I’m in the Valley today livetweeting the Space Frontier Foundation‘s NewSpace 2010 conference. Check out the exciting agenda or join the discussion on Twitter (#NewSpace2010).

The conference runs all weekend, 8:30-5:30 Pacific time. As readers may know, I’ve been involved with the Foundation since 2005, was chairman 2008-2009 and was just re-elected to its Board of Directors. Here’s the Foundation’s credo:

The Space Frontier Foundation is an organization of people dedicated to opening the Space Frontier to human settlement as rapidly as possible. Our goals include protecting the Earth’s fragile biosphere and creating a freer and more prosperous life for each generation by using the unlimited energy and material resources of space. Our purpose is to unleash the power of free enterprise and lead a united humanity permanently into the Solar System.

The livecast video follows below:

http://www.ustream.tv/flash/live/1/114136

Last Thursday I shared my thoughts in two short (<5 min) RussiaToday interviews on on President Obama's big speech about NASA and his long-overdue cancellation of NASA’s white elephant known as “Ares I” rocket. (See Jeff Foust’s analysis here and here.) I was sorry to see the Administration decide to preserve the Orion capsule as a lifeboat for the International Space Station, but as I indicate below, I can’t really blame them for feeling they had to “throw a bone” to the Congressional lions defending that program and the jobs it created (using tax dollars that killed far more jobs, of course—a classic “seen v. unseen” problem).

But as I note below, the far more important good news is that, if Obama gets his way, NASA would finally buy crew launch services to ISS and for future deep space missions from the private sector (expanding its limited COTS program) instead of building its own rockets and capsule for this purpose. This decision is easily single best thing the Administration has done thus far. They have a tough fight ahead with the few members of Congress who actually care about this—who just so happen to be the ones whose districts will face job cuts when dead-end, wasteful make-work programs are canceled. The irony here is just too thick: Many of the same kinds of folks who’ve been decrying Obama as a socialist (not unjustly, in my opinion) now attack him on nationalist grounds for trying to turn part of our ultra-socialist space program over to the private sector.

http://www.youtube.com/v/-0Da2fyzBus&hl=en_US&fs=1& Here’s another clip:

Originally published in Space News on January 11, 2010

In December, Barack Obama accepted the Nobel Peace Prize, only the third sitting U.S. president to win—and the fourth ever. The award was announced before Obama had finished eight months in office. Indeed, the February Feb. 1, 2009, nomination deadline passed just 13 days after his inauguration.

Was there something we missed in that brief span that could match Woodrow Wilson’s presiding over the settlement of World War I, or the founding of the League of Nations? Or Teddy Roosevelt’s opening of the International Court of Arbitration and ending Japan’s bloody 1905 war with Russia? Or Jimmy Carter’s three decades of peace-making and development work? Has Obama already done more to abolish nuclear weapons than President Ronald Reagan, whose anti-nuclear crusade and actual warhead reductions were never celebrated with a Peace Prize?

There is another president who should have received the Prize long ago for stabilizing a world teetering on the brink of nuclear war. After leading Allied forces to victory over Nazi Germany, Dwight D. Eisenhower negotiated a cease-fire to Harry Truman’s war in Korea, resisted calls for American intervention in Vietnam, and single-handedly defused the 1956 Suez Crisis. His warnings about the “military-industrial complex” did more to check the growth of the national security state than all past or future peace marches combined.

But only recently has Eisenhower’s greatest achievement become clear: ensuring the right to peaceful uses of outer space.

Just as maritime commerce has thrived on “freedom of the high seas” for centuries, “freedom of space” has allowed the development of a $200 billion satellite industry that has interconnected the globe in a web of voice, video and data, and provided critical weather and climate monitoring. By ensuring that nations cannot block access to space with territorial claims, international law has prevented governments from stifling the birth of a truly spacefaring civilization.

Ike’s Eisenhower’s “freedom of space” had even more profound implications for world peace: With the launch of the world’s first reconnaissance satellite in June 1959, war became far more difficult to wage, and weapons, almost impossible to hide.

Ike Eisenhower deserves credit for all this not merely because American satellite and launch technologies were developed under his watch. In The Heavens and the Earth: A Political History of the Space Age, historian Walter McDougall explains that, even as projections of Soviet bomber and missile capabilities escalated, Eisenhower recognized that long-term American security, freedom and prosperity could not be protected in a crude industrial arms race. Instead, America needed greater visibility into Soviet movement of troops, tanks and missiles. This required not only technological ingenuity but also the legal framework that would let spy satellites do what spy planes could not: freely cross any nation’s territory.

