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bq. “Someone once said that there was no doubt that we would colonize the Moon and Mars. The only question was what language would be spoken. My money is on Chinese.”

I hate this quote. It assumes several things that just tick me off:

1) It assumes that if NASA isn't doing it then America has no presense in space. That's like assuming that if Amtrack didn't exist that the American rail system would collapse.

2) Yes, the Chinese represent a huge amount of economic muscle. That doesn't mean that they're all competitors. In the same way that every IT company these days has a significant Indian representation, my prediction is that the company that lands on the Moon will be American and the company that lands on Mars will be a Sino-Anglo-Indian conglomerate.

I much prefer my version:

bq.

“Someone once said that there was no doubt that we would colonize the Moon and Mars. The only question was what language would be spoken: the language of science or the language of business. My money is on business. The language of business is universal, ignores national borders, and is capable of speaking all human languages.”

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At several events recently I've given a personal rant about the lack of business strategy knowledge in the commercial space industry. I list the following four books as must haves. If you can only buy one then get either “Re-Imagine” or “Seeing What's Next”. If you can afford it get the Michael Porter box set for $100.

 

   

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It looks like the speculation at ISDC was right. George Whitesides (NSS Executive Director) and Loretta Hidalgo (past President of the Space Generation Foundation and currently at NASA HQ) are the first honeymoon couple to fly on Virgin Galactic. I can't think of anyone more deserving of the flight. Congratulations guys!

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Jeff Foust has a very well done overview of what both Chris Shank and Brant Sponberg had to say at RTTM this past week. I found out Jeff's secret though. He voice records sessions so he can get the quotes and details right later. I must remember to get myself one of those.

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One of the other announcements at RTTM VI was the creation of the Institute for Space Law & Policy and one of its sub-projects called Grokspace.org. Grokspace will be like Groklaw.net but focused on space related legal issues. Its first two policy projects are ITAR reform and a property rights forum. The difference between this and other property rights fora is that this one is meant more for lawyers who actually understand property and space law and how its adjudicated.

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Brant Sponberg wowed the conference today by releasing details on the Innovative Programs Office which includes the Centennial Challenges program and other new programs that he discussed later. He announed a new Challenge for space suit gloves (and even mentioned Rand Simberg's original article on the topic). Its managed by Alanz Aerospace.

But what really wowed the conference was this slide:

The stair steps include “Suborbital Launch”, “Low cost ETO launch, Proximity Operations, Reenty, Crew Transport, In-space propellant provisioning,and small lunar transport. Procurements include prizes, OTA and FAR Part 12 as well as other methods depending on legislative ability. They're going to procurement requests for microgravity research from suborbital providers. May offer altitude prize for suborbital vehicles higher than the typical 100km.

 

Moving to ETO he mentions ISS resuply, they're interested in presurized and unpressurized. They specifically want unpressurized due to the mass savings. Moving on to ISS proximity and working with industry on making sure that can happen. That should make CSI happy. Moving on to re-entry and be able to get to the ISS and CEV downmass. May offer a prize for re-entry to make sure they don't miss a provider.

Now its Crew Transport which would be done similarly to re-entry. And will be getting to in space propellant provisioning and small lunar transport. Both done with prizes now. Specifically they're looking at a small soft lunar lander prize once they get the authority.

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p. We're starting with Chris Shank from NASA HQ. The idea was originally to have Chris talk about the 60 day report here for the first time after it was released. But given the launch push back and timing that may or may not be the case. If he says anything interesting you'll hear it here first.

p.

Right now Chris is talking about the planing behind the Lewis and Clark expedition and comparing it to managing and planning the VSE so it really sounds like there's not going to be any news here. But he could do something toward the end. The first slide did have a picture of Magnum and the Stick.

p. He's showing a slide now that shows the first human lunar landing in 2018, CEV Development done in 2012, Lunar lander, lunar heavy lift, earth departure development all start in 2010.

p. He just said that commercial crew/cargo service is considered a 'backup' service. That caused a little bit of a stir Correction: CEV is considered the backup, not the commercial provider. As Mike said its “leader/follower”.

p. Quote, “This is not your father's Apollo program”. He does seem to be responding to the criticism that this is Apollo Redux by saying that while physics hasn't changed, the costs have through technological advancement and procurement changes. For example, they assume a minimum of 2 lunar flights/year and a base at the south pole by 2020.

p.
Q&A How does Griffin plan on dealing with congress members who want to keep Shuttle around past 2010? Answer: we have worked out a compromise.

Given the shock of the recent JWST cost overrun, how will the plan deal with future 'shocks' of cost overruns? He now goes into the JWST situation which wasn't the question. Wingo corrects his question and Shank responds by saying we're being very conservative. They assume a 64% confidence level in their cost estimates. So its an issue of managing expectations and not doing “business as usual”.

