There’s still no word on President Bush’s nomination of Gen Norton Schwartz, head of US Transportation Command, to be the next Chief of Staff, but here are some developments of note regarding other Pentagon posts: Bush on July 1 announced his intention to nominate Robert Hastings to be assistant secretary of defense for public affairs and to designate Gordon Heddell to be acting inspector general. Hastings is currently the principal deputy in the public affairs office. Heddell would replace Claude Kicklighter, who tendered his resignation to accept a post at George Mason University in Washington, D.C., according to a notice on the IG Web site.
The Defense Innovation Unit is gearing up for the first flight of its commercially developed hypersonic testbed as soon as the end of February—part of a larger project to quickly increase the cadence of the Pentagon’s hypersonic flight testing and field advanced, high-speed systems and components at scale.