The Soviets beat us into space by launching Sputnik in October 1957 because Eisenhower let them. A less canny or more opportunistic president might have given in to earlier pressure to “Beat the Russians” by putting Wernher von Braun’s team of German rocket engineers on a “crash course” to launch a satellite with their ballistic missile ASAP. But Eisenhower, the former five-star general, insisted that America’s first satellite would be purely scientific and launched on a less obviously military rocket—although he knew this approach might not beat the Russians. If it had, America could have asserted the “right of overflight” around the globe with a peaceful satellite—and perhaps the Russians would have acceded. But if the Russians launched their military satellite first, they effectively would establish this vital principle themselves. This is precisely what happened after Sputnik: The Soviet Union quickly reversed its previous assertion of “unlimited vertical sovereignty” to embrace Eisenhower’s freedom of space—and international law changed forever.

Sputnik’s blow to American prestige was heavy, clouding Eisenhower’s legacy for decades and costing his vice president, Richard Nixon, the 1960 election. Yet Eisenhower kept quiet about his cunning manipulation of the Soviets, just as he endured fierce partisan attacks in that election for allowing a nonexistent “missile gap”—lest he expose the full extent of U.S. reconnaissance of the Soviet Union from air and space.

We now know that Eisenhower was a strategic genius who risked his political fortunes and those of his party in service of world peace.

Satellite photos of Iran’s nuclear weapons facilities should remind us just how different the world would be if such facilities could be hidden from the prying eyes of satellites. The “freedom of space” Ike Eisenhower cleverly achieved brought an end to the days when armies could mass on another country’s border undetected. Today, remote sensing isn’t just the province of governments, but something Internet users everywhere can access through mapping tools offered by Google, Microsoft, and others, powered by commercial providers such as GeoEye and DigitalGlobe.

If the Nobel Peace Prize could be awarded posthumously, no one would better deserve it than Eisenhower for building lasting peace through transparency.

by James Dunstan & Berin Szoka* (PDF) Originally published in Forbes.com on December 17, 2009

As world leaders meet in Copenhagen to consider drastic carbon emission restrictions that could require large-scale de-industrialization, experts gathered last week just outside Washington, D.C. to discuss another environmental problem:  Space junk.[1] Unlike with climate change, there’s no difference of scientific opinion about this problem—orbital debris counts increased 13% in 2009 alone, with the catalog of tracked objects swelling to 20,000, and estimates of over 300,000 objects in total; most too small to see and all racing around the Earth at over 17,500 miles per hour.  Those are speeding bullets, some the size of school buses, and all capable of knocking out a satellite or manned vehicle.

At stake are much more than the $200 billion a year satellite and launch industries and jobs that depend on them.  Satellites connect the remotest locations in the world; guide us down unfamiliar roads; allow Internet users to view their homes from space; discourage war by making it impossible to hide armies on another country’s borders; are utterly indispensable to American troops in the field; and play a critical role in monitoring climate change and other environmental problems.  Orbital debris could block all these benefits for centuries, and prevent us from developing clean energy sources like space solar power satellites, exploring our Solar System and some day making humanity a multi-planetary civilization capable of surviving true climatic catastrophes.

The engineering wizards who have fueled the Information Revolution through the use of satellites as communications and information-gathering tools also overlooked the pollution they were causing.  They operated under the “Big Sky” theory: Space is so vast, you don’t have to worry about cleaning up after yourself.  They were wrong.  Just last February, two satellites collided for the first time, creating over 1,500 new pieces of junk.   Many experts believe we are nearing the “tipping point” where these collisions will cascade, making many orbits unusable.

But the problem can be solved.  Thus far, governments have simply tried to mandate “mitigation” of debris-creation.  But just as some warn about “runaway warming,” we know that mitigation alone will not solve the debris problem.  The answer lies in “remediation”: removing just five large objects per year could prevent a chain reaction.  If governments attempt to clean up this mess themselves, the cost could run into the trillions—rivaling even some proposed climate change solutions.

Instead, space-faring nations should create an <a href=Orbital”>http://spacefrontier.org/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/Legal-and-Economic-Implications-of-Orbital-Debris-Removal-A-Free-Market-Approach.pdf”>Orbital Debris Removal and Recycling Fund (ODRRF).  Satellite operators would pay relatively small fees to their governments, who would contribute the money to the Fund.  These governments already charge satellite operators large licensing and regulatory fees.  Private companies would be paid bounties out of the Fund for successfully removing debris according to the debris-creation-avoidance value assigned to each object.  Apart from the obvious long-term benefits of preserving the usability of the space environment, satellite operators would benefit in the short term from reduced insurance rates and fewer mysterious satellite outages caused by collisions we cannot track.  With the right funding mechanism, entrepreneurs can solve this problem.  Governments must encourage innovation rather than crippling industry or creating yet another large government program to build and operate systems when the expertise for doing so clearly resides in the private sector.