Question: if your first lunar landing looks to much like Apollo then the public and congress won't be very impressed that it took 50 years to do what we already did. Answer: we have had that debate but we're not ready to do that planning.

p. Now we're on the “What will we do on the Moon? (Commercial) panel with Dennis Wingo (SkyCorp), David Gump (t/space), Hugh Arif (Cisco), David Livingston (The Space Show). So far we've heard about lunar oxygen production and transport, polar ice, lunar telecommunications. The Cisco view is nice since they have a space systems division but their views have never been expressed to a forum like this.

p. My session is next so obviously I won't be able to blog that one. Ok, I'm back. The session went well but was cut short due to time constraints. We may continue it during the upcoming break. The comments I heard afterward ws that a "speed dating” type session was very useful to give a snapshot of the industry without having to give everyone an entire hour.

p. Now we are on the “Legal Regulatory Policy” panel with Tim Huddleston, Jim Muncy (Polispace), Marc Schlather (ProSpace), George Whitesides (NSS). Our network has been flakey so I'm going to write an overview of this later.

p. **

Brant Sponberg is prizes and announced a new Challenge for space suit gloves (and even mentioned Rand Simberg's original article on the topic). Its managed by Alanz Aerospace. Aha! he's introducing something called Innovative Programs which includes Centennial Challenges. This slide should be interesting. The types of projects are “Suborbital Launch”, “Low cost ETO launch, Proximity Operations, Reenty, Crew Transport, In-space propellant provisioning, small lunar transport. They're going to be putting out requests under FAR part 12 for microgravity research from suborbital providers. May offer altitude prize to get suborbital.

 

Moving to ETO he mentions ISS resuply, they're interested in presurized and unpressurized. They specifically want unpressurized due to the mass savings. Moving on to ISS proximity and working with industry on making sure that can happen. That should make CSI happy. Moving on to re-entry and be able to get to the ISS and CEV downmass. May offer a prize for re-entry to make sure they don't miss a provider.

Now its Crew Transport which would be done similarly to re-entry. And will be getting to in space propellant provisioning and small lunar transport. Both done with prizes now. Specifically they're looking at a small soft lunar lander prize once they get the authority.

**

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p. I finally found an access point so I'll be able to post during the sessions. So far we're just doing the introductions.

 

I spent yesterday at an economic development workshop run by SpaceWorks Engineering in support of a contract for economic modelling they won back in April. The work that SpaceWorks is doing with their Nodal Economic Space Commerce (NESC) model is very similar to the CDSVN project I've been working to setup for a year or so. I'll be writing an article on just that workshop later tonight.

 

Now we're hearing from Rick Tumlinson give his inspiring stump speech to wake the crowd up.

 

I have pictures up on flickr.

p. Now we're at the first panel “How Do We Get To The Moon?” which is looking at various launch methods that can be used to get enough mass to the moon to be useful. So far there are no new announcements from anyone so this is really just an overview of the lunar capabilities of each of the companies presenting.

p. We're now on the second “How do we get there panel”. This one is focusing on cislunar transport and assumes that someone has gotten the payload into LEO. Right now we're hearing from Bruce Pitman from Lunar Transportation Systems and he's showing their lunar tug and how it does refuel using tank transfer instead of pumping of cryogenic fuels.

p. During lunch we heard from Paul Eckert from Boeing talk about the need for cooperation between 'traditional', 'non-traditional', NASA, and other industries/customers in order to reduce risk and increase market sizes.

p. Now we're into the “How will we live on the Moon?” panel with Dennis Wing, James Hopkins, Dennis Wingo, and Ken Stratton. Ken's presentation on what Caterpiller has done in space and robotics was really interesting. Due to some of the environments their products work in, they require non-polluting engines (imagine a diesel tractor in a mine). Because of this they are deploying some of the more advanced fuel cell technology in real world applications. Dennis is also talking about a new solar electric tug design he's currently working with Langly on. Brant Sponberg is now talking about existing Centennial Challenges and has said that they will be announcing a new challenge during his session tomorrow afternoon (after mine). Other challenges they're working are: Lunar Regolith Extraction, Other in situ products, Lunar ATV, Soft Lunar Landing, Station Keeping solar sail (lunar polar communications/Navigation)

p. We're now on the “What will we do on the Moon? (Science)” session with Mike Wargo (NASA), Larry Taylor (U. of Tennesee), and Wendell Mendell (NASA JSC). Dr. Mendell, who has forgotten more about the moon than most of us will ever know, is talking about how Science and Engineering can work together within the VSE.

p. Larry Taylor is currently talking about the fact that you can use microwaves to easily sinter regolith. He has a cool idea of a road builder that grates and sinters as it rolls across the surface. He also asserts that the fines in lunar regolith (that dreaded dust) is magnetic and had demonstrated it for the crowd. <br clear=“left”

p. The last session of the day is Brett Alexander of t/space and formerly of the OSTP talking about the VSE.

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I'm in the final stages of packing and will be heading to the airport soon. I'll be attempting to blog directly from the conference but wireless is still a hit or miss thing when you aren't at a namebrand hotel. See you in Vegas!

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I go through these swings where I'll get deeply involved in some flame war or discussion on someone elses board or forum and after a bit I just have to ask myself why. Take this thread on spacepolitics.com and numerous threads on Space Frontier Foundation's Space Arena board, for example. I could easily get sucked in to trying to prove to the Cecil Trotters of the world that they're wrong. And I used to do that. A lot. But as I've gotten older I've decided to be a little more discerning about who I waste my finite supply of key strokes on.

So when things like that come up and my fingers start to twitch toward the “post” link, I think twice. Is my discussion with this person doing anything to further my ambition to make a lot of money on helping people move into and exploit space? Sometimes it actually does. And its often because I'm really speaking to the other readers and not the person I'm actively having a discussion with.

So yea, I had a response to post on spacepolitics.com all ready to go and was about to hit the post button when I cancelled the entire thing. It just wasn't worth it. I just hope the Cecil Trotters of the world have the decency and the cajones to admit they were wrong when someone from Virgin Galactic welcomes NASA back to the moon by asking when they want their turn down service.

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