Jeff Foust has a good wrapup of the current state of play in the space activist community over the proposed exploration architecture, from this past weekend’s Space Frontier Conference, over at today’s The Space Review. Bottom line, to quote Bob Zubrin, is that it “sucks.” Those in the community who (unlike Space Frontier and Space Access) aren’t saying so officially are doing so only to be polite, and operating on the principle that if you haven’t anything good to say about it, say nothing at all.

Unfortunately, as Jeff points out at Space Politics, the sophistication of the debate on space policy in Washington is less than informed or reasoned. It’s very easy to confuse criticism of NASA’s chosen means of executing the vision with the vision itself. Nonetheless, if NASA has chosen a hopeless path for our goals (which in fact they have) we must state that. There’s little point in supporting a program that will once again end in tears, after many more billions of taxpayer dollars and more wasted years just because it is ostensibly a “space” program.

And speaking of debate style, Jeff was overtactful in characterizing Bob Zubrin’s as “contentious,” in which he repeatedly interrupted anyone who disagreed with him, shouting “stop, stop,” “it’s impossible!” “stop.”

This heavy-lift issue is one that needs a vigorous, informed (and civil) public debate, since it’s not at all clear that it ever received one in the workings of the exploration team at NASA. Cyberspace, and the blogosphere, would be a good place for it.

[Update a few minutes later]

Clark Lindsey points out an Aviation Week article that indicates that many are in agreement that the “all eggs in one basket” approach is potentially disastrous (and does little to advance our abilities as a spacefaring nation), and asks:

What is going to happen to the lunar program when (1) there is the inevitable long delay in the development of the HLLV and (2) when a HLLV fails and destroys a really big collection of lunar exploration hardware, and (3) the HLLV is then grounded for a long period?

Hey, Clark, didn’t you get the memo? We’re not supposed to ask those kinds of questions.

[Update at 7:40 AM PDT]

Clark has further thoughts:

…NASA’s plan is already under considerable stress due to budget restraints.

This further emphasizes the need for NASA to focus on lowering space transportation costs significantly rather than on getting to the Moon by a fixed date with a straight-forward but very costly and impractical system. With cheaper space transport, NASA can still reach the Moon within a budget that probably won’t grow and may even shrink.

Michael Mealing is chairing a session on various brief presentations of potentially interesting technical concepts.

First up is fellow Transterrestrial blogger Sam Dinkin, who is talking about Spaceshot, his new company that is making a skill game that will offer a prize of a ride on Rocketplane. The game will be a non-dexterity skill game. Tickets will be less than five dollars, the flights will start in 2007, and they will also provide money to pay taxes for the flight. Not a game of chance (poker, lottery drawing). Examples of skill games are tennis or chess. Idea is to increase demand, and offer space travel to the less well heeled (nine billion dollars spent on Halloween each year–wants to tap that kind of money).

Someone from Frontier Astronautics (didn’t get the name) is up now. He recently quit Lockheed Martin to form his own company with three or four other people. They’re selling attitude control systems and rocket engines. Their first customer is Masten, to whom they’re selling attitude control. Still looking for a first customer for their rocket engine, 7500 pounds of thrust, liquid oxygen and kerosene.

Alex Bucolari (sp?) is a student at Dartmouth, and is working on beamed propulsion systems. Planning to beam vehicles to orbit from the ground, either with thermal rocket or pulsed ablation (they’re working on the former). High specific impulse , about 800 seconds (Nerva class) and hydrogen propellant. Using a 1 kW System with cylindrical resonance chamber. Working with Kevin Parkin at JPL/Caltech. Plans to build clustered array for orbital system.

Berin Szoka has developed a public policy think tank to reduce regulatory roadblocks to space, and will be dedicated to do this in Washington. He’s a lawyer with a background in the DC policy world. He thinks that this community needs a professional organization, like Cato, to deal specifically with these issues. Still looking for funding to get it going, and wants feedback on our priorities. Focus now is on ITAR but will work other issues. Will not lobby, but will provide intellectual ammunition for the foot soldiers on the Hill and in the administration.

Phil Chapman points out three recent developments in SPS development: methane hydrates (enough to meet all the world’s energy needs for at least a thousand years) which will put a ceiling on the price of electricity (SPS will have to beat $.04/kW-hr); artificial thin-films of diamond are turning out to be easy to make as thermionic conversion devices, which may make for cheap and light SPS; they have a design for an SPS that is isoinertial, allowing easy pointing at the sun as it goes around the earth.

Steve Harrington of Flometrics is talking about his pistonless pumps, which will reduce cost, weight of engines, and increase reliability. He has a demo in the exhibit area, and he used one to pump a low-concentration alchohol-based rocket fuel (also known as margaritas) at the Space Access conference. He’s going to do it again tonight. I will attend the demonstration.

James Schulz of Space Resources, Inc. is talking about his company, which is looking at building large-scale platforms in LEO for commercial uses. They are looking at a three-phase approach: customers first, then transportation, then construction. Expecting it to be customer-driven concept that will lead to large amounts of in-space construction, because best way to stimulate business in orbit is large-scale habitable platforms and labs. Need to start now to be ready when vehicles are ready. Looking for people who share the vision. He doesn’t see himself as in competition with Bigelow–sees his timeframe as farther out. Expects developing customer base will take three years, and transportation will take several years beyond that. Market is envisioned to be corporate users. Analogy is building a shopping center, and they’re indifferent to what business occupy it.

Alliance for Commercial Enterprise In Space (ACES) by Bruce Pittman. Addressing demand (in biotech area). Biotech needs throughput, and they don’t like dealing with NASA. Looking for mechanisms in public-private partnerships that can help show how NASA can work (started with Ames, but also working with other NASA centers, including manned spaceflight centers) Four pillars that ACES supports: supply, demand, capital, and public policy.

Manny Pimente has a company called “Lunar Explorer” completing the development phase of a virtual reality simulation of the moon. Looking for high fidelity. Want to shrink the moon so that it fits into a computer at home. Allows people to “walk” along the surface. Modeling Apollo and other landing sites. Trying to extract more value from data gathered in the past by programs like Clementine, particularly for kids. They’ve raised $300K to date and are looking for more money.

Alan Crider working with Tom Taylor and Lunar Outpost will provide labs on the moon, for NASA and private enterprise (Lunar Base Systems). Uses both inflatable technology and retrofitting existing technology, to land bases anywhere on the moon. No data on weight of the base (guessing about a hundred tons).

Steve Knight (sp?) is looking at non-traditional corporate approaches to avoid middle management. Started thinking about it after Challenger, in which a pyramid of information flow restricted knowledge at the top and made for bad decisions. Started using internal contracting and decision markets a year or so ago as a new way of building high-tech knowledge infrastructure to build high-tech companies. Will have more case histories to show us next year. Casting a wider net to find people interested. Says to keep an eye on trac.t7a.org for updates in the coming weeks.

Joe Caroll, of tether fame, had developed a new interest, and thinks that most of the people buying seats will be tourists. Has new passenger vehicle designs, but doesn’t want to be a big company, so is offering his ideas (patentable) to people who want to see a tourism-oriented practical vehicle happen.

