Author Topic: 2013 Space Legislation  (Read 18143 times)

Offline Tea Party Space Czar

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2013 Space Legislation
« on: 09/07/2012 10:53 pm »
What space legislation would you like to see passed next year?  As we move passed the election we need to make sure we have a "going in" game plan. 

As for TEA Party in Space, we plan to continue or work on ITAR.  We really thought we could get it done in 2012, and it still may happen (who knows), but we will be focusing on it heavily.  We hope that comm sats and college cube sats will be moved to the EAR.

Another thing we really want to work on with NASA is restarting PU238 for future missions.  As many of you know it takes roughly eight years from once you start production to getting useful material for missions.  We feel that NASA's SMD is vital to our civilian space program and making sure they have the tools needed to pick and choose as they please is important.

There is a lot more we would like to see passed.  We might be able to do a lot more, but these are some things I think we can get the left and the right to rally behind.

I would be curious to see what you all think about it.

Respectfully,
Andrew Gasser
TEA Party in Space

Offline Danderman

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Re: 2013 Space Legislation
« Reply #1 on: 09/07/2012 11:24 pm »
It would be nice if NASA were to express some of its space science requirements as a market. In English, that means that rather than have a program to obtain, say, topographic data of the Moon, NASA should lay out the requirements in detail, and then let private companies compete to meet those requirements.

The decadal study outputs should be scrubbed to see which are appropriate for private companies to supply. That would save NASA some $$.

Also, a commercial Mars communications network would be a Good Thing.

Offline Jim

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Re: 2013 Space Legislation
« Reply #2 on: 09/07/2012 11:57 pm »
Huh?
There is no market in supplying data on the outer and inner planets.  And mars comm would be just as ludicrous, placing a transceiver on other spacecraft would be cheaper than a dedicated spacecraft much less a commercial one.

Offline Danderman

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Re: 2013 Space Legislation
« Reply #3 on: 09/08/2012 01:39 am »
Huh?
There is no market in supplying data on the outer and inner planets.  And mars comm would be just as ludicrous, placing a transceiver on other spacecraft would be cheaper than a dedicated spacecraft much less a commercial one.

Although putting relays on everything that goes to Mars would be great, the reality is that a commercial network would provide more coverage. And, if we are serious about going to Mars One Day, we will need more coverage.


Offline Danderman

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Re: 2013 Space Legislation
« Reply #4 on: 09/08/2012 01:40 am »
Huh?
There is no market in supplying data on the outer and inner planets. 

The science community has expressed requirements for solar system data in the form of proposed missions.  It would be possible to scrub those to extract actual data requirements.

Having said that, most places in the Solar System are still not economic for commercial activity.

Offline majormajor42

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Re: 2013 Space Legislation
« Reply #5 on: 09/08/2012 01:44 am »
Huh?
There is no market in supplying data on the outer and inner planets.  And mars comm would be just as ludicrous, placing a transceiver on other spacecraft would be cheaper than a dedicated spacecraft much less a commercial one.

Um, I read Danderman's post as saying NASA should create a market. You, by saying that there currently is not a market, are kinda agreeing with him. I guess you mean to say that NASA should not do this? Perhaps there is a debate to be had as far as, can the COTS model be extended to other endeavors (if that debate has not already been had in other threads).

...water is life and it is out there, where we intend to go. I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man or machine on a body such as the Moon and harvest a cup of water for a human to drink or process into fuel for their craft.

Offline clongton

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Re: 2013 Space Legislation
« Reply #6 on: 09/08/2012 12:14 pm »
If you really want to do something useful then:

1. ITAR reform (or abolishment). Continue the good fight to a successful conclustion.
2. Work against the Gas-Oil-Petrolium lobby really, really hard and kill off the really stupid hysteria about nuclear power. Kill it dead and let's get on with a proper use of nuclear power; both here and in space.

Accomplish those 2 things and I will be eternally grateful.

