Alt.space industry consensus statement

01/17/06 00:00:00    

By Michael Mealling

In a day long meeting just before last year's Space Frontier Conference a group of companies and individuals form various “alt.space” stakeholders joined forces to make a general statement about how the government, and specifically the DoD, could better interface with the emerging entrepreneurial space transportation industry. Yours truly was there and is happy to announce that the concensus document is finally available. The basic action items are:

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• Direct the DOD (and other U.S. Government agencies) to develop outreach and feedback mechanisms to gain greater insight into the Entrepreneurial Space Transportation (EST) industry’s capabilities and plans.

• Confer with the EST industry to ensure that government technology research plans will intersect with their probable future needs.

• Spend some minimum fraction of DOD (and other U.S. Government agencies) space transportation research funding on technologies that will have broad common utility for the EST industry and the DOD.

• Direct DOD (and other U.S. government agencies) to develop and utilize purchasing and acquisition methods such as prizes, Other Transactions Authority agreements, and pay for delivery contracts to stimulate the growth and innovation of the EST industry.

• Publish an annual report to Congress on the progress of U.S. Government efforts to gain leverage from the private technology and capability investments of the EST industry.

• Support a regulatory regime that encourages rather than inhibits the development of commercial human spaceflight - for example streamlining or removing such barriers to success as ITAR and liability.

• Create a National Space Access Advisory Committee, to be comprised of leaders of the EST industry and the relevant decision makers in government, to guide and accelerate these and subsequent federal efforts.

If done right this could end up with that National Space Access Advisory Committee being turned into something like a NACA. So, read the whole thing and if you find that you agree with it you should say so. Publicly.

SpacePolitics.com: Entrepreneurial space transportation industry consensus statement

HobbySpace.com: Entrepreneurial Space Transportation Industry Consensus Statement