Apollo 12 astronaut Richard Gordon, who circled moon, dies

WASHINGTON (AP) — Apollo 12 astronaut Richard "Dick" F. Gordon Jr., one of a dozen men who flew around the moon but didn't land there, has died, NASA said. He was 88.

Gordon was a test pilot when he was chosen for NASA's third group of astronauts in 1963. He flew on Gemini 11 in 1966, walking in space twice. In 1969, Gordon circled the moon in the Apollo 12 command module Yankee Clipper while crewmates Alan Bean and Charles Conrad landed and walked on the lunar surface.

Over the two flights, he spent nearly 316 hours in space.

"Dick will be fondly remembered as one of our nation's boldest flyers, a man who added to our own nation's capabilities by challenging his own. He will be missed," acting NASA administrator Robert Lightfoot said in a statement Tuesday.

Gordon died Monday at his home in San Marcos, California, according to the Astronaut Scholarship Foundation.

Born in Seattle, a Navy captain and a chemist, Gordon was such a steely professional that after a difficult first spacewalk, he fell asleep during a break in his second spacewalk. He downplayed Apollo 12 being hit by lightning during liftoff; backup batteries saved the crew from having to abort the mission.

"He's a cool guy," Bean recalled Tuesday. "He's the kind of guy you want when you go to the moon."

In a 1997 NASA oral history, Gordon said people would often ask if he felt alone while his two partners walked on the moon.  "I said, 'Hell no, if you knew those guys, you'd be happy to be alone'."

Gordon called that experience wonderful: "You don't have to communicate. You don't have to worry about pleasing anyone beside yourself. And there's a lot of things that you have to do and accomplish. And it's a moment of solitude."

Gordon and Bean described the second moon landing as a mission full of antics and dust.

When Conrad and Bean left the moon and docked their lunar module, Gordon said he looked in and "all I could see was a black cloud in there. I didn't see them at all. I looked in there and said, 'Holy smoke. You're not getting in here and dirtying up my nice clean Command Module.'  So they passed the rocks over, took off their suits and underwear, and I said, 'OK, you can come in now'."

Gordon had been slated to command the Apollo 18 mission that would land on the moon, but it was cut for budget reasons. Apollo 17 was the last mission to the moon. In all, 24 Americans flew to the moon and 12 landed on it.

While in the Navy as a test pilot, Gordon won the Bendix Trophy Race from Los Angeles to New York in 1961, setting a speed record of 869.74 miles per hour.

Gordon was the instant leader of a star-studded class of 14 astronauts that included Apollo 11's Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins and the last man on the moon, Eugene Cernan, Bean recalled.

"He was a happy guy and just the best possible crewmate and friend," he said.

During his first Gemini 11 spacewalk, Gordon said he and crewmate Conrad "were so jacked up" that they were ready an hour early. When it came time to put on his helmet, it wouldn't fit. After much effort and lost time, he got it on, but was exhausted and behind schedule.

"I was perspiring," he later recalled. "My eyes were stinging ... they decided to quit."

His second spacewalk was so calm that he and Conrad caught themselves falling asleep.

"It was nice and warm and cuddly," Gordon said.

After retiring from NASA in 1972, he became executive vice president of the New Orleans Saints football team. He went on to be an executive in energy and science companies.

Gordon is survived by six children, two stepchildren, and five grandchildren.

Scientists witness huge cosmic crash, find origins of gold

This illustration provided by the Carnegie Institution for Science depicts the collision of two neutron stars detected on Aug. 17, 2017. The explosion threw matter, light, radiation and gravitational waves into space. The discovery was reported on Monday, Oct. 16, 2017. (Robin Dienel/Carnegie Institution for Science via AP)

WASHINGTON (AP) — It was a faint signal, but it told of one of the most violent acts in the universe, and it would soon reveal secrets of the cosmos, including how gold was created.

Astronomers around the world reacted to the signal quickly, focusing telescopes located on every continent and even in orbit to a distant spot in the sky.

What they witnessed in mid-August and revealed Monday was the long-ago collision of two neutron stars — a phenomenon California Institute of Technology's David H. Reitze called "the most spectacular fireworks in the universe."

"When these things collide, all hell breaks loose," he said.