Edit Re: nuclear power. Continue to work to obtain PU238 for spacecraft missions, but look really seriously at Thorium for surface power installation. Unlike Uranium, it's abundant in the United States and on the lunar surface. The MSTR is practically idiot-proof, shutting itself down naturally in an abnormal state and its waste products have half-lives in the tens of years, not the tens of thousands of years of uranium products. If we are going to continue to use nuclear power then let's think about a vastly safer fuel than uranium. Power stations on the moon, Mars, Ceres and the moons of Jupiter and Saturn don't need to be dangerous polluters with non-managable waste, which is what we would get if we stay with uranium. Check out www.energyfromthorium.com/ and Kirk Sorenson, co-founder of Flibe Energy.
« Last Edit: 09/08/2012 12:36 pm by clongton »
Chuck - DIRECT co-founder
I started my career on the Saturn-V F-1A engine

Offline cro-magnon gramps

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Re: 2013 Space Legislation
« Reply #7 on: 09/08/2012 03:56 pm »
Where to begin; there is quite a wish list;
  but generally, if you can add your voice/weight to getting off of the 17th to 18th Century Exploration Model, and into reusable infrastructure, as Danderman has said, that would be great; don't expect you to put a lot of money into it, just be there to support it when it comes up in conversation;

  one point I would add to Chuck's list, regarding the Oil-Gas-Petro lobby, I would like to see fewer subsidies to these areas from the Gov't coffers, and redirect that to development of Renewable Infrastructure on the Planet and growth of further research into it's use in Space; we have the research, but it still costs more than it should for development, because of the OGP Lobby's influence;

  Gramps
Gramps "Earthling by Birth, Martian by the grace of The Elon." ~ "Hate, it has caused a lot of problems in the world, but it has not solved one yet." Maya Angelou ~ Tony Benn: "Hope is the fuel of progress and fear is the prison in which you put yourself."

Offline yg1968

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Re: 2013 Space Legislation
« Reply #8 on: 09/08/2012 09:39 pm »
We can likely expect a NASA Authorization bill in 2013 since the 2010 NASA Authorization bill does authorize years past FY 2013.

Offline Go4TLI

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Re: 2013 Space Legislation
« Reply #9 on: 09/08/2012 09:52 pm »
It would be nice if NASA were to express some of its space science requirements as a market. In English, that means that rather than have a program to obtain, say, topographic data of the Moon, NASA should lay out the requirements in detail, and then let private companies compete to meet those requirements.

The decadal study outputs should be scrubbed to see which are appropriate for private companies to supply. That would save NASA some $$.

Also, a commercial Mars communications network would be a Good Thing.


This makes no sense.  Let's start with the obvious.  You want the government *to legislate* a "commercial Mars network"?  The two are incompatible. 

Second, you want NASA to specify, with requirements, a "market"?  How is that even feasible? 

The rest of your statement while very strangely worded is essentially what happens now in the fact you want to have NASA give "detailed requirements" for something and then various companies compete to those requirements.  You just reinvented the wheel. 

Offline neilh

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Re: 2013 Space Legislation
« Reply #10 on: 09/09/2012 12:06 am »
It would be nice if NASA were to express some of its space science requirements as a market. In English, that means that rather than have a program to obtain, say, topographic data of the Moon, NASA should lay out the requirements in detail, and then let private companies compete to meet those requirements.

The decadal study outputs should be scrubbed to see which are appropriate for private companies to supply. That would save NASA some $$.

Also, a commercial Mars communications network would be a Good Thing.


This makes no sense.  Let's start with the obvious.  You want the government *to legislate* a "commercial Mars network"?  The two are incompatible. 

Second, you want NASA to specify, with requirements, a "market"?  How is that even feasible? 

The rest of your statement while very strangely worded is essentially what happens now in the fact you want to have NASA give "detailed requirements" for something and then various companies compete to those requirements.  You just reinvented the wheel. 

pull-based, not push-based
Someone is wrong on the Internet.
http://xkcd.com/386/

Offline Go4TLI

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Re: 2013 Space Legislation
« Reply #11 on: 09/09/2012 01:59 am »
It would be nice if NASA were to express some of its space science requirements as a market. In English, that means that rather than have a program to obtain, say, topographic data of the Moon, NASA should lay out the requirements in detail, and then let private companies compete to meet those requirements.