Better tracking data would be required to maximize the effectiveness of debris removal prizes.  Since much of that data is classified, only a trusted intermediary could get American and Russian defense officials to work together.  But the largest obstacle is legal: While maritime law encourages the cleanup of abandoned vessels as hazards to navigation, space law discourages debris remediation by failing to recognize debris as abandoned property, and making it difficult to transfer ownership of, and liability for, objects in space—even junk.  By adapting maritime precedents, space law could make orbital debris removal feasible, once the right economic incentives are in place.  Entrepreneurs may even find ways to recycle and reuse on orbit the nearly 2,000 metric tons of space debris, which includes ultra-high grade aerospace aluminum and other precious metals.

We must solve the orbital debris problem, if only so that satellites can continue collecting the climate data we need to make informed decisions about carbon emissions.  But how we solve this problem should offer valuable lessons for all environmental policymaking.  All this cause needs is a champion who can rally policymakers in the U.S. and abroad, not with scare tactics but with a relentless optimism about the power of entrepreneurs to solve even the most difficult environmental problems through innovation, and about the bright promise of humanity’s future—on Earth and in space.

James Dunstan practices space and technology law at Garvey Schubert Barer.  Berin Szoka is a Senior Fellow at The Progress & Freedom Foundation, a Director of the Space Frontier Foundation, and member of the FAA’s Commercial Space Transportation Advisory Committee.  The views expressed in this report are their own, and are not necessarily the views of the PFF board, fellows or staff.

[1] See generally James E. Dunstan & Bob Werb, Legal and Economic Implications of Orbital Debris Removal:  A Free Market Approach, Space Frontier Foundation presentation to International Conference on Orbital Debris Removal, December 8-10, 2009, Reston, VA.

If you’re interested in supporting the cause of free markets and entrepreneurship in space, now is your chance!  The Space Frontier Foundation (on whose board I sit) is wrapping up their annual fund-raising drive today (12/4) with a 1:1 donation matching program.  More about the Foundation follows below in a letter from our Chairman, Bob Werb.  If you are interested in supporting foundations work, today is the day to make whatever (tax-deductible) donation you can.  Otherwise, you can follow the Foundation or get our  NewSpace News feed on Twitter.

The Space Frontier Foundation is an incubator for people, organizations, and ideas.

By giving responsibility to talented young people, we help them prove themselves and learn skills they need to pursue careers advancing NewSpace. Former key volunteers are now working throughout the NewSpace community, in commercial space, and in government leadership positions.

I can’t count the number of NewSpace companies that began with private conversations at a Foundation event. Preliminary ideas presented at our business plan competitions have grown into successful startups. And more are in the pipeline.

Frontier enabling concepts once considered too “far out” have long found a friendly hearing and support from the Foundation. Fuel depots, tethers, commercial crew and cargo, suborbital rocketplanes, sunshades, laser launch, prizes, tax credits, property rights, settlement, protecting earth’s fragile biosphere, unleashing the power of free enterprise and on and on are now part of the mainstream discussion about the future of spaceflight.

Incubating people, organizations and ideas continues. More than half of our Board of Directors, and virtually our entire conference team, are under 30. When I was in Boston in September I got to hear the winner and runner-up from our August business plan competition make greatly improved presentations to Space Investment Summit 7. In recent weeks we told DARPA that they need to consider legal and economic issues in resolving the orbital debris problem; we poked fun at Time magazine for calling Ares the “best and smartest and coolest thing built in 2009”; we submitted a whitepaper to the National Academy of Science’s Decadal Review; and, we submitted ideas for six new prizes to Centennial Challenges. These sorts of activities are ongoing and limited only by having enough money and volunteers.

Which brings me to my main point: we need your money; we need your time!

Let me tell it to you straight. These are not only challenging times for individuals and for-profit companies. Times are also difficult in most of the non-profit sector. Large donors, portfolios ravished, are giving less. All donors are concentrating their giving on alleviating the pain caused by recession, especially the local pain they see around them. This leaves non-profits that address longer term concerns, and national, international and global needs, struggling. The Space Frontier Foundation is doing better than many, largely because of an influx of young volunteers, allowing us to do more with less. The fact that we have raised less than expected, coupled with partial recovery in one of those ravished donor portfolios, is permitting me to announce that the matching donation period is being extended through Friday.

We now have a commitment to match all donations made before Friday, December 4th.

If you are thinking that all you can afford is $50, or even $15, and that hardly makes much difference – please think again. Often all a volunteer needs to get going on a vital task is for us to reimburse the purchase of a flash drive, paper, ink or other inexpensive items. We’ve mastered the art of fueling our efforts with little more than pizza and beer. We will stretch every dollar to maximize its impact on opening the space frontier to human settlement.

To donate by PayPal or credit card click here [ https://spacefrontier.org/donate.php ] or send a check to:

Space Frontier Foundation 16 First Ave. Nyack, NY 10960

To volunteer your time contact Will Watson at william.watson@spacefrontier.org.

Open the Frontier! Bob Werb Chairman of the Board

Washington, D.C. The Space Frontier Foundation today congratulated the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) and NASA on their joint discovery of water across the Lunar surface.