David Reitze of the California Institute of Technology and the executive director of the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory, or LIGO, speaks at the National Press Club in Washington, Monday, Oct. 16, 2017, during an announcement on one of the most violent events in the cosmos that was witnessed completely for the first time in August and tells scientists where gold and other heavy elements come from. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh)

Measurements of the light and other energy emanating from the crash have helped scientists explain how planet-killing gamma ray bursts are born, how fast the universe is expanding, and where heavy elements like platinum and gold come from.

"This is getting everything you wish for," said Syracuse University physics professor Duncan Brown, one of more than 4,000 scientists involved in the blitz of science that the crash kicked off. "This is our fantasy observation."

It started in a galaxy called NGC 4993, seen from Earth in the Hydra constellation. Two neutron stars, collapsed cores of stars so dense that a teaspoon of their matter would weigh 1 billion tons, danced ever faster and closer together until they collided, said Carnegie Institution astronomer Maria Drout.

The crash, called a kilonova, generated a fierce burst of gamma rays and a gravitational wave, a faint ripple in the fabric of space and time, first theorized by Albert Einstein.

"This is like a cosmic atom smasher at a scale far beyond humans would be capable of building," said Andy Howell, a staff scientist at the Las Cumbres Observatory. "We finally now know what happens when an unstoppable force meets an immovable object and it's a kilonova."

The crash happened 130 million years ago, while dinosaurs still roamed on Earth, but the signal didn't arrive on Earth until Aug. 17 after traveling 130 million light-years. A light-year is 5.88 trillion miles.

David Reitze of the California Institute of Technology and the executive director of the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory, or LIGO, speaks at the National Press Club in Washington, Monday, Oct. 16, 2017, during an announcement on one of the most violent events in the cosmos that was witnessed completely for the first time in August and tells scientists where gold and other heavy elements come from. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh)

Signals were picked up within 1.7 seconds of each other, by NASA's Fermi telescope, which detects gamma rays, and gravity wave detectors in Louisiana and Washington state that are a part of the LIGO Laboratory , whose founders won a Nobel Prize earlier this month. A worldwide alert went out to focus telescopes on what became the most well-observed astronomical event in history.

Before August, the only other gravity waves detected by LIGO were generated by colliding black holes. But black holes let no light escape, so astronomers could see nothing.

This time there was plenty to see, measure and analyze: matter, light, and other radiation. The Hubble Space Telescope even got a snapshot of the afterglow.

Finding where the crash happened wasn't easy. Eventually scientists narrowed the location down to 100 galaxies, began a closer search of those, and found it in the ninth galaxy they looked at.

Vicky Kalogera, a gravitational-wave astrophysicist at Northwestern University who contributed to the historic detections of gravitational waves, speaks at the National Press Club in Washington, Monday, Oct. 16, 2017, during an announcement on one of the most violent events in the cosmos that was witnessed completely for the first time in August and tells scientists where gold and other heavy elements come from. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh)

It is like "the classic challenge of finding a needle in the haystack with the added challenge that the needle is fading away and the haystack is moving," said Marcelle Soares-Santos, an astrophysicist at Brandeis University.

"The completeness of this picture from the beginning to the end is unprecedented," said Columbia University physics professor Szabolcs Marka. "There are many, many extraordinary discoveries within the discovery."

The colliding stars spewed bright blue, super-hot debris that was dense and unstable. Some of it coalesced into heavy elements, like gold, platinum and uranium. Scientists had suspected neutron star collisions had enough power to create heavier elements, but weren't certain until they witnessed it.

"We see the gold being formed," said Syracuse's Brown.

Calculations from a telescope measuring ultraviolet light showed that the combined mass of the heavy elements from this explosion is 1,300 times the mass of Earth. And all that stuff — including lighter elements — was thrown out in all different directions and is now speeding across the universe.

Perhaps one day the material will clump together into planets the way ours was formed, Reitze said — maybe ones with rich veins of precious metals.

"We already knew that iron came from a stellar explosion, the calcium in your bones came from stars and now we know the gold in your wedding ring came from merging neutron stars," said University of California Santa Cruz's Ryan Foley.