The decadal study outputs should be scrubbed to see which are appropriate for private companies to supply. That would save NASA some $$.

Also, a commercial Mars communications network would be a Good Thing.


This makes no sense.  Let's start with the obvious.  You want the government *to legislate* a "commercial Mars network"?  The two are incompatible. 

Second, you want NASA to specify, with requirements, a "market"?  How is that even feasible? 

The rest of your statement while very strangely worded is essentially what happens now in the fact you want to have NASA give "detailed requirements" for something and then various companies compete to those requirements.  You just reinvented the wheel. 

pull-based, not push-based

Are thos fluff words supposed to enlighten me and others somehow?

Offline QuantumG

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Re: 2013 Space Legislation
« Reply #12 on: 09/09/2012 11:41 am »
pull-based, not push-based

Are thos fluff words supposed to enlighten me and others somehow?

He's using shorthand because he's assuming you know what you're talking about. I knew exactly what he was saying and I'm sure others did too.

Not everyone on this forum wants to be a teacher on every topic. I don't think they should have to be.

Human spaceflight is basically just LARPing now.

Offline Go4TLI

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Re: 2013 Space Legislation
« Reply #13 on: 09/09/2012 02:23 pm »
It would be nice if NASA were to express some of its space science requirements as a market. In English, that means that rather than have a program to obtain, say, topographic data of the Moon, NASA should lay out the requirements in detail, and then let private companies compete to meet those requirements.

The decadal study outputs should be scrubbed to see which are appropriate for private companies to supply. That would save NASA some $$.

Also, a commercial Mars communications network would be a Good Thing.


This makes no sense.  Let's start with the obvious.  You want the government *to legislate* a "commercial Mars network"?  The two are incompatible. 

Second, you want NASA to specify, with requirements, a "market"?  How is that even feasible? 

The rest of your statement while very strangely worded is essentially what happens now in the fact you want to have NASA give "detailed requirements" for something and then various companies compete to those requirements.  You just reinvented the wheel. 

pull-based, not push-based

Are those fluff words supposed to enlighten me and others somehow?

I'll ask the question again.  Perhaps some reality-based specifics could be given instead of just throwing a concept out there.

I'd also like to know how a commercial market (and by that I mean true commercial) is established around other planetary objects and what the business case for something like that would be with ROIs that leads to the private investment necessary for such endeavors. 

Offline Danderman

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Re: 2013 Space Legislation
« Reply #14 on: 09/09/2012 02:25 pm »
Yeah, the whole issue of how the government buys stuff is kind of complicated.  In particular, there is a lot of confusion among the government buying services from contractors, or the government privatizing its functions, or the government commercializing a service.

This is probably grist for another thread, though.


Offline rocketacademy

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Re: 2013 Space Legislation
« Reply #15 on: 09/25/2012 05:48 pm »
What space legislation would you like to see passed next year? 

Restore Centennial Challenges and direct the program toward practical technologies with near-term commercial applications, instead of Space Elevators. That might be impossible to do under NASA, with all the competing constituencies. Probably better to start fresh under another agency like FAA-AST. Fund the FAA's proposed CATS prize and the Low-Cost Spacesuit Challenge (including in the NASA budget request several years ago but never acted on by Congress).

Launch services and data purchase for suborbital. Restore CRUSR to its original purpose of supporting suborbital RLVs, not sounding rockets and weather balloons. There are other NASA programs for those platforms. Ideally, move the program back to NASA Ames. Create equivalent programs in DoD, NSF, NOAA, etc. Or maybe one central program under FAA that serves all government users.

Pass a tax-incentive bill. Dana Rohrabacher's Zero Gee, Zero Tax Bill is a good start. It could be modified to work for commercial spaceport-based businesses as well as orbit-based businesses.

Spaceflight liability reform.

Cancel JWST and replace it with commercial data purchases.

Another thing we really want to work on with NASA is restarting PU238 for future missions.  As many of you know it takes roughly eight years from once you start production to getting useful material for missions. 

