Jim Muncy at New Space

NewSpace 2010: NewSpace Today



NewSpace Today
Introduction to the NewSpace 2010 Conference: Where does the NewSpace industry currently stand and where is it likely to go in the future? Speaker: Jim Muncy Co-Founder, Space Frontier Foundation, President, PoliSpace

Insanity in the Senate

"Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results." - Albert Einstein. By this definition the Senate Commerce, Science and Space Committee is insane for pushing NASA to immediately build a Shuttle Derived Heavy Lift Launch Vehicle because it will require the use of the Solid Rocket Motors. Solid Rocket Motors cost the lives of the Challenger Astronauts.

NASA Press Conference

Congressional Bill Calls for Commission on Planetary Defense

Congressional Bill Calls for Commission on Planetary Defense

Congressman Dana Rohrabacher (Republican from California) has introduced a bill calling for the establishment of a United States Commission on Planetary Defense. Such a group would offer guidance, among a list of tasks, on neutralizing a Near Earth Object (NEO) that may have cross-hairs on our home planet.

Space Manufacturing 14 Call for Papers

Space Manufacturing 14: Critical Technologies for Space Settlement will be held at NASA Ames Conference Center in Mountain View, CA, October 30 and 31, 2010.

Thirty five years ago, NASA Ames Research Center was the site of the first large technical study of space settlement. We have made significant progress since then, but with the prospect of low cost space transportation in the near future, now is the time to reinvigorate research and collaboration on the critical path technologies needed for space industrialization and settlement. The 14th Space Studies Institute conference on Space Manufacturing continues in the spirit of the Princeton Conferences initiated by Prof. Gerard K O’Neill in 1974.

The Space Manufacturing and Space Settlement Conferences have always given SSI great value. This conference is the only one solely concerned with the science and engineering of humanity’s expansion into the solar system. Its most important function is to bring together the engineers, entrepreneurs and researchers who do the real work. New space companies and new institutions have formed from collaborations forged at earlier conferences. We hope that this and future annual SSI conferences will be as fruitful.

The specific purpose of Space Manufacturing 14 is to identify and recommend critical hardware research that can be conducted now by SSI, NASA and other organizations.

To focus and facilitate discussion, all papers must conform to the following baseline assumptions:

Must be focused on Research and Hardware Demonstrations; Legal Session requests must be focused on Research and Scholarly Analysis.

Sessions and Preliminary Schedule are as follows:

Saturday, October 30, 2010

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Session 1: Space Transportation Architecture 

Session Chair: Gary C Hudson

9:30-11:00am

Session 2: Closed Environment Life Support Systems

Session Chair: Taber McCallum

11:00am – 12:30pm

Session 3: Robotics and Space Manufacturing

Session Chair: Professor William (Red) Whittaker

2-3:30pm

Session 4: Extraterrestrial Prospecting

Session Chair: Professor Michael F. A’Hearn

3:30-5pm

Sunday, October 31, 2010

Session 5: Engineering Materials from Non-Terrestrial Resources

Session Chair: Dr. Peter J. Schubert

9:30-11:00am

Session 6: Space Solar Power and Space Energy Systems

Session Chair: Dr. Philip K. Chapman

11:00am – 12:30pm

Session 7: International, Legal and Economic Considerations

Session Chair: James E. Dunstan, Esq.

2-3:30pm

Abstract submissions shall be:

No longer than 1000 words, and provide an outline of a presentation on research and hardware demonstrations and scholarly analysis (for legal) and a brief biography of the presenter (not to be counted as part of the 1000 word limit).

Submitted on or before August 16, 2010 by email to Colette Christiansen atabstracts2010@ssi.org, indicating for which session the paper is proposed.

Selected abstracts will be based on compliance with the baseline assumptions and likelihood to promote discussion during the sessions. Authors of selected papers will be notified by August 23, 2010.

All papers: Authors retain copyright of their works. SSI will have non exclusive publication rights for SSI; appearance release for video archives; and presentation publication rights (non exclusive to SSI). Final agenda expected to be published September 1, 2010.

Final Papers must be submitted within 14 days of the close of the conference (November 14, 2010) and shall be between 5 and 10 (electronic) pages when published. Publication guidelines will be sent to all invited and selected presenters.

For more information on abstracts, contact Colette Christiansen, Conference Director, at the submission email address (abstracts2010@ssi.org) or write to Space Manufacturing 14, Space Studies Institute, 1434 Flightline Street, Mojave, CA 93501.

Session chairs and presenters will be comped for registration (including lunch). Public registration for the conference will open in July.

NASA Has Been A Foreign Policy Agency For Decades

There has been a lot of recent criticism of NASA Administrator Bolden for saying one of NASA's priorities was outreach to Muslim countries, but NASA has a long history as a foreign policy agency. Apollo was nuclear war by other means. Apollo-Soyuz turned NASA from international competition to international cooperation. Which was continued by the International Space Station which used foreign policy to justify its existence. Bolden's comments are a sign of how far NASA has fallen from greatness but are not surprising.

International cooperation is incompatible with American dominance of space. American dominance of space should be NASA's main goal. Since the US proclaimed we came in peace for all mankind instead of claiming a chuck of territory around the Apollo 11 landing site, the US has been to timid to dominate space. Instead the US slunk into the safety of international cooperation.