The crash also helped explain the origins of one of the most dangerous forces of the cosmos — short gamma ray bursts, focused beams of radiation that could erase life on any planet that happened to get in the way. These bursts shoot out in two different directions perpendicular to where the two neutron stars first crash, Reitze said.

Luckily for us, the beams of gamma rays were not focused on Earth and were generated too far away to be a threat, he said.

Marica Branchesi, an astronomer who has been part of the LIGO and Virgo collaborations, talks in Washington, Monday, Oct. 16, 2017, during the announcement about one of the most violent events in the cosmos that was witnessed completely for the first time in August and tells scientists where gold and other heavy elements come from. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh)

Scientists knew that the universe has been expanding since the Big Bang. By using LIGO to measure gravitational waves while watching this event unfold, researchers came up with a new estimate for how fast that is happening, the so-called Hubble Constant. Before this, scientists came up with two slightly different answers using different techniques. The rough figure that came out of this event is between the original two, Reitze said.

The first optical images showed a bright blue dot that was very hot, which was likely the start of the heavy element creation process amid the neutron star debris, Drout said. After a day or two that blue faded, becoming much fainter and redder. And after three weeks it was completely gone, she said.

This almost didn't happen. Eight days after the signal came through, the LIGO gravitational waves were shut down for a year's worth of planned upgrades. A month later the whole area where the crash happened would have been blocked from astronomers' prying eyes by the sun.

Julie McEnery, an astrophysicist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., speaks at the National Press Club in Washington, Monday, Oct. 16, 2017, during an announcement about one of the most violent events in the cosmos that was witnessed completely for the first time in August and tells scientists where gold and other heavy elements come from. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh)

Scientists involved with the search for gravitational waves said this was the event they had prepared for over more than 20 years.

The findings are "of spectacular importance," said Penn State physicist Abhay Ashtekar, who wasn't part of the research. "This is really brand new."

Almost all of the discoveries confirmed existing theories, but had not been proven — an encouraging result for theorists who have been trying to explain what is happening in the cosmos, said France Cordova, an astrophysicist who directs the National Science Foundation.

"We so far have been unable to prove Einstein wrong," said Georgia Tech physics professor Laura Cadonati. "But we're going to keep trying."

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Follow Seth Borenstein on Twitter at @borenbears . His work can be found here .

Monster Hurricanes Attacking the Atlantic

WASHINGTON (AP) — It's not just this year. The monster hurricanes Harvey, Irma, Maria, Jose and Lee that have raged across the Atlantic are contributing to what appears to be the most active period for major storms on record.

And the busiest part of hurricane season isn't even over.

FILE - In this Oct. 19, 2005 file photo, Max Mayfield, the former director of the hurricane center (now retired), draws a line showing one of the possible trajectories of Hurricane Wilma in Miami. It’s not just this year. The monster hurricanes Harvey, Irma, Maria, Jose and now Lee that have raged across the Atlantic are contributing to what appears to be the most active period for major storms on record. AP Photo/Alan Diaz)

An analysis of 167 years of federal storm data by The Associated Press found that no 30-year period in history has seen this many major hurricanes, this many days of those whoppers spinning in the Atlantic, or this much overall energy generated by those powerful storms.

Scientists caution it is too soon to draw conclusions from the data, and they don't say the intense activity confirms a trend. Storms in the distant past may have gone unnoticed, which could make earlier generations appear quieter than they were. Some scientists say past hurricane data is so weak that it's impossible to connect the recent activity to global warming.

But more intense storms are what scientists expect to see as the planet's climate changes because warmer ocean water is fuel for hurricanes. And they say it is important to better understand this current intense period to save lives and prevent worse future destruction.

FILE - In this Aug. 30, 2005 file photo, floodwaters from Hurricane Katrina cover the lower ninth ward, foreground, and other parts of New Orleans, a day after the storm passed through the city. It’s not just this year. The monster hurricanes Harvey, Irma, Maria, Jose and now Lee that have raged across the Atlantic are contributing to what appears to be the most active period for major storms on record. (AP Photo/David J. Phillip, File)

Georgia Tech climate scientist Kim Cobb said it would be "foolish" for policymakers to ignore the data. "We may not have as much data as we would like, but we have enough to aggressively invest in a variety of defenses for coastal communities," she said in an email.