“This discovery marks a turning point for humanity’s future in space,” remarked Foundation Director Berin Szoka. “Just as lumber, coal, and oil found in the New World powered America’s development, the precious resource of Lunar water will enable a truly open frontier in space.”

Scientists had previously assumed the Moon was bone-dry except for small concentrations of ice at the poles, but the Indian probe Chandrayaan-1 has confirmed the presence of water throughout the Lunar surface frozen in Lunar soil where it could easily be harvested.

“If we have water we have the core elements needed to support life,” said SFF Founder Rick Tumlinson. “H2O is a magic formula: We can drink it, raise crops with it, or even break it down for oxygen to breathe. We can even recombine the hydrogen and oxygen to make rocket propellant. Confirming the widespread existence of Moonwater means we have a nearby oasis in space around which we can build true human communities beyond the Earth. There will be flowers on the Moon in our lifetimes.”

Since its creation in 1988, the Foundation has advocated using the resources we find in space to enable human exploration and settlement of the frontier-rather than carrying those resources from the Earth’s surface. These include both asteroid/comet materials and Lunar deposits such as those confirmed in today’s announcement.

“Lunar water will be the ‘mother’s milk’ of permanent human settlement not just of the Moon but of the rest of the Solar System,” concluded Szoka. “Finding water on the Moon is the key to opening the Space Frontier: Once you can refuel in space, you can ‘live off the land’ just like the early settlers who opened frontiers on Earth.”

Former NASA Administrator Mike Griffin used to refer to commercial alternatives to NASA’s Ares rockets as “Paper Rockets,” but commercial vehicles like Atlas V, Delta IV and Falcon 1 are quite real and available today, while Ares 1 and 5 are grossly over-budget and way behind-schedule:

http://www.youtube.com/v/VqR7IDzA5Xo NASA should buy commercial space services whenever possible from NewSpace companies like SpaceX, Virgin Galactic and Bigelow Aerospace. The Commercial Spaceflight Revolution is happening now!

The Space Frontier Foundation , the 20-year old free-market space advocacy organization I chair, released the following press release yesterday:

President-elect Obama’s transition team has published for public comment a white paper entitled Space Solar Power (SSP) – A Solution for Energy Independence & Climate Change. The paper was prepared and submitted by the Space Frontier Foundation and other citizen space advocates, and calls for the new Administration to make development of Space Solar Power a national priority.

The SSP white paper was among the first ten released by the Obama transition team. It is the first and only space-related white paper released by the transition team to date. With 145 comments thus far [now 209], it is already among the top five most-discussed of the 20-some white papers on Change.gov.

Foundation Chairman Berin Szoka called upon all Americans to join the discussion about Space Solar Power at Change.gov: “For over twenty years, the Space Frontier Foundation has championed Space Solar Power as a world-changing technology that could do more to improve life here on Earth than any space program or commercial space venture ever. We applaud the Obama transition team’s interest in developing Space Solar Power as a clean energy source that could significantly reduce U.S. dependence on strategically vulnerable energy sources.”

The Foundation was created in 1988 to advocate for the space industrialization and space settlement ideas of Princeton Physicist Dr. Gerard O’Neill’s Space Studies Institute, including Space Solar Power. The Foundation has testified three times (in 1995, 1997 and 1998) to the U.S. Congress in support of Space Solar Power. In 2000, the Foundation completed a $100,000 project for NASA on Assessment, Outreach, and Future Research of Environmental and Safety Factors related to Space Solar Power. Most recently, the Foundation has sponsored a public discussion to generate input for the National Security Space Office’s SSP study, published in October 2007, which concluded that SSP had “enormous potential.” The Foundation also published comments on that study.

“Harnessing Space Solar Power is a huge challenge,” Szoka concluded. “While we support a national initiative for Space Solar Power, we do not support, nor can the taxpayers afford, another massively expensive ‘White Elephant’ government space program. Only real ‘Change’ in how we pursue national space objectives can make SSP competitive with other energy sources. We believe the private sector will eventually develop SSP-the only questions are how long it takes and which country will lead. The government cannot economically develop SSP on its own, but it can assist the U.S. private sector by funding basic R&D, creating the right investment incentives, and buying SSP for its own needs. Such an unprecedented collaboration between the private and public sectors could build not just another program, but a new, green industry that would create large numbers of high-paying jobs for American citizens. Someday, well into this century, the SSP industry could even turn America into a net energy exporter.”

(Click at the top right of the iPaper viewer to go to full screen view.)

