Category Archives: Space Policy

Space policy roundup – March.12.14 [Update]

A selection of recent space policy/politics related links:

This topic goes under Petty-Astronomer politics:  IAU Throws Temper Tantrum Over Mars Craters  – Citizens in Space –

Once again: Uwingu is not challenging the IAU’s right to bestow official scientific names. And in the end, IAU is going to look awfully silly. When Mars is settled by human beings, the settlers will bestow their own names on local features (as humans always do). It is those names, not the formal scientific names bestowed by IAU or the informal names sold by Uwingu, that will go down in history books. Many of those will be names that IAU would not approve. There will be names like “Broken Axle Crater” (just as the American West is filled with place names like “Dead Mule Gulch.”). No one will much care what astronomers back on Earth think about them.

 Update: Alan Boyle reports on the crater-naming spat : Mars Crater-Naming Campaign Sparks an International Blowup – NBC News.com.

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Space policy roundup – March.10.14

A selection of space policy/politics related links:

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Neil deGrasse Tyson is an excellent communicator of the wonders of space and science but his statements on the role of private endeavors in science and space exploration  are glib and ahistorical: Neil deGrasse Tyson Says Private Companies Won’t Take The Lead In Space Exploration – TechCrunch.

There is no nice, clean line between private “buck making” and high-minded government exploration just for the sake of it. From the Wright Brothers making the key advances in aviation to IBM funded Nobel Prize winning basic research, innumerable breakthroughs in science and technology have been led by private non-governmental ventures.

As Alexander MacDonald outlined in his History of Space Exploration in America  (pdf), private funding of large observatories before WW II was manifold and generous while government spending was meager. The Lick Observatory cost on the order of $1.2B in today’s dollars. It wasn’t till after the war that US basic research became heavily supported by the government.

Yes, NASA’s Space Shuttle made it to low earth orbit for 30 years but at an exorbitant price. SpaceX developed an operational rocket and a returnable space capsule for about half the cost ($1.5B) of a single Shuttle flight. Each cargo mission is flown for a small fraction of the cost of a Shuttle flight. Major cost reduction is a major advance in any field.  Henry Ford did not invent the automobile but his advances in lowering automobile costs revolutionized the industry.

If SpaceX (or Blue Origin, XCOR, or some other innovative company) succeeds in making an orbital space transport fully and rapidly reusable, the huge reduction in cost will be the key breakthrough to making spaceflight truly affordable and practical.  This will “lead” to tremendous benefits for pure scientific space exploration. (See, for example, SpaceX’s ‘Red Dragon’: Mars Sample-Return Mission Could Launch in 2022 – Space.com.)

Here’s another rebuttal to Dr. Tyson: Neil Tyson’s Confusing Take on Space Commerce – NASA Watch

Spacevidcast 7.07 – Who owns the moon?

The latest Spacevidcast live show is now available in the archive: Who owns the moon? – Spacevidcast

Caption:

Spacevidcast is made possible by you! Do you get value from the show? Then help add value back!http://www.patreon.com/spacevidcast

In this episode we talk about cosmic property rights. Who owns the moon? What about Mars? Can a company legally mine an asteroid?

In space news: ULA and SpaceX go head to head at a Senate hearing committee, how tensions with Russia can negatively impact the US space programs, COSMOS, a new space plane is being developed and the original space shuttle wooden mockup is moving.

You can watch the full Senate sub-committee video here:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=he0-S…

Spacevidcast is a weekly show all about space and the comsos. Covering major events from NASA, ESA, JAXA, Roscosmos, SpaceX and more, Spacevidcast is your weekly news and views show for every space geek! Featuring monthly live shows and weekly cosmic updates, get your Space Geek on right here! Don’t forget to subscribe.

Space policy roundup – March.7.14

Space historian Roger Launius has an interesting post on his blog about  a study he has done into previous cases where the US government and private industry collaborated in a way similar to NASA’s recent commercial partnerships:  Historical Analogies and the Commercial Development of Space – Roger Launius’s Blog

The study investigated six case studies: (1) the development of the transcontinental railroad supported by a unique land grant approach to subsidy, (2) support for the airline industry through legislation, appropriate regulation, and subsidies to grow a robust air transport capability, (3) the regulatory regime put into place with the rise of the telephone industry and the creation of government-sponsored monopoly that eventually had to be broken up, (4) government sponsorship of Antarctic scientific stations that evolved into a public/private partnership over time, (5) the fostering of a range of public works projects and their success or failure over time, and (6) the establishment of scenic and cultural conservation zones in the United States and how to balance economic development with preservation.

With the rise of a range of private sector entrepreneurial firms interested in pursuing space commerce, the process whereby those might be incubated, fostered, and expanded comes to the fore as an important public policy concern in a way never before present in the space age. In the United States, and virtually nowhere else in the world, we are witnessing the convergence of several powerful economic forces. These include the need to restore American capability to reach low-Earth orbit for the servicing of the International Space Station, the rise of a hospitality/tourism/entertainment industry interested in space, the development of expansive remote sensing and other applications in Earth orbit, and the possibilities envisioned for opening commercial space activities in the cis-lunar region.

More space policy/politics related posts:

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Space policy roundup – March.6.14

A reader points me to this CNBC interview with Steve Jurvetson (a founder of the famous DFJ venture capital fund) who talks about rocket costs and SpaceX (one of DFJ investments) in the context of the Senate hearing on Wednesday about Defense Dept launches : SpaceEx board member: Beginning of long new-space period – CNBC

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More space policy/politics related links

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