Derek Shannon, finishing up masters at USC, and working on urban transit program (very spacy) and a renewable energy project–an alternative to the DoE Tokamak program. Not cold fusion, but an interesting new approach.

Day’s sessions are almost over, and I need to take a break.

This panel consists of Jim Muncy of Polispace, Jim Dunstan (lawyer for t/Space), Randall Clague of XCOR and George Nield of the FAA. These are some of the people largely responsible for developing the current regulatory regime as it has evolved in the past couple years. Dunstan is the chair.

Format is short presentations, with a follow-on roundtable discussion.

Dunstan describing the underlying precepts of launch regulation. Question is how do we get from SpaceShipOne, with a well-informed test pilot, to a cruise ship on which one can take one’s family to space. Issues: amount of risk that society will allow individuals to accept, and the overall legal regime. We currently treat space differently from other activities in terms of allowable casualty rates. We’ve lost a million people on highways in the past quarter century, and a thousand a year in aviation. We’ve killed 0.56 passengers per year in space over that period. Autos and aviation have been trending downward, while space has long periods of no accidents with a couple blips of seven deaths at a time.

We could build cars that are ten times as safe, but they would get four miles to the gallon and cost a quarter of a million dollars a piece, so we make the tradeoff. In 1918, airplane reliability was 90%, yet we allowed people to fly them and delivered airmail on them. In 1929 we adopted the Warsaw convention, limiting airlilne liability, when we had a passenger fatality rate of 45 people per million miles flown. We apparently decided to allow a lot of risk in this field, because we decided that air travel was important. Currently, we don’t seem to think that space flight is important enough to accept a similar level of risk.

Several different models for spreading risk: no-fault model, to encourage activity; “negligence” regime, another auto model, and used in domestic aviation; strict liability, with damage cap via international conventions (international aviation); strict liability with insurance (current domestic launch business); strict liability, period (international space flight regime, due to 1967 Outer Space Treaty and 1972 Liability Convention). The latter treaties make governments responsible for anything launched from their jurisdiction. That’s the end of the brief overview.

George Nield follows up to point out that the Commercial Space Launch Act of 1984 (and amendments since, including last year’s) was passed specifically to address the treaty obligations, and the FAA license is the instrumentality that implements the act. Reiterates from morning talk that they have to maintain a balancing act between safety and a viable industry.

Jim Muncy notes that a year ago, this conference was on the Queen Mary, and at that time they were in the middle of negotiations with Congress on last year’s launch amendments act. Says that there have to be two different kinds of risk regimes: one for uninvolved parties, for whose safety the federal government is accountable. The other one is involved persons (passengers, and crew) assuming a known level of risk for a benefit from the activity, in which a negligence regime applies rather than a strict liability one. A year ago some in Congress wanted to make it clear that while there would be some differential between these two regimes, they also wanted to protect the people in the vehicles, and couldn’t accept that you had to let people learn how to build the vehicles before they could be regulated as aircraft are today. Shuttle has only flown a little over a hundred times, and each event was very expensive, and it still isn’t safe after many billions of dollars and many years. We can’t know what’s safe until we go through a “barnstorming” era, though one more safety conscious than the earlier aviation one.

We have to fly to learn, and we can’t regulate people out of being able to fly and make money, which is a necessary activity to learning how to fly safely (just as we did over decades with aviation). Our position last year was that we would rather have no legislation than legislation that required in principle that we had to ensure safety of passengers. The legislation passed last year allows, but does not require, the FAA to start to pass passenger-related regulations after a period of time, to allow lessons learned to be incorporated, while still allowing companies and people to fly. He thinks that the FAA is doing a good job so far.

Jim Dunstan asks George Nield to walk us through what the process has been and will be on the new rules to come out.

He says that from his perpsective, there were four outcomes: put administration and Congress on record of supporting private human spaceflight as a good thing; established an informed-consent regime as the one in which we will initially fly passengers, distinct from the uninvolved public; introduced experimental launch permit, to make it easier to allow launches without the issuance of a full launch license, which is much more onerous, allowing easier research and development activities in a manner analogous to an airworthiness certificate; and finally, AST had to go off and implement regulations for the experimental certificates and passenger flight for revenue. Initially, they’re guidelines, which will be followed by a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking in December and regulations in June of 2006. The current guidelines are available at the the AST web site. They’ll be taking public input on these guidelines now and on the proposed rules after December when the NPRM comes out. Comments are encouraged, and can be provided electronically. They’ve had little feedback so far, and they think and hope that this is because the current guidelines are pretty good.

Question for XCOR–do they expect life insurance companies to have exclusions for flight as passengers? Answer is that they probably already do, since the activity would be in the same class as general aviation that already is excluded in general.

Muncy points out with regard to lawsuits by passengers or families that cross waivers should be required as part of indemnification (the current legal regime for satellite launches), but the current legislation didn’t retain that feature for passenger flight. But the government is not guaranteeing the safety of passengers, and it’s hoped that this will be a strong enough message to discourage notions that passengers weren’t flying at their own risk.

Break now.

Chaired by Berin Szoka, head of the new Institute for Space Law and Policy. Other panelists are Kerry Scarlott, of Posternak, Blankenstein and Lund LLP (a Boston law firm), Dennis Wingo of Orbital Recovery and Skycorp, and Randall Clague , government liaison of XCOR Aerospace.

Scarlott talks about how ITAR works, and how it serves as an impediment to what we’re trying to do. Three export control paradigms in US. Export Control Act (munitions items on the munitions list), Export Administration Act (dual-use goods), and other ad hoc presidential orders.

In 1999 all controls from Administration Act were moved to Export Control Act, which had profound effects on how it affects our industry (there’s a lot of history behind this, but he doesn’t discuss it, and I don’t have time to go into it right now while I’m trying to transcribe). It’s administered by the State Department, Director of Trade and Controls. They have a stringent attitude on how ITAR is applied. Small set of regs (forty pages of text). US Munitions List is the heart of it. Has twenty-one categories. Space technologies are covered by Category 15. Includes some basic catch-alls–anything that can be designed, used by a space vehicle or satellite (including technical data and defense services). It serves to pretty much capture everything we do. The “Deemed Export Rule” provides that you can be subject to licensing requirements of ITAR even if you don’t actually export–sharing of tech data with a foreign national within the US is sufficient (e.g, plant tour, meeting, etc.) which has become an onerous licensing requirement. Under ITAR, and export subject to ITAR requires an export license, including the “Deemed Exports” described above. These are granted through applications submitted to the State Department, and can take from weeks to months to a year, with no certain outcome. It’s a very anal bureaucratic process (paraphrasing here). It applies even to data that’s in the public domain–that’s been excepted out of Category 15, making it more onerous than any other category. He doesn’t understand why this category is subject to higher control, but this is a key point to make in lobbying. There is a Canadian exception, but few others. Most allies are treated almost exactly like North Korea.

After this intro, Randall Clague talks about the prospect of XCOR being an “arms dealer.” It costs them a lot of money to remain compliant and out of jail, and they view it as a protection racket. Propellants are on the list as well as hardware, and liquid oxygen, and kerosene cannot be exported. Candle was is on the list, technical data about them cannot be put on a web site where a foreign national can read it. You can buy Sutton, the canonical rocket book, in Syria, but you can’t put excerpts on your web site, where foreigners might read it.