Space Solar Power (SSP) — A Solution for Energy Independence & Climate Change http://documents.scribd.com/ScribdViewer.swf?document_id=8736849&access_key=key-2nuzhz49cpg2pq179ebk&page=1&version=1&viewMode=

My Romanian space lawyer (and improbably-named) friend Virgiliu Pop has made the front page of Space.com today in a great interview with leading space journalist Leonard David about his new book Who Owns the Moon?: Extraterrestrial Aspects of Land and Mineral Resources Ownership.  Virgil slams the “Common Heritage of Mankind” socialism behind the 1979 Moon Treaty, which was killed in the U.S. Senate by the free-market space movement, which later gave birth to the Space Frontier Foundation (which I chair).

Virgil once famously claimed ownership of the sun to demonstrate the absurdity of serious assertions made by a number of charlatans to ownership of lunar territory (Dennis Hope) or the entire Eros asteroid (Greg Nemitz).  Virgil’s point was “to show how ridiculous a property rights system in outer space would be if it were to be based solely on claim unsubstantiated by any actual possession.”

I’m looking forward to reading Virgil’s book–and to writing a proper review.  For now, I’ll just say that I think Virgil and I see eye-to-eye on three key premises (something of a rarity among space lawyers on the ultra-contentious issue of property rights):

1. The Outer Space Treaty of 1967 prohibits nations from appropriating territory in space and also prohibits individuals from asserting any territorial claims (generally accepted) except to a narrowly-limited area under actual use (not accepted by all space lawyers).
2. The Outer Space Treaty, properly understood, does not bar claims to ownership of movable objects such as extracted resources or even (if they can be moved in a meaningful way) entire asteroids or comets.
3. Securing such property rights is essential to the economic development of space.

Here are a few choice excerpts from Virgil’s new book on the big picture of property rights in space:

Outer space needs to be spared the painful experience of the former Eastern Block. Despite the noble ideals of equity and care for the have-nots, the CHM paradigm has more faults than merits. A refutation of the Common Heritage principle does not mean, however, that the developing world will, or should, be left behind in the space era. China, India and Brazil are living proofs that a developing country can, through its own effort, join the spacefaring club. Instead of freeloading on the efforts of the older spacefarers, the have-nots should pool their meagre financial resources into a common space agency or into regional ones, and proceed at exploiting the riches of outer space for themselves. The rallying cry of Marxism – “Proletarians of all countries, unite; you have nothing to lose but your chains” should evolve into “Countries of the world unite – you have nothing to lose but the chains of gravity”. The skies are open. “

…

The frontier paradigm has proven its worth on our planet, and it most likely will do so in the extraterrestrial realms. Homesteading is likely to transform the lunar desert in the same manner as it transformed the 19th Century United States. Space is indeed a new frontier calling for individualism rather than collectivism, and its challenges need to be addressed with a legal regime favourable to property rights. Such a regime is seen by many authors as not only useful, but also as the only means of opening the extraterrestrial realms to settlement, given the reluctance of most industrialists to invest money in an endeavour without having the security that they will enjoy the benefits. It may also occur that a minority of investors, with a bigger tolerance to risk, would adopt an anarcho-capitalist approach and “cross the Alleghenies” without backing from a sovereign State.

Given the abundance of extraterrestrial resources, it would be nonsensical to forbid their private appropriation. Securing property rights would be a small price to pay, and more beneficial to humankind, compared to the alternative of keeping the extraterrestrial realms undeveloped. The practical arguments against the Frontier paradigm may have merit, but the issues raised can be tackled. The ideological arguments, nonetheless, are emotional rather than rational.

Whereas the frontier paradigm is outlawed in the current incarnation of the international law of outer space, law is a dynamic phenomenon and it may evolve towards a regime supportive of property rights in outer space. A shift from the res publica approach may be in the cards, given the official support of the Aldridge commission for property rights. Until this shift happens, the non-appropriation principle remains nonetheless the lex lata in the extraterrestrial realms.

The Space Frontier Foundation issued this press release today, following our earlier call for NASA to fund its COTS-D program for demonstrating commercial human spaceflight capabilty.  

The Space Frontier Foundation today called on President-elect Barack Obama to use the innovation and drive of American entrepreneurs to “close the Gap” in U.S. human spaceflight after the Space Shuttle is retired in 2010.

President-elect Obama has promised $2 billion in additional funding for NASA to address the Gap, when the U.S. will be dependent upon Russia’s Soyuz for crew access to the International Space Station.  But two of the options proposed – extending Space Shuttle operations or accelerating the Constellation program – wouldn’t reduce the current estimate of a five year gap by much.

“Space leaders are considering three or four options for reducing the Space Gap, but only one reflects the spirit of positive change that Senator Obama campaigned on,” said Foundation Chairman Berin Szoka.  “According to NASA’s own estimates, flying the Shuttle beyond 2010 will cost at least $2 billion  per year, so that only cuts the Gap by one year.  And $2 billion is a drop in the bucket for Constellation, at best helping to address shortfalls that the Congressional Budget Office just predicted will add another 18 months to the Gap.”

A third option is being considered by some at NASA, according to published reports:  Strip the Orion Crew Exploration Vehicle of the capability to support Lunar exploration, making it simpler and lighter, and supposedly easier to complete sooner.

