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Rand talks about the potential market around fuel delivery for on orbit fueling of CEV and Vision components…

Question: what effect does the halting of the roadmapping and integration bid have on this? Rand: “I don't know. All I know is what I read on NASAWatch.” The room got a good laugh at that one.

Question: what is your opinion on the optimal size for orbital delivery? Answer: it depends on how what you're doing but maximum flexibility is 10,000 lbs.

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A combination of standup comedy routine, financial expose on Oklahoma tax credits, and rocket discussion. He's talking about a new engine cycle type that uses the temperature difference to drive a heat engine. With LOX and kerosene you can create rotational work that can run pump to a few hundred psi. He's filing patents…

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We're back with Michelle Murray, FAA AST on how you get from a law to a regulation. The slides that are up now are a series on the general way regs are written. I think the main point is going to be how we affect those regs and that doesn't happen until there is an NPRM. Nothing really knew here since its the standard NPRM processes. I think the Q&A is going to be the interesting part.

Michelle is spending a good deal of time describing public meetings for an NPRM so it sounds as though there will either be one or that they are requesting that the public ask for one though standard channels. I asked if that was the case but Michelle said its just to early to tell.

The next question concerned ex parte comments and how that might happen. Apparently they have to document any comments they receive prior to the NPRM, which is cool since it gives the community a way of giving input before, not after the regulation is written.

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I arrived at Space Access 2005 late last night so I missed all of yesterday's sessions. But I'm here. I have a camera. And the network connection seems to work once you get DNS setup. Currently we're hearing from Tim Hughes, majority counel to the House Science Committee. He's giving background and “nuts and bolts” behind the Space Launch Amendments Act passed last year.

Right now we're going through the act itself so nothing earth shatteringly new.

Question from the floor: are legislators aware that ITAR is starting t ohave the same affect on space technology that it had on crypto (i.e. being driven offshore). The response was that its on the radar but that its not something the Science Committee can look at its its a Defense issue. (IMHO, its also a Commerce and State Dept issue)

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Jeff Greason from XCOR gives an update on what they've been up to: the recent composite liquid oxygen tank contract. The award was notified in October but only signed in April. Painful….

They're also working on staging work for their flight vehicles under some other contract work, planning on flying EasyRocket in an airshow in Mojave in the fall, and will be making some announcements soon on their follow-on vehicle.

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Right now we're getting an update from George Nield. Right now he's doing a review of things from the last Space Access. Now he's covering market surveys from Futron.

Good slide:

With a fleet of 5 vehicles carrying 5 passengers per flight and two flights per week, by 2010 Virgin Galactic will have put more people in space than have ever been flown by any country.

Announcement: AIAA leading a cooperative effort to put out guidelines on RLV critical safety systems. These are industry developed guides for vehicle developers to help understand potential safety issues.

Editor comment: the problem with these is that many times those “guidelines” make their way into regulations simply because they exist. A perfect example is the fact that much of amateur rocketry is regulated by NPRM “guidelines” when local governments delegate authoriity to those “guidelines”.

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Flowmetrics doing their piston pump demo. Later the water will be replaced with margaritas.

Now we're hearing from Stratofox about the operations of tracking and recovery of vehicles. Ian is specifically discussing the lessons learned from the CSXT launch.

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With the shutdown of any effort to put CEV integration out to bid and now the halt of the road mapping process that included the LEAD proposal, it would seem that, for the new NASA Administrator has basically given the finger to the Aldridge Commission. Is the Whitehouse team that came up with the Vision even paying attention to the wholesale changes Mike Griffin is making?

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A rough agenda for RTTM VI is out and this one looks interesting since its making sure our feet are fimly planted in reality when we talk about going back.

For me the most interesting bit is that the new Project Manager for the conference is Jeff Feige formerly of the Aerospace States Association. Jeff's connections and experience in political and business matters suggests that this conference is going to have some new energy and direction that should provide us with an excellent conference.

I'm hoping that between Bigelow, t/space and the LEAD effort at NASA there will be some interesting announcements as well…

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For those in the Washington, D.C. and Baltimore metro areas:

The Robotic and Human Lunar Exploration Strategic Roadmap Committee, which is the one that is considering the various scenarios for how we actually explore the Moon in the long term is having a meeting today and tomorrow to talk about those proposals. And the public is allowed to attend. So if you are in the Washington, D.C/Baltimore metro area and you have the time, take some time off today or tomorrow and stop by. You never know how much things like that can help tilt a committee in the right direction.

Update: After making it through the agenda to the very end I noticed this nice footnote:

bq.

• Commercial Subcommittee includes the following:

• Jeff Taylor, University of Hawaii (chair)

• Rick Tumlinson, Space Frontier Foundation

• David Gump, TransformSpace

• Tom Taylor, Lunar Transportation Systems, Inc.

• Jim Muncy, PoliSpace

So the right people are there, the question becomes whether or not they'll be listend too.

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