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Sometimes blogs like this can leave you feeling like the person behind it is trying to be anonymous. Well, Rocketforge isn't one of those. With the help of a few other regular submitters (thanks izzy!) I'm pretty much the main article writer. And just as a way of letting you know who's behind Rocketforge, here's a picture I took a few days ago. (I just hope this doesn't look like I'm being vain or something. Sometimes folks are just curious what you look like.)

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I'm just going to list the articles that at least mention a role for private enterprise in space: bq. (The Economist) Moon-hopping to Marsbq. Ultimately, if NASA is to succeed in human space exploration, it will have to grow its budget substantially, abandon much of its other, valuable work, or ideally find a way of successfully exploiting space commercially. Until now, NASA has been spectacularly unsuccessful in this ambition because it is not designed for this purpose. Any presidential vision ought, then, to include a way of eventually wrestling space activities out of the agencyÂ’s clutches and into the hands of the private sector.

(TechCentralStation) Cowboys on Mars? Glenn Reynolds is a bit more optimistic than the rest of us. He even thinks Bushs may propose a property rights regime: bq. Could our “cowboy” President get behind a Wild West approach to space settlement? He'd be accused of unilateralism, disrespect for other nations, and, of course, of taking a “cowboy approach” to outer space that's sure to infuriate other nations who want to be players but who can't compete along those lines – like, say, the French. Hmm. When you look at it that way, there doesn't seem to be much doubt about what he'll do. Does there?

If that were the case then I'm sure the various 'peeks' that have been snuck by the likes of Keith Cowing and UPI would have mentioned it. Bush only has 4 more years so I highly doubt he'd have the time to put something like this forward.

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Rick Tumlinson (Space Frontier Foundation) has a really nice opinion piece in today's Space Review. bq. For a Moon base to survive and prosper, it must be built in the right spot, it must be robust, easy to operate at low cost, as self sufficient as possible and be easy to expand. The International Space Station is failing because it is in the wrong place, too delicate, too expensive to operate, and produces nothing of great value, scientific or commercial. To pay for the base we must combine a wide variety of income producing activities and services, such as those listed above. However, the people building the habitats after the first phase, operating the telescopes, and running the facility itself should not be government employees. The long-term lunar facilities should be designed and built by private firms in response to a short list of needs put out by the partners, with the US government leasing those it needs. Long term management of the base should be in the form of a Moon Base Authority to promote new activities, manage infrastructure, oversee safety, and enforce the law.

I knew there was a reason I kept up my SFF membership…

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Wow. Check out the H2O2 stuff from Exotic Thermo Engineering in Switzerland. I'm always amazed at the beauty of Swiss machining. I found this one via HobbySpace.

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Greg Bennett, president of the Moon Society had this to say to the society's members yesterday concerning the leak of the Bush administration's space plans last week:

bq.

I see only good news in this. In short:

1. It moves the U.S. government out of direct competition with private enterprise for development of zero-g space industries in low Earth orbit. The time is ripe for private enterprise to step into that arena.

2. It creates a program to develop all the systems for a permanent lunar community, opening the path for private enterprise. After years of researching the problem, we are painfully aware that the capital required to do this as purely private enterprise is overwhelming.

3. Government-funded lunar development creates a customer for a huge variety of private ventures on Luna. Customers make it much easier to finance private enterprise.

4. The emphasis on pressing on to Mars defines a path where the government programs step aside, again opening the frontier for private enterprise.

5. It results in a huge demand for launch of both people and cargo. Increased demand means more open opportunities for development of alternative launch systems. The greatest challenge facing the launch community today is the lack of customers, while the greatest challenge facing the customers is the lack of affordable launchers.

6. In an era of limited budgets this program defines a challenging goal that cannot be completed without lowering the cost of launch and interplanetary space transportation.

I can't think of a better program for the United States to invest its taxpayers' money in space development. I do have three big issues in mind, though.

The major question is whether the congress will support it with funding. As always, the level of funding indicated is minuscule in comparison to total U.S. federal outlays; however, as always, space projects are visible to the public and hence attract criticism far beyond their actual cost. We can fully expect that some members of congress will attempt to use the cost of the program as a political ploy. The question is whether the majority of them will follow the sleazy path or recognize the true value of the program.

Secondary to that question is how the program will be organized and what philosophy it will apply to acquiring the resources it needs to accomplish its goals. If the government can emphasis purchase of services over internal development of systems and supporting infrastructure, that will greatly speed us on the path to private development in the realm beyond the sky.

And third, there's the question that Vik raised. Even if the current president and congress accept this commitment, will future presidents and congresses have the will to follow through?

To assure that the U.S. government will continue the commitment, we need excellent support from the program's supporters in the administration and the legislature, but the ultimate responsibility falls us voters in the United States.

As I've said many times before, politics is how we control our government. This is a political issue, so we need to be willing and able to set aside partisan differences and get out there and join the campaign at all levels. We can learn from Apollo. If we, the voters, don't keep the commitment, the politicians won't either.

That means we finally have a real reason to get involved in politics, even as the Moon Society.

The first step is to write to your local congressmen and senators and encourage them to support the initiative. Do that today if you possibly can; strike while the iron is hot. It will only cost you a few minutes of your time and 37 cents for a stamp.

It wouldn't hurt to send a brief, encouraging letter to the president, too.

We can define additional projects as things develop, but that initial feedback to your elected representatives is vital.

Greg

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Space.com's Brian Berger reports: Bush Space Vision Needs Private, Public Sector Cooperation, Advocates Say. IMHO, its not the best article, but its better than nothing.

There's this one too: Bush's talk of exploring space renews hopes for business there.

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UPI is reporting more details on the presidents plan, including the fact that they've apparently gotten a sneak peak at the documents. Its still nothing really earth shattering but this paragraph gives me hope: bq. Sources also said private enterprise could play an important role in designing and building the moon craft involved in the early stages of the lunar exploration program. One idea, still in its infancy, would be to create an automated pilot plant on the moon to provide power and other resources for a human lunar outpost.

It's sounding as though the plan is going to be soft on details and long on 'flavor', which can be good or bad depending on whether or not there is some entity that can preserve that 'flavor' between administrations and above NASA's prefered 'flavor'.

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While doing my usual morning stock price check I noticed that SpaceDev (OTCBB: SPDV) has shot up 75% to $1.78/share. In the interest of full disclosure, I own a few shares. I'm just curious if there's something up that I'm not aware of.

Update: SPAB is up 81% to $3.05. It appears that nearly all space related stocks are up on the administrations pre-announcement.

Update: (Reuters) U.S. space stocks take off on Bush lunar, Mars plan

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It seems that Jeff Foust has jumped on the Moveable Type bandwagon and created a new blog for space politics called, of all things, Space Politics. So far he has a few comments on the presidential announcements and general beltway political stuff that might effect the space industry. Check it out.

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This is most decidedly under the Traditional Aerospace heading:

UPI Exclusive: Bush OKs new moon missions

As Rand says, “Anyway, if true, I'm disappointed. I was hoping for a vision, rather than a destination, and one that included the American people.”.

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