He’s Alive!

I’m going to take a break in conference converage to announce that Iowahawk, who has been AWOL during the entire month of April, has apparently not been abducted by a horde of beer-swilling, cheese-eating Amazons from Racine. Or if so, they let him near his computer long enough to tell us that things have been happening to him. Maybe that was just one of the things.

He’s Alive!

I’m going to take a break in conference converage to announce that Iowahawk, who has been AWOL during the entire month of April, has apparently not been abducted by a horde of beer-swilling, cheese-eating Amazons from Racine. Or if so, they let him near his computer long enough to tell us that things have been happening to him. Maybe that was just one of the things.

Suborbital Launch Regulation

Tim Hughes, the staffer for the House Science Committee primarily responsible for last year’s legislation clarifying the regulatory situation for suborbital passenger flight, gave an interesting talk at the conference about the history and philosophy behind the bill.

The intent of the legislation was clearly to help the industry grow, and they came up with what they hope was a good balance between safety and progress. Things they didn’t consider included ITAR issues, which came up repeatedly in last week’s hearings, and he said that this perhaps should have been considered, but that it might have held up the bill, because this is a much more contentious issue, particularly in terms of its implications for national security. In response to questions, he said that there are no current plans of which he’s aware to renegotiate the Outer Space Treaty and Liability Conventions to mitigate some of the insurance issues.

George Nield of the FAA will be speaking next.

He’s giving a short history of the AST office, pointing out that they have to maintain a balance between safety and avoiding stifling the industry, which is a delicate balancing act (Simberg note: and it’s one that the FAA no longer has to do for aviation, as a result of changes made in the charter after the Valuejet crash a few years ago–they’re now supposed to focus only on safety, which is why it might be a good idea to get this office back out of the FAA).

Now he’s talking about the Vision for Space Exploration, and pointing out that part of the vision was to include commercial opportunities as well. He’s describing a US Space Transportation Policy update early this year that mandates that the government procure commercial space transportation services whereever and whenever possible. Going over a list of significant events last year, including Burt’s historic flights, and the provision of XCOR’s launch license at this conference last year.

“We’re at the dawn of a new era.” “First to market groups will be small entrepreneurial companies.” “Designs will feature creative application of existing technologies. Citing Futron study to indicate that there is indeed a market for suborbital flights, capable of generating over a billion dollars a year by 2021. Orbital flights will happen as well, but market will be smaller in near term.

What’s different now? We have supportive national policy, including the words “public space travel” in the Space Transportation Policy for the first time in history, with responsibility falling on Secs of Commerce and Transportation to carry that out. We have realistic objectives this time: no technology breakthroughs required, suborbital trajectories with primary emphasis on passengers, using available technologies. We also are seeing non-federal funding become available from numerous wealthy individuals, as well as good support by state and local governments. Prizes are helping as well. The regulatory framework is in place with the Commercial Spacelaunch Amendments Act, which puts Congress and administration on the record as supporting human spaceflight.

FAA has a very ambitious homework assignment to write the regulations for passengers, experimental permits, and license requirements, which will result in a Notification of Proposed Rule Making (NPRM) in a year or two.

Talking about Branson, because he’s the one we know the most about, not necessarily because FAA thinks that he’s got the inside track. Branson’s plans imply 2600 people launched into space each year, so that if Shuttle retires in 2010, and Branson flies in 2008, there will be ten times as many people flown into space privately by that time as have flown in space to date by governments. He sees no showstoppers, and FAA is committed to promote this activity in a way that continuously improves its safety.

Question: Do the new regs apply to orbital as well as suborbital? Yes and no. The experimental permit, for one, only applies to suborbital. Orbital regulation will continue to evolve as we learn more from suborbital experience. FAA is strongly supportive of this conference and think that it plays a major contribution. Announcing Craig Day, from AIAA to come up to announce a cooperative effort between government and industry to come up with guidelines for RLV safety regulations. Neild points out that there are still people who want to see reusable vehicles certified (didn’t mention Rutan’s name, but we all know who he means). He still doesn’t think we understand enough about reusables to do this, and points out that a feathered tail for reentry or a propulsion system using laughing gas and rubber wouldn’t have gotten certification (amusing dig at Burt).

Half hour break starting now, after which will be a talk from Michelle Murray of FAA about the launch licensing process.

[Update a couple minutes later]

Michael Mealing, who’s sitting behind me, has pictures.