Dennis Wingo follows. Founded Orbital Recovery to extend life of geostationary satellites. Company morphed from an American one to a European one because that was where the money and market was. They wanted to choose Dutch Space as a prime contractor, and contract with Arianespace for launch, and use German robotics. They had to find a law firm with an ex State Department guy on their staff to make things go smoother. He has technical assistance agreements to talk about people within his own company, and to talk to European suppliers, and to overseas customers. He has trouble talking to many companies because they don’t want to have to deal with signing the various agreements that the State Department requires.

He describes what would happen if Intel had to deal with this (ITAR Inside). For EACH processor sold to Lenovo (a Chinese company), they’d have to hire lawyers for the paperwork, instruct each customer, etc. Each meatting would only be able to take customer requirements, and answer direct questions associated with that requirement. (“Does it have an L2 Cache?” “I can’t tell you that.”)

They wouldn’t be able to include Windows (that would require a separate agreement). They’d also have to have another agreement to include Office.

The American computer industry wouldn’t be what it is today had such regulations been applied to them.

European industry has a stated policy of becoming ITAR free. Hundreds of millions of Euros are being spent to implement this. Sensors, actuators, antennae and software development underway, costing us huge European markets.

A brand new 21 Gigaflop process and computer running advanced mathematic software can be built and sold in Hong Kong for a few thousand. An antique actuator requires a technical agreement from the State Department to export one.

Need to go back to Reagan-era policy–Rohrabacher’s “Free Trade With Free People’s” approach. Deny advanced technology to our declared adversaries (sell them the old stuff). Free trade with everyone else.

This would vastly improve export sales in the US, and render moot the money that ESA and the EU is spending on ITAR remediation. He also points out that we have no appreciation of just what an irritation this is to Europe.

Point in discussion that has to be made over and over. This is not about space. It’s about national security, and the current regime is making us less, not more safe, and is resulting in a loss of our technological edge.

The major space companies don’t mind it that much, because they view it as a cost of doing business, and it presents a barrier to entry for newcomers, so they won’t lobby against it.

Clague notes that he’s not opposed to true useful export controls. What he opposes is the artificial and arbitrary definition of what they’re doing as export of advanced technology, when it is not.

Participants: Mark Schlather, Gary Oleson of Northrop Grumman, Barbara Thompson of NASA Goddard, Tom Matula MBA Professor, Henry Vanderbilt of the Space Access Society, Ed Hudgins of Objectivist Center.

Schlather: “Ask not what your country can do for you, because you’re not likely to be pleased with the answer.”

Sense of excitement, amusement and horror at recent events. Lot of activity after a long period of stagnation, resulting from the Columbia disaster. “Focus on space program went away with Cold War, shifting to government stovepipes and a jobs program, due to a failure to present unifying vision. Horror comes from fact that discussion is focused on destination, rather than purpose. Like saying that we fought the second world war not to free earth from history, but to get to Guam. “Because it is there” is insufficient rationale. Purpose in space is not to do “world-class science.” Agenda should drive science, not the other way around.

Purpose is to become spacefaring civilization, to be multi-planet species, seek resources, etc. Recent civil space program has been dismal from this regard, particularly when it comes to buying commercial services. Much lip service, no action. New administrator has been encouraging. Noted that Washington Post has rejected these arguments of purpose, even after Griffin stated them in an interview, so we need to do a better job of arguing them. New architecture makes little sense. “Thought of the giant leap of going from a three-man Apollo capsule to a four-man Apollo capsule in just a half a century” makes his heart leap with excitement (note: sarcasm).

Thinks that recent private events may be superceding NASA plans. Making a pitch for “March Storm” lobbying event next spring, will be an important year for influencing the direction of the program.

Gary Oleson: Talking about frequent and affordable access (both for military and civilian needs). Over time becoming three times, fifty times and a hundred times less expensive (latter in twenty-five years). Launch primary limiting factor to space operations, progress has been slow relative to market-driven technologies, such as IT, and no one in government seems to know what to do about it.

Government programs have problems reducing costs. Aversion to short-term risk turns into long-term risk (Shuttle example). Government agencies are mission oriented, and have difficulty breaking out due to institutional inertia. Asks if government should create markets, or nourish them? Government needs to go beyond existing missions to help commercial markets, because it doesn’t do enough to provide necessary high-volume production. SpaceShipOne, regardless of what one thinks it accomplished, was done much cheaper than NASA could have done it, according to standard cost models (24 million versus almost a billion dollars).

Recommendations that government coordinate internal demand, invest in technologies, involve space entrepreneurs and look for short and mid-term payoffs. Need to create interagency fora to coordniate missions and tech investments, and encourage/coordinate potential users in defense and intelligence community. Notes that civil agencies (NOAA, NASA?) will also benefit.

Should provide clearinghouse of ideas to support emerging space industries, and suggests a new version of NACA (not a new idea, but perhaps support can be gained for it now). Notes that first decade of NACA resulted in explosive growth of commercial aviation in the late twenties, by breaking the Wright-Curtiss intellectual property logjam. Like NACA, new advisory committee would counsel the federal government on space issues, and do generic cutting-edge research. Greatest impact of NACA was early, when budget was lowest. The coordination function was at least as important as IR&D.

Proposes unpaid committee of government and private, with small HQ staff. Supports commercial and government applications. Must be inclusive and insulated from politics. Government must do it, because only that way will it be taken seriously by both government and private sectors. Must be in a position to propose funding, and be independent of existing US government missions. Would have great payoff in terms of reduced costs, increased capabilities and American dominance of future space industries.

Question from audience: should we go out and start this now, rather than waiting for government to do it? Answer: yes, doing that will force government to act.

What is relationship with NASA? A: NASA will be a client of it, but is too busy with its own problems and has too many conflicts of interest to do it itself.

Phil Chapman suggests that it be called the National Advisory Committee on Astronautics (retaining NACA acronym).

Question about prizes: NACA didn’t do so (there were ample prizes from other sources), but the new one might.

Q: How would it coordinate with other agencies such as the California Space Authority?

A: Use the clearinghouse of ideas to determine which are best, and be able to point to state examples.

Henry Vanderbilt:

Taking question literally. We should do things collectively where the profit is too diffuse to do privately: national defense, space telescopes, cutting-edge space exploration, etc. Problems arise when bureaucracies arise to do these things. As they mature, get larger, higher percentage of resources go to structure, get set in their ways with difficulty getting them to do innovative things. NACA was successful early (as was NASA) in their early days, and much less so later. As example, AST at FAA is more innovative than aviation side of the agency, because it’s newer.

Proposes that agencies be wiped out every ten years, not allowing anyone to be rehired for a couple years (a “modest proposal”). Argues that disruption resulting wouldn’t be as bad as current situation, in which things often never get done at all.

NASA has learned to specialize in launching a handful of people per year with billions of dollars and thousands of people, and have no real incentive to change. Response to VSE continues that broad outline, which they’re comfortable with. May not be competent to do anything else (if they’re even competent to do that). Bureaucracy’s primary urge after it matures is preserving itself, and we see this in both NASA and DoD space (though the latter isn’t quite as bad). Holding this jaundiced view will make dealing with them better, so you don’t have unrealistic expectations. Don’t surprise them with a new spaceship–give them advance warning, and try to point out how much what you want to do is like what they’re used to, rather than forcing them into radical changes of their system. Thinks we’re in for interesting times.

