Now This Is Some Legislation I Can Get Excited About

06/17/04 00:00:00    

By Michael Mealling

I watched this afternoon's Senate Commerce Committee hearing but I didn't hear about Brownback's NASA authorization legislation for FY 2005 (thanks to Jeff Foust for keeping track of all this for us!) But if the following is actually in there then I really don't care what they do with NASA's budget:

• The bill would call on NASA to implement a “private sector managed robotic mission to the Moon in three years”;
• The bill also asks the administration “to clarify US positions on private property rights for those seeking to develop space resources and infrastructure”;
• It includes provisions to enable NASA to offer prizes (presumably to allow NASA specifically to award prizes bigger than the current $250,000 limit it currently has). Brownback also said he would suggest that NASA’s first “big” prize would be a manned orbital flight; he has previously suggested a “Glenn Prize” like that with a purse of $100 million.

I thought I'd be old and grey before someone in the government finally took space property rights seriously. This and all of the other Aldridge Commission related legislation is going to go through a hell of a time in Congress but if it comes out even remotely resembling what went in then the world will be a better place.