Michelle has started talking. I don’t know if she’ll have much worth blogging–it seems to be a description of the process for regulatory rulemaking.

One key point she’s coming to now–they want public participation in the development of these rules. Feedback can be provided electronically or by paper. Everyone will be able to see everyone else’s comments (unless someone wants to provide proprietary info, in which case a note will be made in the public docket that such an input exists but it not available). They may have public meetings for the purpose of fact finding where a particular issue is controversial. Meetings may be in meatspace or virtual, and will be announced in the Federal Register, at least thirty days prior, along with email notifications to affected parties if they know who they are (e.g., in this case, they might send an email to Henry Vanderbilt, or the RLV working group of the Commercial Space Transportation Committee (COMSTAC)). Public requests of a public meeting can also trigger one. They haven’t yet come to a decision as to whether or not they plan to have a public meeting for this new rule-making process arising from last year’s legislation. They probably will have one, but haven’t determined when yet. May consider having one in conjunction with this conference or an RLV working group meeting.

Checking In

I’m at the conference, and the hotel has wireless everywhere, both rooms and conference rooms. Unfortunately, I don’t seem to be able to connect to it with my D-Link card. It shows up when I do a site survey, but it won’t connect. When I borrowed an SMC card from the front desk and installed it, it connects, but I don’t get name resolution. I can ping known IPs on the internet, but it doesn’t know what (for example) “yahoo.com” is.

I’m typing this on a machine in the hotel business center, hoping that someone might have an idea what the problem might be.

As far as the conference goes, it’s largely the usual suspects so far, and nothing new, at least not in the presentations. More tomorrow, perhaps.

[Friday morning update]

I’m blogging live from the conference now. Michael Mealing figured out that the hotel’s DNS service is confused in such a way that XP, which is more forgiving of such things, didn’t mind, but various flavors of Unix and W2K do. He managed to find the right numbers via a DNS query, I hardwired them into my network connection, and all is right with the world again. Posts will appear as events warrant.

High Water Mark of Federalism?

For years the Republicans have been champions of Federalism and the Democrats have been trying to have the Federal Government bring the States into national conformity. Now that Republicans control Congress and judicial nominees, we are likely to see those who favor and oppose Federalism switch sides.

The Republicans seem to be more aggressive at consolidating their new found power than Democrats are in holding onto theirs. For example, ramming through redistricting off cycle in Texas. Another example is the threat of the “Nuclear Option” underscores that collegiality and continuity are not more important to the current Republican leadership than partisan interests.

The Supreme Court is also moving in that direction and will do so decisively once there are a few more Republican appointees on the Court. Conditional federal spending like the No Child Left Behind Act largely invalidate any state independence of the sort granted in Lopez which lined out criminal, education and family law as provinces of the States. (I am surprised that no state has made it a felony to be a three-term Senator. That would test whether criminal law really is something a state can do and potentially allow term limits for federal officials to move forward.)

As red state policy becomes federal law, it will be more and more difficult for blue states to maintain their independent policies. There is a narrow window while Republican legislators and the Republican judiciary has not fully internalized the polarity switch. During this time, Democrats can try to cement Federalism before Republicans realize they no longer need this issue.

My guess is that the time for Federalism has passed and that Democrats will convert to Federalism more slowly than Republicans convert away from it. I look forward to reading how the Supreme Court Justices and some of the more self-important partisan publications will justify their newly-found interests in the opposite sides of the Federalism debate.

Thermonuclear Option

The Senate leadership is pondering repealing the cloture requirement of 60 votes to close debate and stop a filibuster for judicial nominees. Cloture would be repealed not through a formal rule change, but through a clever finesse of the rules. The parliamentarian responsible for interpreting how the rules apply would simply invalidate the cloture rule. This would be challenged and the rule would need 51 votes to keep it at that point assuming Dick Cheney is against.

The Senate Democrats have warned that they will bring all business to a halt in the Senate were this to occur. This is credible, but in turn may be finessed with something even more drastic.

Here is a new option–call it a thermonuclear option–that would allow the Senate to switch to a new majoritarian mode and continue to function. A member would call a point of order saying that none of the rules are in order because they had not been approved by a majority of the current members. The parliamentarian would rule that yes, after over 200 years of precedent, the original Senators clearly made a mistake in assuming that Senate rules bound future Senates. The majority could then go on to adopt any rules they want. This could allow it to continue to function without the participation of any Democrats.

