Fwd: Fw: Space Access Update #108 1/31/05

----- Forwarded message from [email protected] -----

> Subject: Space Access Update #108  1/31/05
> From: [email protected]
> Date: Tue, 01 Feb 2005 09:43:45 -0800
> 
>                    Space Access Update #108  01/31/05 
>                  Copyright 2004 by Space Access Society 
> ________________________________________________________________________ 
> 
> Do not hit "reply" to email us - it'll be buried in tides of spam, and 
> we may not ever see it.  Email us at [email protected] 
> ________________________________________________________________________ 
> 
> 
> Contents this issue:
> 
>  - Space Access '05 Conference Set For Phoenix AZ April 28-30 2005
> 
>  - New Administration Space Transportation Policy
> 
>  - Who Will Run NASA?
> 
> 
> Coming soon:
> 
>  - What A Difference A Year Makes: Industry Roundup
>  - Space Access '05 Preliminary Speakers List
> 
> ________________________________________________________________________ 
> 
> 
>         Space Access '05 Conference, April 28-30, Phoenix Arizona
> 
> We've gotten a number of queries as to whether our conference is 
> happening this year, if so when, where's the hotel, and so forth.  We're 
> actually pretty close to our usual just-in-time pace on pinning down and 
> publicizing these things, but to reassure y'all (and let you start to 
> make travel plans) here's where we stand right now, three months out: 
> 
> We've narrowed our list of a dozen possible hotels down to a primary and 
> an alternate, and our hotel liaison is currently working out a contract 
> with the primary.  Both primary and alternate are newer hotels than last 
> year's, at about the same room rate - both have, in response to numerous 
> requests, high-speed internet - and both have the space we need open for 
> our dates (as do several tertiary backups) so we can guarantee the 
> conference will take place starting 2 pm Thursday April 28th, running 
> through Saturday night April 30th, within a moderate cab or shuttle-van 
> ride of the Phoenix airport.  Both hotels are great sites - the primary 
> has a wide variety of nearby places to eat drink and shop, the alternate 
> is a really nice self-contained resort, and either would work well for 
> our conference.  We expect we'll have a contract signed in the next week 
> or so, at which point we'll publish the hotel details. 
> 
> Take a look at http://www.space-access.org/updates/sa04prgb.doc for our 
> 2004 conference program book to give you an idea what sort of conference 
> we put together just-in-time last year.  This year's conference will be 
> broadly similar, modulo a year's rapid progress in the field of 
> radically cheaper space transportation. 
> 
> Space Access '05 conference registration remains at $100 in advance, 
> $120 at the door, mail checks to (note new address!) 
> 
>  Space Access '05
>  5515 N 7th st #5-348
>  Phoenix AZ 85014
> 
> ________________________________________________________________________ 
> 
>                                                            
>              New Administration Space Transportation Policy
> 
>  
> The President signed off on a new national space transportation policy 
> at the end of last year, and there's a lot to like in it.  (Summary at 
> http://www.spaceref.com/news/viewsr.html?pid=15010)  It formally gets 
> rid of the mid-nineties division of labor that gave NASA a monopoly on 
> reusable rocket development (which NASA proceeded to expensively botch) 
> while confining DOD to expendables; each now can develop to meet its own 
> space transport needs.  It also mandates NASA develop new capabilities 
> only where its needs can't be met by capabilities already in use in the 
> defense or commercial sectors.  It acknowledges the importance of the US 
> commercial space transportation sector in general, mandates a supportive 
> government-purchase, regulatory and launch-range environment for the 
> commercial sector, and specifically supports commercial human 
> spaceflight efforts.  It says the US government "must provide sufficient 
> and stable funding for acquisition of US space transportation 
> capabilities in order to create a climate in which a robust space 
> transportation industrial and technology base can flourish", and cites 
> fundamental transformation of capabilities and capitalizing on the 
> entrepreneurial spirit of the US private sector in that context, which 
> implies that at least some share of the funding should go to the 
> innovative startups. 
> 
> Have we died and gone to heaven?  Well, no, not exactly.  The policy 
> necessarily spends considerable time dealing with various aspects of 
> the legacy space establishment - keep both EELV's until further notice, 
> return Shuttle to flight then retire it when Station is complete, and so 
> forth. And it mandates a massive DOD/NASA/industry central-planning 
> exercise for "next-generation space transportation capabilities" that we 
> suspect has far too good a chance of turning about as many billions into 
> as many viewgraphs over as many years as most previous such efforts. 
> 
> But this policy allows for and by implication encourages a lot of 
