Public-Private Partnerships: Reports
Endorsements Coming In for Obama's Space Plan
"President Obama’s new plan for NASA, released February 1st, is endorsed by bipartisan groups representing governors, former legislators, astronauts, and former NASA senior managers and a half dozen editorial boards." See the Commercial Space Federation's links to all and the good news for commercial space.
Commercial Human Space Travel Provides New Research Opportunities
Katharine Sanderson's Special Report in Nature describes how commercial spaceflight can open doors for lower-cost, more frequent, flexible access to space for researchers (subscript or fee req'd). See free editorial, "Divide and Conquer", same issue, same topic.
New Course for Space Exploration Promotes Private Firms | WSJ
The Obama administration appears to be charting a new course for U.S. space exploration by promoting use of private companies to transport astronauts and ramping up international cooperation.
Review of Human Spaceflight Plans Committee - Final Report | NASA
Here's the options agenda to support heated discussions over the next few days and weeks by NASA and the Obama administration. Commercial space seems to be baselined.
NASA Chief Onboard with Commercial Spaceflight, Suborbital Science & Innovation Prizes
Bolden says NASA must leverage the power and innovation of American industry and the American entrepreneur as it is tasked to do.
Policy Input to White House Panel on Human Spaceflight | Commercial Spaceflight Federation
“In less than 18 months, when the space shuttle is planned for retirement, the United States will become solely dependent on Russia to send our astronauts to the Space Station,” said Bretton Alexander, President of the Commercial Spaceflight Federation. "By leveraging the private sector, America can maximize our utilization of the Space Station and ensure that NASA has more resources available for robust exploration of the Moon and beyond.” This press release includes a pdf link to the "white paper" submitted to the Panel (Augustine Committee for Review of U.S. Space Flight Plans).
Notes on "Innovations in Orbit: An Exploration of Commercial Crew & Cargo Transportation"
These notes were taken by Clark Lindsey of HobbySpace.Com in collaboration with Ken Davidian, FAA Office of Commercial Space Transportation. Davidian was one of the panel participants in this important AIAA-sponsored event in Washington, DC, June 18, 2009. The meeting was held at Hyatt Regency Washington, Capitol Hill and included commercial space industry and government panels followed by a Q&A session.
Commercial Avenues for Space Utilization | Dittmar Associates (2003)
“Interest in the commercial development and utilization of Low Earth Orbit (LEO) has increased significantly over the past ten years with the advent of relatively advanced technologies including telecommunication and satellite applications as well as high-resolution sensor development for topographical surveys, environmental impact studies and community planning. Access to space remains a challenge; both in the high cost to orbit and in the dearth of commercially-viable transport mechanisms which can fully address the varying analytical and physical integration needs of a burgeoning market. This paper addresses these concerns and posits an innovative business approach to commercial placement in LEO of scientific, engineering, and new product projects utilizing existing platforms and examines the promise of new commercial programs which will expand the resources available on-orbit.”
Arianespace and the ISS?
Arianespace, an international commercial space company has provided input to the Obama Administration’s NASA Transition Team for their involvement in providing cargo transport and related services to the International Space Station (ISS). Since up to now only NASA STS and Russian spacecraft have been used to transport people and cargo to the ISS, Arianespace’s interest in doing so too presents a new challenge. NASA has awarded contracts to two US companies, SpaceX and Orbital Sciences to function as commercial entities in this market. Might the ESA or the EU (10 European countries have shares in Arianespace) begin to share transport costs to the ISS at least for non-US payloads and crew and look at Arianespace as a good alternative?
Your thoughts on this are solicited.Let us know what you think!
The Biotechnology Space Research Alliance (BSRA)
The Biotechnology Space Research Alliance (BSRA), a San Diego-based collaborative, was announced at the AIAA Space 2008 Meeting in September 2008. It is designed to stimulate participation by the public and private sectors in the International Space Station National Lab (ISSNL) and thereby demonstrate its value and cost effectiveness as a research platform for “breakthrough biomedical and biotechnology discoveries”. A key goal of the BSRA is to foster communication linkages between NASA and the San Diego research community which can extend to collaborations between industry and funding and researchers associated with NIH, NSF, DoE and the VA.