Randall Clague of XCOR points out that while not surprising them is good advice, don’t expect them to not surprise you. Henry notes that sometimes when doing something different with a bureaucracy, you may inadvertently invoke some ancient feature that no one previously knew existed.

NASA’s response to disaster: shutting down, analyzing, having commissions, then going back to business as usual.

Advice from Dennis Wingo–to the extent you can avoid government, you’re better off, because they’re an unreliable. Th ink of yourself as a bicycle and them as a semi truck with the potential for collision. They may not notice you, but you’ll find it a life-changing experience.

Barbara Thompson:

Not speaking for NASA (she works at Goddard). In her opinion, it is not the responsibility of the government to make companies viable, but it is perhaps to make an industry viable. She thinks that the government has done a good job in laying a foundation for the industry in the area of space weather forecasting, but it needs more input from industry to move forward. She wants her talk to get us to think about space weather and when the next space weather conference is, because we are going to be flying more human flesh into space in the next few years as the government has in the past four decades, and we need to understand this issue to have a successful industry. There is advantage to us as a company and industry in participating in the continuing development of this area.

Talking generically about elements of risk. Hates phrase “failure is not an option.” Failure must be an option. If we are successful, we will kill people, because even cars kill people. Even though little time is spent in the low-radiation environment of suborbital flight, we need to be aware, because someone in the future who develops a brain tumor will blame us, and sue us. Have to balance probability of risk, versus effect, versus cost of mitigating it. Cost of understanding and mitigating space weather risk is fortunately very low.

Need combination of models, forecasts, and robust flight components. Key components are prediction, reaction (postponing activities), and mitigation with shielding and monitoring. She notes that in her discussion with industry, we seem to be on top of the problem. Space weather research is a fundamental role of the government, at least for now. Space weather development will occur in the same manner as terrestrial weather, in concert with the needs of the travel industry. Space travel without space weather may ultimately be more dangerous than air travel without atmospheric weather, because airplanes can land.

Hiding from: Solar eruptions/flares, magnetic disturbances, magnetospheric and interplanetary shocks, energetic particles, “killer” electrons, increases in solar irradiant flux, electric current systems, changes in ionospheric structure, global voltage “generators.” affects human health, and electonics/communications systems. Short anwer: nearly everything “interesting” in the space environment is a potential hazard. But also makes for beautiful views.

Current NASA goal for radiation exposure is “As Low As Reasonably Achievable” (ALARA). Recognizes that it’s not a good commercial specification, from a risk/return ratio standpoint, and probably not economically. Need more data to refine it. This industry can provide data from its passengers and flight experience. Short-term effects and long-term effects (latter being cancer).

Astronaut exposure affected by structure, altitude, attitude, inclination, time duration. NASA launching a “space weather desk.” JSC deals with astronaut safety. She has been evangelizing this industry to others at NASA, and will continue to do so, but we need to start participating with them and with NOAA. Notes that National Weather Service has expanded into space weather. Has estalbished “Space Weather Week,” with opportunities to attend “morning briefings, and most attendees say that conference meets their needs. Comes right after Space Access Society meeting. Wants Space Frontier Foundation and Space Access Society to coordinate to discuss mutual needs of space weather community and emerging space transportation industry. She expects us to get to orbit much sooner than many do, and we need to start planning now, so that we will have a good handle on the weather issues as we start spending hours and days in space, rather than minutes. It will be required to make safe the long-distance travel in space.

Hudgins: Problem with space sector is too much government and too much bureaucracy, resulting in stunted sector, like an underdeveloped country. Must recognize that government will continue to be involved, but private sector must lead the way. Future in a private space hotel put up by Bigelow. We see the future in government procuring commercial services. Notes C0ngressman Walker’s proposal to provide tax moratorium on lunar base revenues.

No reason to think that the NASA that built the ISS will be able to build a lunar base in an economically responsible manner.

Wants to talk about the nature of government, rather than the role of government. Talking about the moral foundation of government that will provide the moral nature of a future space society. Moral basis for most of us here is Jeffersonian, with autonomy of the individual and codes of values for freedom to act, but also building a society in which we can interact to create wealth. The purpose of government is to protect life, liberty and property of individuals and that actions should be based on mutual consent (basically a libertarian view). Assumption is that US and other governments will be involved in space activities. Suggests a different direction that will be of future benefit. Private actors whould think about how to form consortia to get into space (e.g., Bigelow gets a hotel up, private providers populate it, bases are established on other worlds), using compacts of how to govern themselves. Early US provides a model (e.g., Mayflower, Jamestown compacts). Jamestown was bad, with access to common provisions, but no accountability or individual responsibility. Over half the people died until John Smith changed the compact, requiring people who ate to work, after which it did better.

Shared resources in space (air, water, etc.), but need to allow people to opt out of the compact. Must provide incentive for individuals to be creative (e.g., if an individual can come up with a way to produce oxygen, they should be able to opt out and provide it to others.) Law will emerge from mutual assistance agreements (citing Hayek). Suggests that as we get into space, we think of having sovereign off-world governments, with autonomy. It will be desirable to have earth governments recognize consortia and off-planet governments, with the ability for individuals to be citizens of them. Set up agreements similar to those that allow overseas bases with earthly sovereignty. Also uses Channel Islands as models.

Future is humans creating spacefaring civilization with government structures that unleash creativity, and new manifestation of governments off planet.

Question: Wouldn’t current American notion of private property rights be good model to start.

Answer: Yes, and longer treatment discusses transition issues. Talks about recent examples in Eastern Europe. Need to avoid tentacles of government that will strangle us if we allow it to continue to adversely affect space development. Also notes that he didn’t discuss military issues, which is a different speech.

Tom Matula:

Proposing a Near-Earth Asteroid bounty program. Discussing standard asteroid threat issues. Two goals that stand out in public opinion of national space goal: energy from space, and planetary defense (he notes that there’s large support for space tourism, but not as a government goal–they think that should be up to private industry).

Discussing NEA data needs: composition, rotational characteristics, size, shape, orbital parameters. Best determined by spacecraft. Old west used bounty program for predators. Similar program would be useful for data gathering from NEOs. Federal NEA bounty program better than data purchase, and would stimulate the new space industry by creating a stable market for private space exploration missions. Would generate new technology for low cost, and create NEO data base.

Suggested NEA bounty price list:
$5M for chemical composition, or rotation, size and shape, larger prices for other data (sorrry, charts moving too fast to capture it all). Payment must be automatic, and per asteroid, not per mission (allowing moving from one target to another an a mission). Only one bounty per asteroid. Companies can reserve asteroid for some period of time to avoid races to individual objects. JPL would administer program. NEA would be withdrawn from program only if NASA was fully funded for a mission within 36 months. NASA can launch asteroids that are reserved, but company still gets paid (meaning that NASA would have little incentive to do so). Money would have to be escrowed by Congress once asteroid is reserved. Thinks that program would accelerate both knowledge of NEOs and technologies to gather data on them. Will also accelerate utilization of resources. Fixed price allows high profits with good technologies.

