Day 2 NewSpace: Removing Barriers to Commercial Space.

D-L Wilkinson's picture

The morning program centered around the NASA Commercial Space Department and the Office of the Chief Technologist.  While much of the conference is about breaking away from a Government run space industry, it will always remain a player and this is a transition period.  NASA will be transitioning from owning and operating space systems to buying space services according to the new national space policy.  This means creating partnerships vs customer/contractor relationship and creating broader opportunities for innovation.  The request from NASA manager Doug Comstock of NASA's Innovative Partnership Program to the audience was: what are the barriers to commercializing space and what are some proposed solutions? 

Toping the list of barriers are the perceptions all sides.  Included is the perception that commercial space can't do the job.   Resolution:  Several upcoming flights.  However, as I stated yesterday, it seemed to me that the successful Falcon launch went unnoticed by a lot of people (for myself I was just too buried in OpenLuna to make the effort to witness it in real time without it landing in my lap but I knew it was happening and I quickly learned the result).  The perception that the government has to do it which Paul and I have both seen in giving various presentations around the country.  There is always at least one person who is stuck in a Heritage Space mindset and can't even understand what we are trying to do.  The perception that space is for a choice few.  OpenLuna is trying to address that as part of it's open policy.  Opensource is not just about sharing the outcome but sharing the experience.  We are trying to bring space to everyone, starting first with names into space. 

We still have an evening Gala event to attend and another day of conference tomorrow so this is all I have time to report.  Spacevidcast.com is broadcasting it live if you want to tune in yet Sunday.  I did not see any of the speaking sessions uploaded and perhaps it will come yet.  Until tomorrow....

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