> smaller efforts, defense and commercial, outside the old-space megalith 
> project complex.  Mammals scurrying around under the dinosaurs' feet, if 
> you will.  And it does tell the dinosaurs NOT to go out of their way to 
> step on the new arrivals, though absent ongoing adult supervision from 
> the top political levels we wouldn't bet the mortgage on that being 
> scrupulously observed. 
> 
> Ultimately, any such policy depends more on continuing top-level 
> political support for its effectiveness than it does on the finicky 
> details of this paragraph or that subclause.  Recent history gives us 
> some cause for optimism here - we'd estimate that the amount of 
> government space funding (out of thirty billion or more overall) 
> actually going in what we regard as the right general direction to 
> produce a space transportation revolution has risen to a decent fraction 
> of 1%.  That doesn't sound like much - but the whole point of our 
> revolution is that it doesn't cost much, done right. 
> 
> Give us a full 1% for reusable rocket R&D and we'll change the world - 
> and under this Administration and this policy, we might just get that 1%.  
> 
> ________________________________________________________________________ 
> 
> 
>                            Who Will Run NASA?
> 
> It is no denigration of Sean O'Keefe to say that he leaves NASA still 
> short of being a useful and efficient government space exploration 
> agency.  Given how wilfully dysfunctional major parts of the 
> organization were a few years ago, the fact that all of the agency's 
> centers now have some handle on what they're spending and pay some 
> attention to what NASA HQ tells them is a triumph.  We thank Mr. O'Keefe 
> for the considerable progress, and we wish him well in his new job. 
> 
> But the major strides NASA has made in accounting and accountability 
> are, we believe, only a start.  If the agency is indeed to take the lead 
> in resuming outward human space exploration progress without radical 
> budget increase, it is going to have to undergo radical transformation.  
> Much of what it does now will have to be shut down to free up the needed 
> resources.  More vitally, much of HOW it does things now will have to be 
> set aside.  Much accreted bureaucracy from the last thirty years has to 
> go, organizationally AND conceptually. 
> 
> We will not presume to tell the White House who they should pick to 
> succeed O'Keefe.  Indeed, this close to his departure, we suspect they 
> may well have already made up their mind.  But we will, on the off 
> chance someone might be listening, say a few things about what sort of 
> person we think should take over at NASA.
> 
> He should have a thick skin.  He'll be making painful changes and he's 
> going to take considerable flack.  (For the same reasons, he should also 
> have the confidence and ongoing support of the White House.  Strong 
> Congressional support, away from existing NASA centers, wouldn't hurt 
> either.) 
> 
> He should be well-grounded (or at least extremely and independently 
> well-advised) in space technology.  He'll be making important technical 
> decisions, and the old NASA bureaucracy has a long history of trying to 
> stack the deck in their advice on such.  
> 
> He should probably not be from within NASA.  The old-line NASA 
> bureaucracy demonstrably has a number of pernicious technological and 
> organizational prejudices; the average career NASA person will tend to 
> have internalized far too much of this baggage. 
> 
> He should be bureaucratically astute (or at least extremely well-
> advised).  His main job will be not so much conducting future human 
> space exploration, but rather finishing the transformation of NASA into 
> an organization capable of conducting that future exploration. 
> 
> That is still a long shot at this point.  We'd be satisfied if NASA ends 
> up merely getting out of the way of the radically cheaper space 
> transportation revolution we push for.  But if NASA can actually be 
> rehabilitated to the point where it recommences useful outward expansion 
> of the human frontier later this decade, we wouldn't mind at all. 
> 
> ________________________________________________________________________ 
> 
> Space Access Society's sole purpose is to promote radical reductions 
> in the cost of reaching space.  You may redistribute this Update in 
> any medium you choose, as long as you do it unedited in its entirety.
> You may reproduce sections of this Update beyond obvious "fair use" 
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> ________________________________________________________________________ 
> 
>  Space Access Society 
>  http://www.space-access.org 
>  [email protected] 
> 
>  "Reach low orbit and you're halfway to anywhere in the Solar System" 
>                                         - Robert A. Heinlein 

----- End forwarded message -----


    Michael

----------------------------------------------------------------------
Michael Wallis   KF6SPF       (408) 396-9037        [email protected]

Kevin Standlee: 
               "Fast! Accurate! Cheap! --- Pick any two!"