Forget it. No commercial company is going to launch a nuclear power plant with fuel onboard. The political and regulatory risks are too great. It's impossible to get a license just to operate a nuclear plant in this country. Nuclear power in space will have to wait until we can mine nuclear fuel on the Moon.

Offline Jim

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Re: 2013 Space Legislation
« Reply #16 on: 09/25/2012 07:19 pm »
Probably better to start fresh under another agency like FAA-AST.

Launch services and data purchase for suborbital. Restore CRUSR to its original purpose of supporting suborbital RLVs, not sounding rockets and weather balloons.

 Create equivalent programs in DoD, NSF, NOAA, etc. Or maybe one central program under FAA that serves all government users.

Spaceflight liability reform.

Cancel JWST and replace it with commercial data purchases.


Basic flaws in every point. 

FAA is a regulatory agency, not a spaceflight operations agency.  It does not have the expertise nor the mandate to do so.

NSF is not a operations agency, it just funds experimenters.

NASA is the space agency that does serve all gov't users (DOD, NOAA, NSF, etc)

Also you are have contradicting points.  You can't have data and service purchases but then steer a solution.  If sounding rockets and weather balloons meet the requirements put forth in CRUSR solicitations then so be it.

You are seriously delusional to think JWST can be replace with a pay for data contract.

Offline rocketacademy

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Re: 2013 Space Legislation
« Reply #17 on: 09/25/2012 08:44 pm »

FAA is a regulatory agency, not a spaceflight operations agency.  It does not have the expertise nor the mandate to do so.


You know not what you speak of. The FAA Office of Commercial Space Transportation has a dual mission, to regulate and to encourage, facilitate, and promote. It's been that way since the office was created. I know because I led one of the teams on the Hill that helped pass the enabling legislation.

Quote

NSF is not a operations agency, it just funds experimenters.
Funding experimenters is what the CRUSR program does. It does not operate vehicles. It purchases launch services.

There are more things in heaven and earth, Jim, than are dreamt of in your FARs.



NASA is the space agency that does serve all gov't users (DOD, NOAA, NSF, etc)

Really??? You've never heard of Space Command? 

Quote

Also you are have contradicting points.  You can't have data and service purchases but then steer a solution.  If sounding rockets and weather balloons meet the requirements put forth in CRUSR solicitations then so be it.

You must be smoking those FARs, Jim. When I purchase a service -- renting a pickup, say -- I don't accept an econobox or a dogcart instead.

Substituting balloons or sounding rockets for suborbital RLVs is an example of what's called "bait and switch." It's generally illegal in commercial transactions. Even under the FARs, it's frowned upon.

Again, you just don't get it.




 

Offline neilh

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Re: 2013 Space Legislation
« Reply #18 on: 09/25/2012 09:30 pm »
Does TPiS have a standpoint on legislation to transform more NASA centers into FFRDCs, like the Aldridge Commission suggested?
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Offline rocketacademy

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Re: 2013 Space Legislation
« Reply #19 on: 09/26/2012 06:22 pm »

Um, I read Danderman's post as saying NASA should create a market.... Perhaps there is a debate to be had as far as, can the COTS model be extended to other endeavors (if that debate has not already been had in other threads).


Yes, the COTS model might be extended to other NASA programs. But David's proposal brings up a host of other questions:

1) Is Mars the right place to extend COTS to at this time?

2) What does "COTS" mean? Is this COTS as it was original sold to us, by NASA and SFF, or COTS as it's currently being implemented? Since COTS is rapidly evolving toward a traditional FAR-based procurement, I presume David's "Mars COTS" would be the same. How, then, does it differ from any other NASA Mars probe?

3) What do we have to throw under the bus this time?

I suggest that the Tea Party concentrate on low-end items that have practical near-term commercial applications and ignore things like Mars, space elevators, and warp drive. The Space Frontier Foundation already has those covered.

The most important thing to work on is cheap access to space. CATS is one of the things SFF threw under the bus to get COTS. What would a COTS Mars orbiter cost? $200 million? A quarter of that money, in cheap launch prizes, would do more for commercial space than a Mars orbiter. 



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