Kennedy Space Center will host the world's biggest air show within two years, turning its former shuttle landing facility into an aerospace exhibition venue, U.S. President Donald Trump said.
The proposed exhibition would challenge established shows in Paris, Britain and Dubai. Trump said the United States should host the largest show because of its position in aviation and aerospace.
“We're going to do a bigger and better, grander version than the Paris Air Show,” he said. The White House published the Nov. 6 remarks at Kennedy Space Center on its own channel that day.
Trump said the former shuttle landing facility would become a 1,900-acre venue, drawing hundreds of thousands of visitors annually. He projected billions of dollars in economic activity and hundreds of billions of dollars in deals, without explaining how those figures were calculated.
The exhibition would cover commercial aircraft, space technology and other aerospace businesses. Trump said Boeing and other commercial aircraft companies would attend, but he did not identify any confirmed agreements with exhibitors.
Visitors would see a larger building next year, followed by further expansion over the next few years. “I'd say two years,” Trump said of the timetable for becoming the world's largest air show.
He described the runway and surrounding land as providing room for buildings and demonstrations. He did not give a construction budget, identify a source of financing or specify an opening date.
Trump said more than 30 years had passed since a new airliner was unveiled at a show on American soil. He presented the project as a way to bring aircraft demonstrations and dealmaking to central Florida.
Earlier, Trump said the United States added 165,000 jobs in October, including 19,000 manufacturing jobs. He put expected job growth at about 20,000 and described the manufacturing gain as the largest monthly increase in many decades.
Trump also said the country had secured $22.2 trillion in investment in less than two years. He said typical personal incomes and employment had reached records, while the poverty rate had fallen to a record low.
He said the country had lost $3 trillion the previous day because of an election, without identifying the measure. He also pledged that Iran would never obtain a nuclear weapon, referring to B-2 bomber strikes a little more than a year earlier.
Turning to space policy, Trump promised further achievements for NASA, the U.S. space agency, over the next two years. He described the agency as neglected when he began his first presidential term in 2017 and credited his administration with its revival.
Trump linked the exhibition site to launches by Alan Shepard, the first American in space, the Saturn V rocket, the space shuttle and Apollo 11. He said Americans had progressed from powered flight at Kitty Hawk to the moon in 66 years.
His remarks did not set out new launch dates or funding commitments for space missions. The supplied transcript cut off as he continued discussing the history of American space exploration.