Question about how to prevent data fraud. Answer is to do quality control. Joe Carroll suggests a fee to reserve, with a right of transfer. Question from Phil Chapman (which I would have asked) if reservation is equivalent to a mining claim for some period of time. Answer is that this gets into international treaty issues, but Phil thinks these can be circumented (as do I, since the Outer Space Treaty doesn’t prohibit property rights per se, just sovereignty claims).

Breaking for lunch now. After lunch will be sessions on regulatory issues, including ITAR and launch regulations.

Participants: Mark Schlather, Gary Oleson of Northrop Grumman, Barbara Thompson of NASA Goddard, Tom Matula MBA Professor, Henry Vanderbilt of the Space Access Society, Ed Hudgins of Objectivist Center.

Schlather: “Ask not what your country can do for you, because you’re not likely to be pleased with the answer.”

Sense of excitement, amusement and horror at recent events. Lot of activity after a long period of stagnation, resulting from the Columbia disaster. “Focus on space program went away with Cold War, shifting to government stovepipes and a jobs program, due to a failure to present unifying vision. Horror comes from fact that discussion is focused on destination, rather than purpose. Like saying that we fought the second world war not to free earth from history, but to get to Guam. “Because it is there” is insufficient rationale. Purpose in space is not to do “world-class science.” Agenda should drive science, not the other way around.

Purpose is to become spacefaring civilization, to be multi-planet species, seek resources, etc. Recent civil space program has been dismal from this regard, particularly when it comes to buying commercial services. Much lip service, no action. New administrator has been encouraging. Noted that Washington Post has rejected these arguments of purpose, even after Griffin stated them in an interview, so we need to do a better job of arguing them. New architecture makes little sense. “Thought of the giant leap of going from a three-man Apollo capsule to a four-man Apollo capsule in just a half a century” makes his heart leap with excitement (note: sarcasm).

Thinks that recent private events may be superceding NASA plans. Making a pitch for “March Storm” lobbying event next spring, will be an important year for influencing the direction of the program.

Gary Oleson: Talking about frequent and affordable access (both for military and civilian needs). Over time becoming three times, fifty times and a hundred times less expensive (latter in twenty-five years). Launch primary limiting factor to space operations, progress has been slow relative to market-driven technologies, such as IT, and no one in government seems to know what to do about it.

Government programs have problems reducing costs. Aversion to short-term risk turns into long-term risk (Shuttle example). Government agencies are mission oriented, and have difficulty breaking out due to institutional inertia. Asks if government should create markets, or nourish them? Government needs to go beyond existing missions to help commercial markets, because it doesn’t do enough to provide necessary high-volume production. SpaceShipOne, regardless of what one thinks it accomplished, was done much cheaper than NASA could have done it, according to standard cost models (24 million versus almost a billion dollars).

Recommendations that government coordinate internal demand, invest in technologies, involve space entrepreneurs and look for short and mid-term payoffs. Need to create interagency fora to coordniate missions and tech investments, and encourage/coordinate potential users in defense and intelligence community. Notes that civil agencies (NOAA, NASA?) will also benefit.

Should provide clearinghouse of ideas to support emerging space industries, and suggests a new version of NACA (not a new idea, but perhaps support can be gained for it now). Notes that first decade of NACA resulted in explosive growth of commercial aviation in the late twenties, by breaking the Wright-Curtiss intellectual property logjam. Like NACA, new advisory committee would counsel the federal government on space issues, and do generic cutting-edge research. Greatest impact of NACA was early, when budget was lowest. The coordination function was at least as important as IR&D.

Proposes unpaid committee of government and private, with small HQ staff. Supports commercial and government applications. Must be inclusive and insulated from politics. Government must do it, because only that way will it be taken seriously by both government and private sectors. Must be in a position to propose funding, and be independent of existing US government missions. Would have great payoff in terms of reduced costs, increased capabilities and American dominance of future space industries.

Question from audience: should we go out and start this now, rather than waiting for government to do it? Answer: yes, doing that will force government to act.

What is relationship with NASA? A: NASA will be a client of it, but is too busy with its own problems and has too many conflicts of interest to do it itself.

Phil Chapman suggests that it be called the National Advisory Committee on Astronautics (retaining NACA acronym).

Question about prizes: NACA didn’t do so (there were ample prizes from other sources), but the new one might.

Q: How would it coordinate with other agencies such as the California Space Authority?

A: Use the clearinghouse of ideas to determine which are best, and be able to point to state examples.

Henry Vanderbilt:

Taking question literally. We should do things collectively where the profit is too diffuse to do privately: national defense, space telescopes, cutting-edge space exploration, etc. Problems arise when bureaucracies arise to do these things. As they mature, get larger, higher percentage of resources go to structure, get set in their ways with difficulty getting them to do innovative things. NACA was successful early (as was NASA) in their early days, and much less so later. As example, AST at FAA is more innovative than aviation side of the agency, because it’s newer.

Proposes that agencies be wiped out every ten years, not allowing anyone to be rehired for a couple years (a “modest proposal”). Argues that disruption resulting wouldn’t be as bad as current situation, in which things often never get done at all.

NASA has learned to specialize in launching a handful of people per year with billions of dollars and thousands of people, and have no real incentive to change. Response to VSE continues that broad outline, which they’re comfortable with. May not be competent to do anything else (if they’re even competent to do that). Bureaucracy’s primary urge after it matures is preserving itself, and we see this in both NASA and DoD space (though the latter isn’t quite as bad). Holding this jaundiced view will make dealing with them better, so you don’t have unrealistic expectations. Don’t surprise them with a new spaceship–give them advance warning, and try to point out how much what you want to do is like what they’re used to, rather than forcing them into radical changes of their system. Thinks we’re in for interesting times.

Randall Clague of XCOR points out that while not surprising them is good advice, don’t expect them to not surprise you. Henry notes that sometimes when doing something different with a bureaucracy, you may inadvertently invoke some ancient feature that no one previously knew existed.

NASA’s response to disaster: shutting down, analyzing, having commissions, then going back to business as usual.

Advice from Dennis Wingo–to the extent you can avoid government, you’re better off, because they’re an unreliable. Th ink of yourself as a bicycle and them as a semi truck with the potential for collision. They may not notice you, but you’ll find it a life-changing experience.

Barbara Thompson:

Not speaking for NASA (she works at Goddard). In her opinion, it is not the responsibility of the government to make companies viable, but it is perhaps to make an industry viable. She thinks that the government has done a good job in laying a foundation for the industry in the area of space weather forecasting, but it needs more input from industry to move forward. She wants her talk to get us to think about space weather and when the next space weather conference is, because we are going to be flying more human flesh into space in the next few years as the government has in the past four decades, and we need to understand this issue to have a successful industry. There is advantage to us as a company and industry in participating in the continuing development of this area.

Talking generically about elements of risk. Hates phrase “failure is not an option.” Failure must be an option. If we are successful, we will kill people, because even cars kill people. Even though little time is spent in the low-radiation environment of suborbital flight, we need to be aware, because someone in the future who develops a brain tumor will blame us, and sue us. Have to balance probability of risk, versus effect, versus cost of mitigating it. Cost of understanding and mitigating space weather risk is fortunately very low.