Cloture should be an issue that cuts across party lines. If the Senate repealed cloture on all legislation, the House would have equal say in all matters for a change. This would be a big boon to states like California, New York and Texas that are highly underrepresented in the Senate. Democrat Senators from all States that have nine or more Representatives in the House should be in favor.

The flip side of course is that small state Senators should be opposed. There are many more small state Senators than large state Senators. For this reason, cloture is unlikely to ever be repealed without a massive buyout transferring money from large states to small to compensate them for the lost pork in future years. Even cloture removal just for judicial nominations would be a critical weakening of small state power.

While I like supermajoritarianism in general, I have not been a fan of supermajority requirement in the Senate and a simple majority requirement in the House. This systematically bleeds money from big states to small states. While perhaps a sensible policy during colonization, now it is just a pork fest. Arnold Schwarzenegger made that point after getting elected. My question is, “Why has the House not imposed its own 60% cloture requirement to balance the power in the Senate?”

More on legislative power can be found in “The Senate: An Institution Whose Time Has Gone?” in The Journal of Law and Politics, 1997.

Thanks, But No Thanks

Well, here is the first, big obvious result of the new administrator:

After examining many options, we have formed a policy on institutional support of systems engineering and integration in the Exploration Systems Mission Directorate portfolio, which underscores the importance of reinforcing the Government’s internal systems engineering competency. Accordingly, NASA has concluded that Government personnel at Headquarters and NASA Centers will implement systems engineering and integration in Constellation Systems and other areas of the Exploration program. Consequently, Exploration Systems Mission Directorate will not be releasing a Request for Proposals (RFP) for an Industry systems engineering and integration contractor.

For months, Admiral Steidle, head of EMSD has been saying that 2005 was “the year of system integration,” and it’s been clear that he wanted to let a contract out for this task in time to help get CEV off to a good start by the end of the year. There are a lot of issues and history associated with how NASA does large-systems integration, enough to fill more than one book, but the basic issues are competence of the agency, ability to hire/fire/compensate the best people for the job under civil service rules, and avoidance of institutional conflicts of interest if it’s performed by a hardware contractor. My sense had been that NASA was going to let a contract for this (as they did with the Shuttle–it went to Rockwell in conjunction with their win of the Orbiter contract), and put in place firewalls and other procedures to minimize conflict-of-interest concerns.

But according to this release, it looks to me as though Dr. Griffin has decided to preempt the Admiral, and thinks that he can oversee his civil servants adequately to do the job in house, and he wants to start to build up the capability to do so. This throws a wrench in the works of all the major contractors’ plans for Constellation. It will be interesting to see how it all shakes out, particularly combined with the desire to accelerate the CEV program (the desire is to move first flight up from 2014 to 2010, which puts schedule pressure on a lot of things in this decade).

I hope that some NASA types who are in the know will be at the Space Access Conference, and that I can pick their brains a little over a beer.

Poor Word Choice

On NPR this morning I heard the following gem:

A member of Iraq’s new parliament has been shot and killed outside her home in Baghdad. It was the first assassination of a member of the National Assembly since the body was elected in January.

I would want to be elected and remembered for my mind.

Changed Tone at Space Access

Space access last year was an excellent conference. I met Jeff Foust and have been writing for the Space Review ever since. I met David Livingston and was since on his show twice, signed his corporate space ethics pledge and have co-authored a paper with him. I met Thomas Olson and now I am on the Colony Fund’s board of advisors.

But comparing last year’s program to this year’s there are several differences.

There are more political and regulatory discussions this year. Last year we praised Tim Hughes, who was pivotal in getting 5382 passed. This year, he is presenting. Last year political priorities was part of “open mike” time. This year there is a panel. Last year there was one presentation from AST. This year there are two. Last year there was an informal workshop on the FAA AST license process. This year there is a panel discussion on policy.

I am part of the change. On Friday night, I am co-presenting a paper first posted here. (Look for an update as soon as I can get it uploaded.) There is also a new panel discussion about what venture capitalists are looking for. These two additions really focus on calibrated business-goal setting, and filtering and tempering the pro-space rhetoric to enhance credibility.

The community will be taken more seriously if it graduates from being a victim to being proactive about removing alleged barriers, upholding standards of ethics and the professionalism on the business side of space access. This change was already underway last year, but perhaps in the next few years Space Access may yet become the kind of tacky commercial conference that Esther Dyson prefers.

Biting Commentary about Infinity…and Beyond!