“This idea is crazy, because it will strand NASA in low Earth orbit, instead of exploring the solar system,” said Foundation co-founder Rick Tumlinson.  “The whole point of the Vision for Space Exploration was to send NASA’s Lewis & Clarks further out into the frontier, to the Moon, Mars, and near-Earth asteroids, while the private sector takes over Earth orbit.  Cutting Orion back gives us ‘Gemini on steroids’, which would be a change for the worse.”

“The only option that makes sense is to use President-elect Obama’s promised $2 billion to catalyze as many as five new commercial human spaceflight companies that will compete to close the Gap using the safest, most capable and affordable system they can develop,” said Will Watson, Foundation Executive Director.

“Let’s not put all our eggs in one basket by pouring even more money into the Shuttle, an old system that’s on its last legs, or a controversial new program that’s already behind schedule,” Watson said.  “If we’re serious about closing the Gap and about making humanity’s presence in space economically sustainable, we need real change in how we put humans in space.  Let’s use this $2 billion to stimulate multiple entrepreneurial systems that will not only slash costs, improve safety, and close the Gap, but also help create a whole new space industry with new jobs here in America.”

As TLF readers may know, I took over in July as Chairman of the Board of the Space Frontier Foundation.  As I explained in my recent interview on The Space Show, SFF has been the leading citizens’ advocacy group for space commercialization since 1988.  Dedicated to promoting Princeton physicist Gerard O’Neill‘s vision of space settlement, as described in his 1976 masterpiece The High Frontier, the Foundation has always argued that “space is a place, not a program.”

We sent out the following press release on October 28, calling for a major transformation of the U.S. government’s space program by which the U.S. government would buy commercial transportation to the International Space Station.  We’ll have more to say about this in the coming weeks.

Space Frontier Foundation Finds Funding Source for COTS-D

The Space Frontier Foundation today called upon Presidential candidates Barack Obama and John McCain to invest the $2 billion in new funds they have promised to NASA for reducing the “Gap” in U.S. human spaceflight (after the Space Shuttle is retired in 2010) to spur innovation and competition in America.

Foundation Chairman Berin Szoka said “It’s time that our national leaders give American entrepreneurs a shot at closing this gap. Let’s take the two billion dollars in the candidates’ plans and fund up to five winners of COTS-D.”

The NASA Authorization Act of 2008, recently signed into law by the President, directs NASA to “issue a notice of intent [by mid-April 2009] … to enter into a funded, competitively awarded Space Act Agreement with two or more commercial entities’ for transporting humans to the ISS”-the “Capability D” of NASA’s Commercial Orbital Transportation Services program (or COTS-D for short). But that directive is not yet funded.

Szoka continued, “Let’s have an American competition in space – to create good jobs, fuel innovation, and close the gap more quickly. With private funds matching government’s investment, we can dramatically leverage the $2 billion to produce breakthroughs in a new American industry – commercial orbital human spaceflight.”

By investing in several different approaches, the government will win no matter who wins this new race, and also benefit from the resulting price competition.

Many American companies, including Boeing, PlanetSpace, SpaceDev, SpaceX, and t/Space have each previously submitted credible COTS-D proposals to NASA. Each of these firms has reached the semi-finals of one of the previous NASA COTS competitions. Increasing funding for COTS by $2 billion would allow NASA to fund all five of these promising companies’ proposals with COTS agreements, and in so doing, build redundancy into the human spaceflight capability available to NASA and other customers.

“It’s popular in Washington to use ‘The Gap’ to cynically justify continued funding of an expensive jobs program,” concluded the Foundation’s co-founder, Bob Werb. “We’re using ‘The Gap’ to advocate a policy that will bridge a gap that matters much more: the chasm between a dying government Human spaceflight monopoly and an emerging, free and competitive marketplace that can open the space frontier to everyone.”

Congress has very wisely cancelled the National Reconnaissance Office’s proposed Broad Area Space-Based Imagery Collection (BASIC) satellite system. The proposal to build two new imaging satellites at a cost to taxpayers of $1.7 billion would have represented a major break from what is possibly the U.S. government’s most successful effort to promote space commercialization to date: buying the imagery it needs from commercial providers, who can also sell imagery to other buyers.

Five years ago, the idea that Internet users could pull up a satellite image of just about any location on the planet at a whim would have seemed ludicrous. Yet that’s precisely what websites like Google Maps and Microsoft’s Live Search offer today—for free! Desktop applications like Microsoft’s Virtual Earth and Google Earth offer even more advanced geospatial tools—again, for free. But of course this library of incredibly rich imagery didn’t just “fall out of the sky,” as they say. It was collected by a handful of expensive commercial remote sensing satellites whose construction was made possible by the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency‘s (Wikipedia) extraordinarily successful “Nextview” program implemented under the Commercial Remote Sensing Policy of 2003.  Rather than having the Federal government build its own satellites—and pay for the entire cost of the satatellites—the NGA very wisely chose to buy imagery from commercial providers in two ~$500 million, 4-year contracts with U.S. satellite imagery companies:  DigitalGlobe in 2003 and OrbImage (now GeoEye) in 2004.  

