daly, Dodd, Eggman, Beth Gaines, Gallagher, Cristina Garcia, Eduardo Garcia, Gatto, Gipson, Gomez, Gonzalez, Gordon, Grove, Hadley, Harper, Holden, Jones, Jones-Sawyer, Kim, Levine, Linder, Lopez, Maienschein, Mayes, McCarty, Medina, Melendez, Mullin, Nazarian, Obernolte, Olsen, Patterson, Quirk, Rendon, Ridley-Thomas, Rodriguez, Salas, Santiago, Steinorth, Mark Stone, Thurmond, Ting, Wagner, Waldron, Weber, Williams, and Woodend insert)

February 12, 2016


House Resolution No. 37—Relative to California Aerospace Days.

P1    1WHEREAS, The California aerospace industry is a powerful,
2reliable source of employment, innovation, and export income,
3directly employing more than 203,000 people in California and
4supporting more than 511,000 jobs in related fields resulting in
5$2.9 billion in annual state income tax revenues; and

6WHEREAS, The California aerospace industry leads the United
7States in aerospace and defense services, including the design and
8manufacture of aircraft, spacecraft, and commercial satellites, as
9well as a myriad of systems and instruments for search, detection,
P2    1navigation, guidance, and radio and television broadcast and
2wireless communication systems; and

3WHEREAS, California is home to many superb sites of air and
4space activity, including Vandenberg Air Force Base, two Federal
5Aviation Administration-licensed launch sites, the Mojave Air and
6Spaceport, more than 20 astronomical observatories, multiple
7international airports, many important defense aerospace bases,
8and hundreds of business and general aviation airfields; and

9WHEREAS, California is also home to three National
10Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) research and
11engineering centers, the Ames Research Center, the NASA Neil
12A. Armstrong Flight Research Center, formerly known as the
13Dryden Flight Research Center, and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory
14(JPL); and

15WHEREAS, California has led the nation in aeronautical firsts
16and California’s aerospace industry produced many of the
17significant and record-breaking aircraft that are now represented
18in the Smithsonian Institution’s National Air and Space Museum.
19The Spirit of St. Louis, which in 1927 performed the first solo
20nonstop transatlantic flight from New York to Paris, France, was
21designed and built in California by Ryan Airlines and made Charles
22Lindbergh an international hero. The Douglas DC-3, recognized
23as the most successful airliner in history, dominating both
24commercial and military air transportation from its introduction
25in 1935 until after World War II, was designed and built in
26California by the Douglas Aircraft Company. The Space Shuttle
27was designed, built, assembled, and tested in California. California
28is home to Edwards Air Force Base, the site of five test flights of
29the Shuttle Enterprise, the landing site of 54 Space Shuttle
30missions, and the site of the 199 X-15 missions; and

31WHEREAS, Edwards Air Force Base, known for its notable
32aeronautical achievements, was the location of many first flights
33of American aircraft, shuttles, and experimental jets flown from
34Rogers Dry Lake in the Mojave Desert of Kern County. America’s
35first jet, XP-59A, was first flown in California. General Charles
36“Chuck” Yeager made world history in California on October 14,
371947, when he became the first man to fly Mach 1, faster than the
38speed of sound, while piloting the Bell X-1 rocket plane. The rocket
39powered X-15, flown by former State Senator William J. “Pete”
40Knight, attained a speed of Mach 6.7 (4,520 miles per hour), a
P3    1speed that remains, to this day, the highest ever attained in a
2manned aircraft. The Rutan Model 76 Voyager was the first aircraft
3to fly around the world without stopping or refueling; and

4WHEREAS, California has led the nation in firsts in human
5space exploration, including the manufacture of the Apollo 11
6command module that carried the first humans to the surface of
7our moon; the manufacture and landing of the Space Shuttle
8orbiters, the first reusable space vehicles, which include the
9Endeavour, on display at the California Science Center; and the
10manufacture and recovery of the SpaceX Dragon capsule and
11Falcon launch vehicle, the first privately funded space exploration
12system. The Space X Dragon cargo spacecraft has made 6
13successful commercial cargo resupply flights to the International
14Space Station; and

15WHEREAS, California has led the nation in firsts in robotic
16space exploration, including the Explorer 1 Earth observation
17satellite as America’s first successful spacecraft, the Mariner 2 as
18the first spacecraft to explore another planet, the Viking landers
19as the first spacecrafts to perform experiments on another planet,
20and the development of the Pioneer 10 spacecraft as the first to
21exit our solar system; and

22WHEREAS, Californians, through NASA and JPL, build,
23manage, and operate the majority of the spacecraft exploring our
24solar system, including the most recent Mars Science Laboratory
25“Curiosity,” and those spacecraft exploring other solar systems,
26like the Kepler exoplanet discovery mission, as well as the SOFIA,
27the Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy, that
28administers the Airborne Astronomy Ambassadors program for
29educators who have inspired the dreams of California youth; and

30WHEREAS, Sally Kristen Ride, Ph.D., who was born in
31California, stands in history as a pioneer in space exploration and
32academia and serves as a role model for others, by virtue of having
33been the first American woman and the youngest person to go into
34space when she traveled aboard the Challenger spacecraft on June
3518, 1983; and

36WHEREAS, California aerospace industries assemble the
37legendary Boeing C-17 Globemaster III, build the impressive
38Northrop Grumman Global Hawk Unmanned Aircraft Systems,
39engineer radical new aircraft at the famous Lockheed Martin
40“Skunk Works” Advanced Development Programs facility, and
P4    1create systems that assist and protect members of the Armed Forces
2of the United States through military communications, situational
3awareness, satellite-guided ordnance, and technologies yet to be
4dreamed of; and

5WHEREAS, Los Angeles Air Force Base, home of the Space
6and Missile Systems Center (SMC) since 1962, carries out vitally
7important work, including managing research, development, and
8acquisition of aerospace technology for military space systems,
9and continues to be an irreplaceable economic hub and center of
10military space acquisition excellence for the nation; and

11WHEREAS, California is home to the burgeoning private space
12industry with SpaceX and Virgin Galactic having administrative
13and manufacturing facilities located in the state and producing the
14future spacecrafts that will launch the next generation of military,
15governmental, scientific, and commercial satellites into space,
16resupply the International Space Station, and provide private
17citizens the opportunity to travel into space; and

18WHEREAS, California will continue to lead in aerospace
19education, through its superb science, technology, engineering,
20and mathematics (STEM) education programs and at its world-class
21research universities, and thus will continue to lead the world with
22the innovation that enabled advanced meteorological forecasting,
23the Global Positioning System, NextGen tools for air traffic
24management, green aviation, sophisticated wind tunnels and test
25facilities, and advanced supercomputing and robotics; and now,
26therefore, be it

27Resolved by the Assembly of the State of California, That the
28Assembly recognizes the contributions of the aerospace industry
29to the communities, citizens, history, economy, security, and
30educational system of California by proclaiming the days of
31February 29, 2016, and March 1, 2016, as California Aerospace
32Days; and be it further

33Resolved, That the Chief Clerk of the Assembly transmit copies
34of this resolution to the author for appropriate distribution.



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