Need combination of models, forecasts, and robust flight components. Key components are prediction, reaction (postponing activities), and mitigation with shielding and monitoring. She notes that in her discussion with industry, we seem to be on top of the problem. Space weather research is a fundamental role of the government, at least for now. Space weather development will occur in the same manner as terrestrial weather, in concert with the needs of the travel industry. Space travel without space weather may ultimately be more dangerous than air travel without atmospheric weather, because airplanes can land.

Hiding from: Solar eruptions/flares, magnetic disturbances, magnetospheric and interplanetary shocks, energetic particles, “killer” electrons, increases in solar irradiant flux, electric current systems, changes in ionospheric structure, global voltage “generators.” affects human health, and electonics/communications systems. Short anwer: nearly everything “interesting” in the space environment is a potential hazard. But also makes for beautiful views.

Current NASA goal for radiation exposure is “As Low As Reasonably Achievable” (ALARA). Recognizes that it’s not a good commercial specification, from a risk/return ratio standpoint, and probably not economically. Need more data to refine it. This industry can provide data from its passengers and flight experience. Short-term effects and long-term effects (latter being cancer).

Astronaut exposure affected by structure, altitude, attitude, inclination, time duration. NASA launching a “space weather desk.” JSC deals with astronaut safety. She has been evangelizing this industry to others at NASA, and will continue to do so, but we need to start participating with them and with NOAA. Notes that National Weather Service has expanded into space weather. Has estalbished “Space Weather Week,” with opportunities to attend “morning briefings, and most attendees say that conference meets their needs. Comes right after Space Access Society meeting. Wants Space Frontier Foundation and Space Access Society to coordinate to discuss mutual needs of space weather community and emerging space transportation industry. She expects us to get to orbit much sooner than many do, and we need to start planning now, so that we will have a good handle on the weather issues as we start spending hours and days in space, rather than minutes. It will be required to make safe the long-distance travel in space.

Hudgins: Problem with space sector is too much government and too much bureaucracy, resulting in stunted sector, like an underdeveloped country. Must recognize that government will continue to be involved, but private sector must lead the way. Future in a private space hotel put up by Bigelow. We see the future in government procuring commercial services. Notes C0ngressman Walker’s proposal to provide tax moratorium on lunar base revenues.

No reason to think that the NASA that built the ISS will be able to build a lunar base in an economically responsible manner.

Wants to talk about the nature of government, rather than the role of government. Talking about the moral foundation of government that will provide the moral nature of a future space society. Moral basis for most of us here is Jeffersonian, with autonomy of the individual and codes of values for freedom to act, but also building a society in which we can interact to create wealth. The purpose of government is to protect life, liberty and property of individuals and that actions should be based on mutual consent (basically a libertarian view). Assumption is that US and other governments will be involved in space activities. Suggests a different direction that will be of future benefit. Private actors whould think about how to form consortia to get into space (e.g., Bigelow gets a hotel up, private providers populate it, bases are established on other worlds), using compacts of how to govern themselves. Early US provides a model (e.g., Mayflower, Jamestown compacts). Jamestown was bad, with access to common provisions, but no accountability or individual responsibility. Over half the people died until John Smith changed the compact, requiring people who ate to work, after which it did better.

Shared resources in space (air, water, etc.), but need to allow people to opt out of the compact. Must provide incentive for individuals to be creative (e.g., if an individual can come up with a way to produce oxygen, they should be able to opt out and provide it to others.) Law will emerge from mutual assistance agreements (citing Hayek). Suggests that as we get into space, we think of having sovereign off-world governments, with autonomy. It will be desirable to have earth governments recognize consortia and off-planet governments, with the ability for individuals to be citizens of them. Set up agreements similar to those that allow overseas bases with earthly sovereignty. Also uses Channel Islands as models.

Future is humans creating spacefaring civilization with government structures that unleash creativity, and new manifestation of governments off planet.

Question: Wouldn’t current American notion of private property rights be good model to start.

Answer: Yes, and longer treatment discusses transition issues. Talks about recent examples in Eastern Europe. Need to avoid tentacles of government that will strangle us if we allow it to continue to adversely affect space development. Also notes that he didn’t discuss military issues, which is a different speech.

Tom Matula:

Proposing a Near-Earth Asteroid bounty program. Discussing standard asteroid threat issues. Two goals that stand out in public opinion of national space goal: energy from space, and planetary defense (he notes that there’s large support for space tourism, but not as a government goal–they think that should be up to private industry).

Discussing NEA data needs: composition, rotational characteristics, size, shape, orbital parameters. Best determined by spacecraft. Old west used bounty program for predators. Similar program would be useful for data gathering from NEOs. Federal NEA bounty program better than data purchase, and would stimulate the new space industry by creating a stable market for private space exploration missions. Would generate new technology for low cost, and create NEO data base.

Suggested NEA bounty price list:
$5M for chemical composition, or rotation, size and shape, larger prices for other data (sorrry, charts moving too fast to capture it all). Payment must be automatic, and per asteroid, not per mission (allowing moving from one target to another an a mission). Only one bounty per asteroid. Companies can reserve asteroid for some period of time to avoid races to individual objects. JPL would administer program. NEA would be withdrawn from program only if NASA was fully funded for a mission within 36 months. NASA can launch asteroids that are reserved, but company still gets paid (meaning that NASA would have little incentive to do so). Money would have to be escrowed by Congress once asteroid is reserved. Thinks that program would accelerate both knowledge of NEOs and technologies to gather data on them. Will also accelerate utilization of resources. Fixed price allows high profits with good technologies.

Question about how to prevent data fraud. Answer is to do quality control. Joe Carroll suggests a fee to reserve, with a right of transfer. Question from Phil Chapman (which I would have asked) if reservation is equivalent to a mining claim for some period of time. Answer is that this gets into international treaty issues, but Phil thinks these can be circumented (as do I, since the Outer Space Treaty doesn’t prohibit property rights per se, just sovereignty claims).

Breaking for lunch now. After lunch will be sessions on regulatory issues, including ITAR and launch regulations.

Participants: Mark Schlather, Gary Oleson of Northrop Grumman, Barbara Thompson of NASA Goddard, Tom Matula MBA Professor, Henry Vanderbilt of the Space Access Society, Ed Hudgins of Objectivist Center.

Schlather: “Ask not what your country can do for you, because you’re not likely to be pleased with the answer.”

Sense of excitement, amusement and horror at recent events. Lot of activity after a long period of stagnation, resulting from the Columbia disaster. “Focus on space program went away with Cold War, shifting to government stovepipes and a jobs program, due to a failure to present unifying vision. Horror comes from fact that discussion is focused on destination, rather than purpose. Like saying that we fought the second world war not to free earth from history, but to get to Guam. “Because it is there” is insufficient rationale. Purpose in space is not to do “world-class science.” Agenda should drive science, not the other way around.