These long-term purchase agreements essentially made the U.S. Government the “anchor tenant” in a new class of remote sensing satellites, providing the initial funding for both companies to build and operate their satellites. But because the companies sell roughly half of imagery to foreign governments and commercial buyers like Google and Microsoft, these deals have saved U.S taxpayers money for the purchase of imagery for a wide variety of needs, ranging from agricultural monitoring to military intelligence. At the same time, the Nextview contracts have given birth to a vibrant geospatial industry whose immediate benefits should be obvious to anyone who’s ever pulled up a satellite map online and whose macroeconomic impact is potentially enormous. 

So why mess with success?  If the U.S. Government thinks it needs more satellite imagery, why not simply award another long-term purchase agreement to a commercial provider? Besides reducing the burden on the taxpayers, continuing the NextView approach would support the construction of a new generation of commercial satellites like GeoEye-1, which was launched just last month, and DigitalGlobe’s WorldView-1, launched last year.  Rather than rolling back NextView in favor of building its own systems, the U.S. Government should be looking for other space services it can buy on a commercial basis as a way of building industries rather than programs, ranging from sending crew & cargo to the International Space Station to communications and navigation services for NASA’s planned Return to the Moon.

Rather than giving up on the NextView approach in the area where it has already produced spectacular results, the U.S. government should be looking for other areas in which to apply the NextView model by buying space services from commercial providers.

Full disclosure: I was proud to handle FCC matters for GeoEye while practicing law at Latham & Watkins LLP. I currently have no greater personal interest in their success than should any American who wants to see the private sector succeed where the government has failed in opening up the space frontier to all mankind.

I have a post on space politics at the WashingtonWatch.com blog. “If you think Washington politics is restricted to the debates among politicians, think again.”

I’m sure TLFer Berin Szoka knows this better than I do.

Check it out.

The San Diego Union Tribune has an outstanding summary of the recently-unveiled SpaceShipTwo (SS2) (Wikipedia), successor to SpaceShipOne, which became the first private vehicle to reach space in 2004 and won the $10m Ansari X-Prize.  SS2 is vying to become the world’s first commercially operational spaceplane and the first in Virgin Galactic’s fleet.  Pictured at left is Virgin founder and multi-billionaire Richard Branson, and to his right, Burt Rutan, designer of SS1 and SS2.  The PDF does an excellent job of illustrating the basics of an SS2 flight, though at nearly 9mb, the file isn’t a quick download.

At a press conference this morning at the National Press club in Washington, the Space Solar Alliance for Future Energy (SSAFE) announced a milestone demonstration of the critical technology enabling SBSP:  long-distance, solar-powered wireless power transmission.  The demonstration project, led by NASA veteran John C. Mankins, demonstrated microwave power transmission between two Hawaiian islands 148 kilometers apart, more than the distance from the surface of Earth to the boundary of space.  Although SBSP satellites would ultimately operate at much higher altitudes in the geosynchronous orbit (35,786 km AMSL), Mankins has successfully demonstrated the feasibility of long-distance energy transmission in principle.

Those of you who haven’t “cut the cord” to television (as I did about 5-6 years ago) may be interested to watch a special episode of Discovery Project Earth entitled “Orbital Powerplant) that will debut tonight at 10 pm with reruns on September 13 at 2am and noon.

This video provides more background on SBSP (until recently known as “Space Solar Power”):

http://www.youtube.com/v/YiU9MibyBJ0 My good friend Col. “Coyote” Smith has begun exploring some of the basic regulatory issues surrounding SBSP satellites, and the National Space Society has collected a wealth of materials on SBSP here. Those feeling particularly adventurous may way to check out the other space-related episode in the Discovery Project Earth series “Space Sunshield” (shown 1 hr before each of the timeslots mentioned above) about the idea developed by NASA Ames Research Center Director Pete Worden to address global climate change:

Just as the 505-day XM Sirius antitrust saga comes to a bittersweet end, reports have resurfaced that a new satellite merger may be in the works. Dish Network is floating the idea of merging with competitor DirecTV. Dish Network and DirecTV, the two largest satellite television providers in the U.S., tried to merge back in 2001. Antitrust officials ultimately blocked that merger, concluding that it would hurt competition in television programming. Naturally, a renewed merger attempt would likely encounter similar obstacles, according to industry observers.

This time around, though, the deal may have a better shot of surviving regulatory scrutiny, buoyed by the approval of the XM-Sirius merger. Compared to 2001, competition among video providers is thriving, and there are more alternatives to satellite television than ever before. Many consumers can now choose from a multitude of terrestrial television providers—phone companies are rapidly rolling out IPTV-based video services like FiOS TV and U-Verse, and cable overbuilders like RCN are gaining momentum in densely populated areas.

