Space Access Update #79 10/8/98 Copyright 1998 by Space Access Society ________________________________________________________________________ Back in late August, we asked you to help support Federal funding for "Military Space Plane" USAF research into fast-turnaround reusable rockets. The idea is to usefully increase diversity in government cheap access research at relatively modest cost. Well, the Congress is finishing up many of the FY'99 funding bills this week, and results are in on the ones we're interested in. The FY'99 DOD Appropriation doesn't provide new money for MSP, but it does authorize carrying last year's line-item-veto delayed $10 million over into the new fiscal year. (FY'99 started October 1st.) Meanwhile, the FY'99 NASA Appropriation provides $20 million and directs NASA to use it in support of Military Space Plane work. The combination ought to allow a significant increase in the pace of work over this year's bare-survival keep-the-lights-on USAF funding. To everyone who worked for this small but we think significant bit of progress, thanks! ________________________________________________________________________ In other news, The Safari Resort, site of our Space Access Conferences for the last several years, alas is no more. The site in downtown Scottsdale had become too valuable to go on hosting a comfortable rambling old place like the Safari; a deal was announced last month to tear the place down and replace it with a Marriott with twice as many rooms (and likely twice the rates), to open sometime in 2000. Which leaves us looking for another site for Space Access '99. Better six months notice than none, of course - our sympathy to the groups with events scheduled the weeks right after the announcement; *they* had a problem. We look on this as an opportunity; we're now looking at sites for our conference both on the weekend we'd booked at the Safari, April 16-18, and the weekend after, April 23-25. We figure going with the later weekend could remove our conference a bit from tax-deadline stress; let us know ASAP if you're aware of conflicting events or if you have a strong opinion either way. Either weekend, we plan on changing our schedule somewhat from recent years - we'll be holding the main sessions Friday and Saturday daytimes and evenings, rather than Saturday and Sunday as in previous years, in order to allow our increasing number of professional attendees to get home with some time left in the weekend. Our overall schedule (including our peerless hospitality suite) will run Thursday evening through Sunday morning. Watch our web site, www.space-access.org, for info as things firm up. ________________________________________________________________________ (Space Access Society's sole purpose is to promote near-term 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.) ________________________________________________________________________ Space Access Society http://www.space-access.org space.access@space-access.org "Reach low orbit and you're halfway to anywhere in the Solar System" - Robert Anson Heinlein