Purpose is to become spacefaring civilization, to be multi-planet species, seek resources, etc. Recent civil space program has been dismal from this regard, particularly when it comes to buying commercial services. Much lip service, no action. New administrator has been encouraging. Noted that Washington Post has rejected these arguments of purpose, even after Griffin stated them in an interview, so we need to do a better job of arguing them. New architecture makes little sense. “Thought of the giant leap of going from a three-man Apollo capsule to a four-man Apollo capsule in just a half a century” makes his heart leap with excitement (note: sarcasm).

Thinks that recent private events may be superceding NASA plans. Making a pitch for “March Storm” lobbying event next spring, will be an important year for influencing the direction of the program.

Gary Oleson: Talking about frequent and affordable access (both for military and civilian needs). Over time becoming three times, fifty times and a hundred times less expensive (latter in twenty-five years). Launch primary limiting factor to space operations, progress has been slow relative to market-driven technologies, such as IT, and no one in government seems to know what to do about it.

Government programs have problems reducing costs. Aversion to short-term risk turns into long-term risk (Shuttle example). Government agencies are mission oriented, and have difficulty breaking out due to institutional inertia. Asks if government should create markets, or nourish them? Government needs to go beyond existing missions to help commercial markets, because it doesn’t do enough to provide necessary high-volume production. SpaceShipOne, regardless of what one thinks it accomplished, was done much cheaper than NASA could have done it, according to standard cost models (24 million versus almost a billion dollars).

Recommendations that government coordinate internal demand, invest in technologies, involve space entrepreneurs and look for short and mid-term payoffs. Need to create interagency fora to coordniate missions and tech investments, and encourage/coordinate potential users in defense and intelligence community. Notes that civil agencies (NOAA, NASA?) will also benefit.

Should provide clearinghouse of ideas to support emerging space industries, and suggests a new version of NACA (not a new idea, but perhaps support can be gained for it now). Notes that first decade of NACA resulted in explosive growth of commercial aviation in the late twenties, by breaking the Wright-Curtiss intellectual property logjam. Like NACA, new advisory committee would counsel the federal government on space issues, and do generic cutting-edge research. Greatest impact of NACA was early, when budget was lowest. The coordination function was at least as important as IR&D.

Proposes unpaid committee of government and private, with small HQ staff. Supports commercial and government applications. Must be inclusive and insulated from politics. Government must do it, because only that way will it be taken seriously by both government and private sectors. Must be in a position to propose funding, and be independent of existing US government missions. Would have great payoff in terms of reduced costs, increased capabilities and American dominance of future space industries.

Question from audience: should we go out and start this now, rather than waiting for government to do it? Answer: yes, doing that will force government to act.

What is relationship with NASA? A: NASA will be a client of it, but is too busy with its own problems and has too many conflicts of interest to do it itself.

Phil Chapman suggests that it be called the National Advisory Committee on Astronautics (retaining NACA acronym).

Question about prizes: NACA didn’t do so (there were ample prizes from other sources), but the new one might.

Q: How would it coordinate with other agencies such as the California Space Authority?

A: Use the clearinghouse of ideas to determine which are best, and be able to point to state examples.

Henry Vanderbilt:

Taking question literally. We should do things collectively where the profit is too diffuse to do privately: national defense, space telescopes, cutting-edge space exploration, etc. Problems arise when bureaucracies arise to do these things. As they mature, get larger, higher percentage of resources go to structure, get set in their ways with difficulty getting them to do innovative things. NACA was successful early (as was NASA) in their early days, and much less so later. As example, AST at FAA is more innovative than aviation side of the agency, because it’s newer.

Proposes that agencies be wiped out every ten years, not allowing anyone to be rehired for a couple years (a “modest proposal”). Argues that disruption resulting wouldn’t be as bad as current situation, in which things often never get done at all.

NASA has learned to specialize in launching a handful of people per year with billions of dollars and thousands of people, and have no real incentive to change. Response to VSE continues that broad outline, which they’re comfortable with. May not be competent to do anything else (if they’re even competent to do that). Bureaucracy’s primary urge after it matures is preserving itself, and we see this in both NASA and DoD space (though the latter isn’t quite as bad). Holding this jaundiced view will make dealing with them better, so you don’t have unrealistic expectations. Don’t surprise them with a new spaceship–give them advance warning, and try to point out how much what you want to do is like what they’re used to, rather than forcing them into radical changes of their system. Thinks we’re in for interesting times.

Randall Clague of XCOR points out that while not surprising them is good advice, don’t expect them to not surprise you. Henry notes that sometimes when doing something different with a bureaucracy, you may inadvertently invoke some ancient feature that no one previously knew existed.

NASA’s response to disaster: shutting down, analyzing, having commissions, then going back to business as usual.

Advice from Dennis Wingo–to the extent you can avoid government, you’re better off, because they’re an unreliable. Th ink of yourself as a bicycle and them as a semi truck with the potential for collision. They may not notice you, but you’ll find it a life-changing experience.

Barbara Thompson:

Not speaking for NASA (she works at Goddard). In her opinion, it is not the responsibility of the government to make companies viable, but it is perhaps to make an industry viable. She thinks that the government has done a good job in laying a foundation for the industry in the area of space weather forecasting, but it needs more input from industry to move forward. She wants her talk to get us to think about space weather and when the next space weather conference is, because we are going to be flying more human flesh into space in the next few years as the government has in the past four decades, and we need to understand this issue to have a successful industry. There is advantage to us as a company and industry in participating in the continuing development of this area.

Talking generically about elements of risk. Hates phrase “failure is not an option.” Failure must be an option. If we are successful, we will kill people, because even cars kill people. Even though little time is spent in the low-radiation environment of suborbital flight, we need to be aware, because someone in the future who develops a brain tumor will blame us, and sue us. Have to balance probability of risk, versus effect, versus cost of mitigating it. Cost of understanding and mitigating space weather risk is fortunately very low.

Need combination of models, forecasts, and robust flight components. Key components are prediction, reaction (postponing activities), and mitigation with shielding and monitoring. She notes that in her discussion with industry, we seem to be on top of the problem. Space weather research is a fundamental role of the government, at least for now. Space weather development will occur in the same manner as terrestrial weather, in concert with the needs of the travel industry. Space travel without space weather may ultimately be more dangerous than air travel without atmospheric weather, because airplanes can land.

Hiding from: Solar eruptions/flares, magnetic disturbances, magnetospheric and interplanetary shocks, energetic particles, “killer” electrons, increases in solar irradiant flux, electric current systems, changes in ionospheric structure, global voltage “generators.” affects human health, and electonics/communications systems. Short anwer: nearly everything “interesting” in the space environment is a potential hazard. But also makes for beautiful views.

Current NASA goal for radiation exposure is “As Low As Reasonably Achievable” (ALARA). Recognizes that it’s not a good commercial specification, from a risk/return ratio standpoint, and probably not economically. Need more data to refine it. This industry can provide data from its passengers and flight experience. Short-term effects and long-term effects (latter being cancer).

Astronaut exposure affected by structure, altitude, attitude, inclination, time duration. NASA launching a “space weather desk.” JSC deals with astronaut safety. She has been evangelizing this industry to others at NASA, and will continue to do so, but we need to start participating with them and with NOAA. Notes that National Weather Service has expanded into space weather. Has estalbished “Space Weather Week,” with opportunities to attend “morning briefings, and most attendees say that conference meets their needs. Comes right after Space Access Society meeting. Wants Space Frontier Foundation and Space Access Society to coordinate to discuss mutual needs of space weather community and emerging space transportation industry. She expects us to get to orbit much sooner than many do, and we need to start planning now, so that we will have a good handle on the weather issues as we start spending hours and days in space, rather than minutes. It will be required to make safe the long-distance travel in space.