In addition, a growing number of viewers are shunning traditional television services entirely, turning to a la carte substitutes like the iTunes episode store, Netflix, and Xbox Live Marketplace. With an $8.99 per month subscription to Netflix, it’s possible to stream instantly a video library eclipsing that available on cable or satellite TV. Ad-supported video websites like Hulu and Comedy Central, which offer hundreds of archived TV shows on the Web for free, may soon render the television channel obsolete.

Dish Network’s talk of a potential merger comes on the heels of the company’s first ever quarterly loss of subscribers, and that may just be the tip of an iceberg. Until recently, television subscribers were largely content with watching programs on a predefined schedule, but on-demand services are changing that. As viewers come to expect the ability to watch any show anytime, without bothering to record it in advance, the lack of bidirectionality inherent in Direct-Broadcast Satellite is a glaring deficiency that cable and telecom firms will exploit at every juncture. Unless satellite providers can negotiate arrangements with broadband carriers, or succeed in building wireless networks with newly acquired spectrum, Dish and DirecTV face a bleak future, especially if they are unable to trim costs and enhance content choice.

A Dish-DirecTV deal would also likely generate a flurry of opposition from cable competitors, worried that a combined Dish-DirecTV would be better positioned to compete in years to come thanks to the cost savings stemming from consolidation. Launching a geostationary orbital satellite isn’t cheap or easy—DirecTV infamously touted plans to carry a hundred high-def channels for what seemed like eons before the satellite needed to provide proclaimed capacity actually went live. Combining Dish Network’s fleet and DirecTV’s would give bandwidth-rich television competitors like Verizon a serious run for their money, and the resulting cost savings would allow Dish-DirecTV to offer better bargains to subscribers.

Still, it would come as little surprise if none of these facts were enough to ward off antitrust officials, who are notorious for winnowing down the definition of a market to the point where practically every firm can be defined as a monopoly. Regulators are struggling for a reason to exist as technological progress continues to erode entry barriers. Intervening in the wealth-creating sector by imposing restrictive conditions on otherwise efficient mergers is a convenient excuse for antitrust watchdogs to stay in the spotlight long after the need for “competition police” has evaporated.

Of course, the mere mention of a potential merger rarely precipitates an actual offer, and the prospect of insurmountable regulatory roadblocks has got to discourage Dish and DirecTV from investing the resources in exploring a merger that would likely endure the same fate as it did in 2001. Whether discussion of a renewed merger attempt will proceed to the next level is anyone’s guess, but it’s a sure bet that no matter what happens, antitrust regulators will be looking out for everybody but consumers.

Astronaut Candidate, Johnson Space Center/International Space Station:

NASA, the world’s leader in space and aeronautics is always seeking outstanding scientists, engineers, and other talented professionals to carry forward the great discovery process that its mission demands. Creativity. Ambition. Teamwork. A sense of daring. And a probing mind. That’s what it takes to join NASA, one of the best places to work in the Federal Government. The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) has a need for Astronaut Candidates to support the International Space Station (ISS) Program.

“Major Duties” are as follows:

Astronauts are involved in all aspects of assembly and on-orbit operations of the ISS. This includes extravehicular activities (EVA), robotics operations using the remote manipulator system, experiment operations, and onboard maintenance tasks. Astronauts are required to have a detailed knowledge of the ISS systems, as well as detailed knowledge of the operational characteristics, mission requirements and objectives, and supporting systems and equipment for each experiment on their assigned missions. Long-duration missions aboard the ISS generally last from 3 to 6 months. Training for long duration missions is very arduous and takes approximately 2 to 3 years. This training requires extensive travel, including long periods away in other countries training with our international partners. Travel to and from the ISS will be by Space Shuttle until its retirement in 2010. Following the Shuttle retirement, all trips to and from the ISS will be aboard the Russian Soyuz vehicle. Consequently, astronauts must meet the Soyuz size requirements, as indicated below. Additional information about the position can be found at www.nasajobs.nasa.gov/astronauts.

Apart from the 2/124 chance of dying in a horrible fireball, having to deal with NASA’s rigid bureaucracy of “PowerPoint Pioneers,” and living (while planet-bound) in Houston, the main drawback of the position seems to be that would-be astronauts must apply through NASA’s byzantine STARS (“Staffing and Recruitment System”) system.  Like every government agency job site I’ve ever seen, STARS requires tedious resume recreation in order to produce a rigidly-simplistic-but-standardized document in Courier font that looks like something from the typewriter era (though no job site could possibly be as user-unfriendly as FCCJobs).

If Obama really wants to attract talent into the civil service, why not let people apply with a simple link to their LinkedIn profile or some such thing?