As he continues to visit key space facilities around the country, Vice President Mike Pence spent a few hours at Kennedy Space Center in Florida on Thursday. During the visit, Pence spoke to the NASA workforce inside the iconic Vertical Assembly Building and, for the most part, gave his stump speech in which he and President Trump vow to restore US leadership in space.

Within the remarks, which mentioned "leadership" 18 times, there were a few nuggets of news. The recently announced National Space Council will convene for its first meeting before the end of summer, Pence said. And he also offered a few more specifics about his overall goal for NASA's exploration program. "Our nation will return to the Moon, and we will put American boots on the face of Mars," he said. It was not clear whether Pence intends for humans to return to the lunar surface. Most likely, not too much should be read into this statement, as it seems less of a concrete policy proposal and more of a platitude at this time.

What seemed more significant was Pence's repeated references to "commercial space," which two Republican sources indicated to Ars essentially referred to the kind of contracting NASA used to fund its commercial cargo and crew programs. Pence seems intent on pushing NASA toward the fixed-price model of contracting, in which the government buys a service—such as launch—from the commercial sector. This differs from the past, in which NASA might develop a technology, and then pay industry to develop it, or otherwise enter in an agreement where NASA pays for the costs of development, plus a fee.

Perhaps the most significant reference came when Pence made the following remarks: "In conjunction with our commercial partners, we'll continue to make space travel safer, cheaper, and more accessible than ever before. The truth is that American business is on the cutting edge of space technology."

This seems to be a nod toward efforts by the commercial space industry, led by SpaceX and Blue Origin, to develop reusable launch vehicles that have the potential to substantially cut the cost of access to space and provide launch-on-demand services. "I think he pretty clearly gave advocates of cheap access a shout-out," said James Muncy, the founder of PoliSpace, and a commercial space supporter.

Missed SpaceX launch

During his speech, Pence did not mention the Space Launch System rocket that NASA intends to begin stacking in the Vertical Assembly Building late next year, or in 2019, for its inaugural launch. This massive rocket, which, factoring in development costs, may require about $3 billion per launch, seems to be the opposite of "cheaper" and making space "more accessible."

Rather, it seems possible that Pence is referring to an Air Force report that detailed how "ultra low-cost access to space" could be enabled by reusable launch vehicle technology. The study recommends the Air Force create a new organization, the "NewSpace Development Office," to develop innovative acquisition strategies. The overall aim would be to move away from the existing model of launches, which are rare and expensive, to a model in which they are common and inexpensive.

While he didn't reference NASA's SLS rocket, Pence did say he was sorry to have missed Wednesday's launch of a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Kennedy Space Center. "I'm really sorry that I missed the successful commercial launch that took place last night—I was praying for rain at the Kennedy Space Center so we might see that rocket go up today," he said. "I'm particularly excited to see the increased collaboration with our burgeoning commercial space industry so much in evidence here at the Kennedy Space Center."

What seems most likely is that Thursday's closely scrutinized speech was less of a formal policy declaration—which will come months later after the space council deliberates—but more of a reflection of the feelings of Pence and his staff as they prepare to implement the council. To that end, the speech seems to foreshadow a desire by Pence to coordinate efforts by the US military, civil, and commercial space sectors while ensuring that the country is pursuing new technologies.

"The declaration that the commercial space industry is on the cutting edge is a breath of fresh air," Muncy said. "Of course the vice president was at NASA, so he praised NASA for the commercial sector innovations that arose from partnerships with the space agency."