"We face a triple threat of rising seas, stronger winds, and literally off-the-charts rainfall totals."

The Atlantic hurricane season was more intense than normal in 2003, 2004, 2005, 2008, 2010, 2012 and 2016. The 2005 season, which included Katrina, Rita and Wilma, was so active forecasters ran out of names for storms.

Then came this year. Fueled by warmer than normal ocean temperatures and ideal wind conditions, September 2017 had more days with major hurricanes spinning and more overall hurricane energy expelled than any month on record, according to Colorado State University hurricane researcher Phil Klotzbach. Harvey spawned record rainfall. Irma had record high winds in the open Atlantic. And Maria hit the U.S. stronger than the earlier two.

The Associated Press looked at all major hurricanes — not just the small fraction that hit the U.S. — and grouped them into 30-year periods to mirror the 30-year cycles climate scientists use to understand how the climate is changing. The analysis found that in the period from 1988 to 2017:

— There have been 90 major hurricanes, an average of three a year. That's 48 percent more than during the previous 30 years. This hurricane season is at five and still counting.

In this Sept. 11, 2017 photo, debris lies from a destroyed building in the aftermath of Hurricane Irma in Key Largo, Fla. It’s not just this year. The monster hurricanes Harvey, Irma, Maria, Jose and now Lee that have raged across the Atlantic are contributing to what appears to be the most active period for major storms on record. (AP Photo/Wilfredo Lee)

— During the past 30 years major hurricanes have churned for an average of 7.2 days. That's 65 percent more than the average during the previous 30 years. There have been 18.8 major hurricane days so far this year.

— Scientists use a measure called Accumulated Cyclone Energy, or ACE, that factors in wind speed and storm duration to gauge hurricane power. The annual average ACE of the past 30 years is 41 percent more than in the previous 30 years. An average year ACE is just shy of 100 and this year's ACE, with two months still to go, is 204.2.

— Of the last 30 years, nine hurricane seasons were considered "hyperactive" according to the definition used by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and seven were above normal. Only seven years were below normal.

Was it just as busy for major storms in the 1930s or 1890s? The numbers say no, but scientists won't draw conclusions because they fear a large undercount of storms before the 1960s.

"There's no question that the storms are stronger than they were 30 years ago," said NOAA climate and hurricane scientist James Kossin. "The questions are if you go back a little further if that's what you'll find. We do know for sure that things have increased a hell of a lot since 1970."

So what's going on?

Scientists talk about two important factors for long-term hurricane activity: man-made climate change and a natural pattern of changes in the Atlantic.

The world's oceans go through long cycles as water circulates like a giant conveyor belt. They last 20 to 30 years, carrying water with different levels of salt and temperature. That cycle seems coincide with hurricane activity, Klotzbach said.

Klotzbach predicts that a period of high salinity and warmer water in the North Atlantic that has been present since 1995 will soon fade — and take with it this ultra-busy period for storms. Other scientists dispute this.

In this Sept. 1, 2017 photo, homes are submerged by water from the flooded Brazos River in the aftermath of Hurricane Harvey near Freeport, Tex. It’s not just this year. The monster hurricanes Harvey, Irma, Maria, Jose and now Lee that have raged across the Atlantic are contributing to what appears to be the most active period for major storms on record. (AP Photo/Charlie Riedel)

More frequent and more intense storms fit what scientists expect to see accompany global warming, MIT hurricane and climate professor Kerry Emanuel said. Physics, computer simulations and numerous scientific studies show that as the world warms the strongest storms should get wetter and more intense, and probably more frequent. Yet, the overall number of all named storms is likely to drop because there will likely be fewer weaker ones, scientists say.

Still, scientists say it would take more years — and maybe decades — of good data to know for sure if there's a direct connection to climate change.

National Hurricane Center science officer Chris Landsea said the problems with missing past storms are so severe "making any conclusions for the entire (Atlantic) basin would not be justified" and several other scientists agreed with him.

Climate scientist Stefan Rahmstorf of the Potsdam Institute in Germany said the data showing increased intensity is clear enough for him: "The only caveat being that the increase might be exaggerated somewhat because of undercounting early storms."

What's happening with hurricanes — the frequency, the duration, and the energy — is probably a combination of factors caused by both nature and man, Klotzbach said: "a mish-mosh of everything."