Hudgins: Problem with space sector is too much government and too much bureaucracy, resulting in stunted sector, like an underdeveloped country. Must recognize that government will continue to be involved, but private sector must lead the way. Future in a private space hotel put up by Bigelow. We see the future in government procuring commercial services. Notes C0ngressman Walker’s proposal to provide tax moratorium on lunar base revenues.

No reason to think that the NASA that built the ISS will be able to build a lunar base in an economically responsible manner.

Wants to talk about the nature of government, rather than the role of government. Talking about the moral foundation of government that will provide the moral nature of a future space society. Moral basis for most of us here is Jeffersonian, with autonomy of the individual and codes of values for freedom to act, but also building a society in which we can interact to create wealth. The purpose of government is to protect life, liberty and property of individuals and that actions should be based on mutual consent (basically a libertarian view). Assumption is that US and other governments will be involved in space activities. Suggests a different direction that will be of future benefit. Private actors whould think about how to form consortia to get into space (e.g., Bigelow gets a hotel up, private providers populate it, bases are established on other worlds), using compacts of how to govern themselves. Early US provides a model (e.g., Mayflower, Jamestown compacts). Jamestown was bad, with access to common provisions, but no accountability or individual responsibility. Over half the people died until John Smith changed the compact, requiring people who ate to work, after which it did better.

Shared resources in space (air, water, etc.), but need to allow people to opt out of the compact. Must provide incentive for individuals to be creative (e.g., if an individual can come up with a way to produce oxygen, they should be able to opt out and provide it to others.) Law will emerge from mutual assistance agreements (citing Hayek). Suggests that as we get into space, we think of having sovereign off-world governments, with autonomy. It will be desirable to have earth governments recognize consortia and off-planet governments, with the ability for individuals to be citizens of them. Set up agreements similar to those that allow overseas bases with earthly sovereignty. Also uses Channel Islands as models.

Future is humans creating spacefaring civilization with government structures that unleash creativity, and new manifestation of governments off planet.

Question: Wouldn’t current American notion of private property rights be good model to start.

Answer: Yes, and longer treatment discusses transition issues. Talks about recent examples in Eastern Europe. Need to avoid tentacles of government that will strangle us if we allow it to continue to adversely affect space development. Also notes that he didn’t discuss military issues, which is a different speech.

Tom Matula:

Proposing a Near-Earth Asteroid bounty program. Discussing standard asteroid threat issues. Two goals that stand out in public opinion of national space goal: energy from space, and planetary defense (he notes that there’s large support for space tourism, but not as a government goal–they think that should be up to private industry).

Discussing NEA data needs: composition, rotational characteristics, size, shape, orbital parameters. Best determined by spacecraft. Old west used bounty program for predators. Similar program would be useful for data gathering from NEOs. Federal NEA bounty program better than data purchase, and would stimulate the new space industry by creating a stable market for private space exploration missions. Would generate new technology for low cost, and create NEO data base.

Suggested NEA bounty price list:
$5M for chemical composition, or rotation, size and shape, larger prices for other data (sorrry, charts moving too fast to capture it all). Payment must be automatic, and per asteroid, not per mission (allowing moving from one target to another an a mission). Only one bounty per asteroid. Companies can reserve asteroid for some period of time to avoid races to individual objects. JPL would administer program. NEA would be withdrawn from program only if NASA was fully funded for a mission within 36 months. NASA can launch asteroids that are reserved, but company still gets paid (meaning that NASA would have little incentive to do so). Money would have to be escrowed by Congress once asteroid is reserved. Thinks that program would accelerate both knowledge of NEOs and technologies to gather data on them. Will also accelerate utilization of resources. Fixed price allows high profits with good technologies.

Question about how to prevent data fraud. Answer is to do quality control. Joe Carroll suggests a fee to reserve, with a right of transfer. Question from Phil Chapman (which I would have asked) if reservation is equivalent to a mining claim for some period of time. Answer is that this gets into international treaty issues, but Phil thinks these can be circumented (as do I, since the Outer Space Treaty doesn’t prohibit property rights per se, just sovereignty claims).

Breaking for lunch now. After lunch will be sessions on regulatory issues, including ITAR and launch regulations.

I’m at the Space Frontier Conference, with computer today. George Nield of the FAA is about to speak about the current state of launch regulations.

Here goes…

Happy to be here with people so dedicated to affordable access to space. Thinks that this is a subject whose time has come. At a key transition point now between way things were done in the past and what can be accomplished in the future.

“Our world is on the verge of a truly historic breakthrough–cheap access to space.”

On the verge–a time and a place where public spirit and public policy are coming together to make it possible for public space travel.

Talking about the thousands of people who have already signed up for suborbital flights. Notes events of just the last month–Greg Olsen flying to space on his own dime, the formation of the rocket racing league, the X-Prize Cup event, the Chinese taikonaut launch, the FAA International Safety Forum with a panel on private spaceflight, moderated by Bob Walker, with panelists Dennis Tito, Elon Musk of SpaceX, Will Whitehorn of Virgin Galactic, astronaut Hoot Gibson, etc. demonstrating that people are taking this seriously.

Encouraged by the formation of so many entrepreneurial companies, specifically Virgin Galactic’s and Scaled Composites “Spaceship Company.” Pointing out that new services initially have high prices, but that price comes down eventually (uses early aviation as an example). Lauding Bigelow’s new space prize. Entrepreneurial spirit a key component.

Another key component is growing support in the federal government. Citing Aldridge Report that commercial activities should be a key component of the Vision for Space Exploration. New transportation policy from December 2004: “Government must capitalize on private sector,” “Secretaries of Commerce and Transportation must encourage commercial space activities, including commercial human spaceflight.” Also citing Commercial Space Launch Amendments Act from last year. FAA must have final rules in place by June, 2006.

What comes next? Emphasis on safety. All previous licensed launches have resulted in no casualties, but they were all expendable. Reusables pose new challenge, but emphasis on safety will continue. Patti Grace Smith noted recently that private human spaceflight will encourage and stimulate interest in spaceflight in general. People increasingly will know people who have flown into space, and will start to realize that one doesn’t have to be an astronaut, waiting for NASA to select you, to do so–will be able to fly on FAA-licensed private vehicles. Hoping that many of us will get to fly. “FAA plans to take us beyond the verge.”

End of talk. Questions now.

During speech, he said that people at the conference had criticized the president’s vision the day before. Along the lines of Michael Mealing, I pointed out that we weren’t criticizing the vision, but rather NASA’s proposed implementation of it.

In response to a question about concern of overreaction to an accident, he says that people die in aviation accidents every year, but that the FAA doesn’t shut down the industry, or people stop flying. Primary focus will remain on safety to uninvolved public, not passengers. Congress and FAA recognize that people are flying at their own risk.

There’s a break now. Upcoming is a two-hour panel on the role of government in opening up space, which should be interesting.