"This site isn't dead, it just spent a lot of time hibernating recently..."
But we've woken up again. The new White House NASA space exploration policy looks as promising as anything we've seen come from those quarters for a long time. Passing responsibility for basic space access to the US commercial sector while refocusing NASA on developing technologies for future transportation and deep-space exploration has potential to radically reduce the costs of both basic orbital access and deeper exploration, vastly expanding our future exploration and development possibilities.
But it's a long way from a promising new policy to a successful program. First, the Congress gets to decide what will and will not actually get funded on a year-by-year basis. Then, NASA has to execute whatever program emerges from Congress, one year at a time. A lot can go wrong at every step of the way. We will be watching this process closely. Stay tuned for new Space Access Updates in the coming months.
8/30/10 Reminder of Continuing Action Opportunity, plus Expanded Background Brief, as the battle continues: The last round was a standoff, as the (very bad House Committee version) HR 5781 NASA Authorization bill was pulled back from full House consideration at the last second when it became clear there was no consensus on major provisions. (To all of you who called your Representative, thanks!) In its current form, this bill cuts out funding for NASA Commercial Crew/Cargo and new Exploration Technology almost entirely, to pay for an in-house NASA Ares-based heavy booster project, plus a government-owned Station crew transportation system - both of these unrealistically specified, underfunded, and unlikely to ever fly.
Congress is due back from their current August recess the week of September 13th, and our understanding is, the sponsors of this bill will try again as soon as they're back. If you agree with us that this is a bad thing, see Space Access Update #117 for what you can start doing about it now. If you're still not sure or you just want a lot more background info on what we're asking you to do, see Space Access Update #118 for much more.
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Space Access Society: Who are we?
There are countless useful, interesting, and profitable things we could do if we had routine affordable access to space. But, as the old down-Maine joke goes, "you can't get there from here." Half a century into the Space Age, it still takes years of paperwork and planning and costs tens to hundreds of millions per mission to reach Earth orbit, drastically constraining the otherwise huge opportunities. It isn't the laws of physics or engineering that are stopping us - there's nothing in either that prevents reusable rockets based on available technology from operating at costs and reliabilities a lot closer to modern airliners than to current rockets. Yet somehow, after all the early promise, we ended up in a blind alley. We've spent a generation there. Enough is enough.
Space Access Society thinks the problem has a lot more to do with political and bureaucratic inertia than with any fundamental engineering obstacles. SAS's sole purpose is to promote routine, reliable, radically cheaper access to space, ASAP. We think it's possible within the decade, with a little luck and a lot of hard work. Welcome to our minimalist retro text-intensive web page, where we'll try to give you a handle on how we think we can get out of the long-time NASA-industrial complex expensive-space dead end. Here's the longer version: Space Access Society Policy Summary (due for an update soon to reflect the proposed new NASA exploration policies, but still relevant.)
And here's our Updates backlist, so you can see how our understanding of the problem has evolved over the years:
Space Access Update back issues
One of the higher-profile things we do is our annual Space Access conference on the technology, politics, and business of radically cheaper space transportation, featuring leading players in the field. Recently completed, Space Access '010, April 8-10 at the Best Western Grace Inn in Phoenix Arizona. Our eighteenth (we've been at this that long?) annual conference was again an interesting mix of the usual suspects and some unusual new additions, again providing an intensive informal snapshot of where the growing cheap space access industry was this spring 2010. Stay tuned for preliminary info on Space Access '11, coming soon to this page.
Questions? Email us at: space.access@space-access.org (We may take a while to get back to you, but your mail does go through.)
Space Access Update Back Issues
SAU #118 -30 Aug 10 Update
SAU #117 -21 Aug 10 Update
SAU #116 -29 Jul 10 Update
SAU #115 -14 Jul 10 Update
SAU #114 -20 Feb 06 Update
SAU #113 - 4 Jan 06 Update
SAU #112 - 9 Sep 05 Update
SAU #111 - 5 Apr 05 Update
SAU #110 -31 Mar 05 Update
SAU #109 -15 Feb 05 Update
SAU #108 -31 Jan 05 Update
SAU #107 - 2 Dec 04 Update
SAU #106 -19 Nov 04 Update
SAU #105 -19 Oct 04 Update
SAU #104 -29 Sep 04 Update
SAU #103 -15 Apr 04 Update
SAU #102 - 9 Feb 04 Update
SAU #101 -13 Dec 03 Update
SAU #100 - 8 Feb 03 Update
SAU #99 - 13 Dec 02 Update
bulletin - 12 Feb 02 bulletin
SAU #98 - 8 Mar 01 Update
SAU #97 - 26 Jan 01 Update
SAU #96 - 26 Sep 00 Update
SAU #95 - 27 Aug 00 Update
SAU #94 - 9 Jul 00 Update
SAU #93 - 13 Apr 00 Update
SAU #92 - 5 Apr 00 Update
SAU #91 - 7 Feb 00 Update
SAU #90 - 10 Oct 99 Update
SAU #89 - 25 Sep 99 Update
SAU #88 - 24 Jul 99 Update
SAU #87 - 19 Jul 99 Update
SAU #86 - 25 Jun 99 Update
SAU #85 - 18 Jun 99 Update
SAU #84 - 17 Jun 99 Update
SAU #83 - 3 Jun 99 Update
SAU #82 - 12 May 99 Update
SAU #81 - 5 Mar 99 Update
SAU #80 - 28 Feb 99 Update
SAU #79 - 8 Oct 98 Update
SAU #78 - 6 Nov 97 Update
SAU #77 - 16 Oct 97 Update
SAU #76 - 3 Oct 97 Update
SAU #75 - 23 Sep 97 Update
SAU #74 - 31 Aug 97 Update
SAU #73 - 14 Jul 97 Update
SAU #72 - 23 May 97 Update
SAU #71 - 6 May 97 Update
SAU #70 - 18 Oct 96 Update
SAU #69 - 31 Jul 96 Update
SAU #68 - 21 Jul 96 Update
SAU #67 - 11 Jul 96 Update
Full list of back issues available here eventually,
when we finally dig them off various retired computers...
*end*