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AP data journalist Nicky Forster contributed to this story from New York.

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Follow Seth Borenstein on Twitter at @borenbears . His work can be found here .

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This Associated Press series was produced in partnership with the Howard Hughes Medical Institute's Department of Science Education. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

Natural Disasters in USA Break Billion-Dollar Records

FILE - In this Sept. 2, 2017, file photo, a crew with California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (Cal Fire) battles a brushfire on the hillside in Burbank, Calif. If you think this has been a wild and costly year for weather disasters, federal meteorologists say you are right, it’s been record setting. So far this year the United States has had 15 weather disasters that caused at least $1 billion in damages. (AP Photo/Ringo H.W. Chiu, file)

WASHINGTON (AP) — Howling winds, deadly floods, fire and ice so far this year have pushed the U.S. into a tie for weather disasters that topped $1 billion in damages.

There have been 15 costly disasters through September, tying 2011 for the most billion-dollar weather disasters for the first nine months of a year. The record for a year is 16, and the hurricane season is not over yet. 

The figures released Friday by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration include three hurricanes, three tornado outbreaks, four severe storms, two floods, a drought, a freeze and wildfires.

FILE - In this March 7, 2017, file photo, Mark Swartz salvage items from his son's home that was destroyed by a tornado after a severe storm passed through Oak Grove, Mo. If you think this has been a wild and costly year for weather disasters, federal meteorologists say you are right, it’s been record setting. So far this year the United States has had 15 weather disasters that caused at least $1 billion in damages. (AP Photo/Charlie Riedel, file)

NOAA climate scientist Adam Smith said 2017 is shaping up to be an unprecedented year. It is likely to tie or break the record for billion-dollar weather disasters that was set in 2005, the year of Hurricane Katrina and other deadly storms.

NOAA hasn't calculated the costs from hurricanes Harvey, Irma and Maria, but an outside disaster risk company estimates the U.S. damage from the three hurricanes to be around $150 billion. The remaining disasters so far this year have cost more than $21.7 billion and killed 282 people, according to NOAA.

FILE - In this Aug. 29, 2017, file photo, businesses are surrounded by floodwaters from Tropical Storm Harvey in Humble, Texas. If you think this has been a wild and costly year for weather disasters, federal meteorologists say you are right, it’s been record setting. So far this year the United States has had 15 weather disasters that caused at least $1 billion in damages. (AP Photo/David J. Phillip, File)

Damage figures are adjusted for inflation; records for billion-dollar disasters go back to 1980.

Between 1980 and 2007, the U.S. averaged only four billion-dollar disasters per year. In the decade since, the country has averaged 11 per year.

Experts blame a combination of factors.

FILE - In this Sept. 28, 2017, file photo, damaged and destroyed homes are seen in the aftermath of Hurricane Maria in Toa Alta, Puerto Rico. If you think this has been a wild and costly year for weather disasters, federal meteorologists say you are right, it’s been record setting. So far this year the United States has had 15 weather disasters that caused at least $1 billion in damages. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert, File)

"Climate change is impacting extreme weather in ways we hadn't anticipated," Michael Mann of Pennsylvania State University said in an email.

But an even bigger factor is that more people moving into harm's way "has created massive amounts of exposure in regions prone to severe weather events," said Mark Bove, a meteorologist at insurance giant Munich Re.

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Follow Seth Borenstein on Twitter at @borenbears. His work can be found here.

Pence Pledges That US Will Go To Moon, Mars, And Beyond

Vice President Mike Pence speaks in front of NASA's Space Shuttle Discovery at the National Space Council first meeting at the Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center, Thursday, Oct. 5, 2017 in Chantilly, Va. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik)

Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, left, speaks with Vice President Mike Pence, right, during the National Space Council's first meeting at the Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center, Thursday, Oct. 5, 2017 in Chantilly, Va. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik)

Vice President Mike Pence, right, accompanied by Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, left, speaks during the first meeting of the National Space Council at the Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center, Thursday, Oct. 5, 2017, in Chantilly, Va. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik)

Vice President Mike Pence delivers opening remarks during the National Space Council's first meeting, Thursday, Oct. 5, 2017 at the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum's Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center in Chantilly, Va. The National Space Council, chaired by Pence, heard testimony from representatives from civil space, commercial space, and national security space industry representatives. (Joel Kowsky/NASA via AP)

WASHINGTON (AP) — Seated before the grounded space shuttle Discovery, a constellation of Trump administration officials used soaring rhetoric to vow to send Americans back to the moon and then on to Mars.

