A panel discussion on private spaceflight and interactions with government.

Joseph Rouge, National Security
George Nield, Commercial Space Transportation, FAA
Steve Kohler, Space Florida
Dennis Stone, NASA JSC, Commercial Space Development,
Lon Rains, Space News (Moderator)

Rouge:
- want to take advantage of private launch providers.
- Also interested in putting secondary payloads onto private spacecraft.

Nield:
- Licensing of commercial space launches
- COTS vehicles will be licensed and treated as normal private operators
- Working with private spaceflight vehicle developers
- Spaceports

Kohler:
- Learning how to integrate commercial operators with the government facilities at the Cape.
- Added bonus to COTS for companies that launch from Florida

Stone:
- COTS (Commercial Orbital Transportation System demo) came out of the Presidents Vision for Space Exploration
- $500M for COTS
- Partnership with SpaceX and Rocketplane Kistler. The latter terminated when they could not raise sufficient private funds. Replace with Orbital Sciences
- Fixed payments according to meeting of milestones.
- SpaceX and Orbital coming along well.
- Five unfunded partners.

Questions:
Unfunded partners competition for operations contract?
Stone: Don't care where funding came from. Performance will determine who wins.

Florida spaceflight legislation:
Kohler: In tough budget year, it was fortunate to get the funding to support commercial space.
Modified state pension investment portfolio to allow some percentage to go to alternative technologies that include space related ones.

Clarify Florida prize:
Kohler: $40M ($20M state, $20M private) will go for a Google Lunar X PRIZE like competition for RLVs.
Rules still being developed.

How is a spaceport sanctioned:
Nield: Have legislation and rules laid out to license spaceports.
- Have licensed several and working on applications.
- Mojave and Oklahoma are the first inland spaceports.
- New move towards spaceports with reusable vehicles and operations similar to that of an airport.
- Storage of fuels and other operations must be done safely.
- Interaction with air traffic control
- There will be an on-going relationship between FAA and a spaceport in operation.

DOD interest in Space based solar power:
Rouge - resupply of fuels is an enormous challenge for military operations in remote locations.
- bringing power directly down from space might be a practical solution.
- Military moving towards electric powered vehicles.
- DOD probably won't develop SBSP but could be a major customer.

DOD interest in RLVs:
Rouge - 25 years ago, he worked on study that showed SDI was only feasible with RLVs
- Began NASP, which didn't work out but would have had enormous impact outside of military ops.
- Will take advantage of RLVs that are developed for private spaceflight.

What if COTS vehicles not ready by 2011:
Stone: Can use ATV and HTV. They are expensive but could do the work if necessary.

How big an impact on Florida economy and jobs by commercial space:
Kohler: Discusses job losses from Shuttle retirement.

News from the Space Foundation meeting:
Nield: Top military leaders not aware of developments in NewSpace
- Had several discussions with top civilian and uniformed leaders in DOD about commercial spaceflight.

Audience questions:
- Affect of a successful Falcon 9 on Ares?
Stone: (Smiled for awhile) Different programs and different apps.

Sustainability of space budgets:
Stone: ISS has had bi-partisan support over many administrations.
Rouge: Revitalization of science and technology education needed.