After voicing celestial aspirations, top officials moved to what National Intelligence Director Dan Coats called "a dark side" to space policy. Coats, Vice President Mike Pence, other top officials and outside space experts said the United States has to counter and perhaps match potential enemies' ability to target U.S. satellites.

Pence, several cabinet secretaries and White House advisers gathered in the shadow of the shuttle at the Smithsonian Institution's Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center to chart a new path in space — government, commercial and military — for the country.

It was the first meeting of the National Space Council, revived after it was disbanded in 1993.

Vice President Mike Pence, right, accompanied by Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, left, speaks during the first meeting of the National Space Council at the Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center, Thursday, Oct. 5, 2017, in Chantilly, Va. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik)

But details, such as how much the new ideas will cost, were scant and outside experts said they've heard grandiose plans before only to see them fizzle instead of launch.

"We will return American astronauts to the moon, not only to leave behind footprints and flags, but to build the foundation we need to send Americans to Mars and beyond," Pence said.

Space industry leaders say they and NASA are building the spaceships to get there. And they're promising that in five years, astronauts could be working around the moon
David Thompson, president of the space company Orbital ATK, said NASA's Orion capsule and super-sized Space Launch System rocket should be ready in a couple years, so flying around the moon and even making a lunar orbiting outpost is within reach. But he said a lunar landing would take longer. Blue Origin rocket company chief executive officer Bob Smith said his firm could have a lunar lander program ready within five years.

No humans have been on the moon since Apollo 17 in December 1972.
Only 12 men have set foot on the moon, all have been Americans.

Vice President Mike Pence delivers opening remarks during the National Space Council's first meeting, Thursday, Oct. 5, 2017 at the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum's Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center in Chantilly, Va. The National Space Council, chaired by Pence, heard testimony from representatives from civil space, commercial space, and national security space industry representatives. (Joel Kowsky/NASA via AP)

"Past presidents George H.W. Bush and George W. Bush proposed returns to the moon and then going on to Mars. Barack Obama rerouted the moon plan to an asteroid as a first-stop with Mars as the goal. All plans had lack of money keeping them from coming true," said space expert Brian Weeden of the Secure World Foundation. He wasn't part of the council meeting.

"Is it going to happen? Who knows? I feel like I've been disappointed so many times I refuse to get excited," said Roger Launius, a longtime space historian.

And Gwynn Shotwell, president of SpaceX, said her company next year will launch astronauts to the International Space Station, the first American launch of people since 2011.  After the 2003 space shuttle Columbia broke apart on descent, then-president George W. Bush announced the phasing out of the space shuttle program. Eventually, NASA started building new multi-billion dollar ships, the Orion capsule and the SLS mega-rocket.

Pence several times bemoaned a U.S. space program that had fallen behind, asking space executives what they thought.

"America is out-innovating the world in space launch," Shotwell said, noting that her company had launched 13 rockets this year, more than any other nation.

Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, left, speaks with Vice President Mike Pence, right, during the National Space Council's first meeting at the Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center, Thursday, Oct. 5, 2017 in Chantilly, Va. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik)

After talking about how "we will blaze new trails into that great frontier" Pence turned the discussion to the dangers of space and how much of the U.S. intelligence system and day-to-day life are dependent on commercial satellites operating safely. And he and others outlined threats to those satellites from potential enemies that could cripple American security and daily life.

Experts worried that satellites could be destroyed and debris in orbit could ruin others. Pence asked if the U.S. should "weaponize" space.

"The choice whether or not to weaponize space is not one that we can make. We can only decide to match and raise our adversaries who are already weaponizing space," former NASA chief Michael Griffin said. "That horse is already out of the barn."

White House National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster said the country needs to "deter and when necessary defeat adversaries' counter-space efforts...  We may not start it but we will finish it."

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Follow Seth Borenstein on Twitter at @borenbears . His work can be found here .