Notes de Space Frontier Foundation
Nyack, NY, November 23, 2009 – When we declared in 1988 that our purpose was “to unleash the power of free enterprise and lead a united humanity permanently into the Solar System” few people asked us: “who exactly will be doing the leading?” Those who did ask were usually overwhelmed by our audacity in answering: “the Space Frontier Foundation is an organization of people dedicated to opening the space frontier. We are the people who will lead humanity into the Solar System.”
What seemed pure braggadocio 21 years ago has become reality. Foundationers are working in numerous NewSpace companies, burrowed deep inside the US military, holding day jobs at the various NASA centers and even in leadership positions at NASA HQ. And everywhere Foundationers go they find the path forward has been at least partially cleared by the power of our ideas.
So, when the Augustine Committee concluded “that the ultimate goal of human exploration is to chart a path for human expansion into the solar system,” this wasn’t simply the work of the one Foundationer in the room, persuading all present to embrace our vision. It wasn’t even his proposal! All of us made this breakthrough possible by “changing the conversation about space.” When commercial crew and cargo made its way into public policy, it wasn’t just the work of Foundationers at the companies offering these services. All of us made this breakthrough possible by giving of our time and money. And, when Ares I is finally cancelled, it will not only be the work of our “kill Ares” swat team. All of us will have made this breakthrough possible through years of dedication to our shared vision.
In this context I hope you will see it as more than arrogance when I assert that we are engaged in something really, really important, a change as fundamental as the agricultural revolution, a transition as basic as industrialization. This is not the work of a single year, or even a single generation. Yet, it is something we can do. It is something we must do.
Not all of our actions will make much difference, but some of our initiatives will make a greater difference than anybody could possibly predict. Each additional dollar contributed to the Space Frontier Foundation, and each additional volunteer who makes the time to contribute, carries human civilization another step along the path to realizing our full potential. We remain an organization of people dedicated to opening the space frontier to human settlement. We don’t just talk about it. Ours is a heritage of action. We are the doers of NewSpace. And, we need your help.
We know that times are hard for many of you. That’s why two of our largest donors have agreed to match all donations, regardless of size, made between now and Thanksgiving. If you give $50, it becomes $100, if you give $5,000, it becomes $10,000; if you give a million – we’ll give you a call.
To donate by PayPal or credit card click here or send a check to:
Space Frontier Foundation
16 First Ave.
Nyack, NY 10960
To volunteer your time contact Will Watson at william.watson@spacefronti
Bob Werb
Chairman of the Board
Space Frontier Foundation
Donate to The Space Frontier Foundation
William J. Watson
Executive Director
william.watson@spacefronti
Space Frontier Foundation
Bob Werb
Chairman of the Board
bobwerb@optonline.net
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Nyack, NY, November 18, 2009 – It’s been a couple of months since the Augustine Committee had the temerity to suggest that maybe, just maybe, we should leave a few things that have long been the sole province of government to the vital and growing private sector. The push back from the forces of the status quo has been building ever since.
Even before the final report was issued, Congress called Norman Augustine to come up on the Hill for a hearing to lecture him on his misguided ways. The notion that the private sector should be “allowed” to carry humans into space was ridiculed as too risky – as if somehow government employees are inherently better at their jobs than other people.
Three weeks ago, the launch, to a height commonly achieved by model rocket builders, of the Ares I-X prototype, at a cost to taxpayers of over 400 million dollars, was hailed as proof that we need only stay the course. Buzz Aldrin, was buying none of that nonsense, witting in the Huffington Post that “the much-hyped Ares 1-X was much ado about nothing.”
Two weeks ago former astronaut and associate administrator, Scott “Doc” Horowitz, apparently taking a page from Dan Brown’s DECEPTION POINT, seemed to find a hidden political conspiracy by “a few people in the administration who want to kill Ares I and put all the money in commercial”. It’s entirely a coincidence that Horowitz used to work for ATK, maker of the Ares solid rocket motors.
Last week, when Time magazine declared Ares “The Best Invention of the Year,” we seized the offered hook to strike back and do a little truth-saying, congratulating NASA on its propaganda triumph, adding to our earlier insistence that Ares needs a death panel.
Since 1988 the Space Frontier Foundation has steadfastly advocated for precisely what is happening now. We continue to speak out for reason, confront resistance from self-serving bureaucratic, political and “industry” forces and change the world one mind at a time.
To keep this up we need your financial support.
We are pleased to announce that two of our largest donors have agreed to match all donations, regardless of size, made between now and Thanksgiving.
Please contribute today:
To donate by PayPal or credit card click here or send a check to:
Space Frontier Foundation
16 First Ave.
Nyack, NY 10960
To volunteer your time contact Will Watson at william.watson@spacefronti
Washington D.C., November 16, 2009 – Citing Time magazine’s selection of NASA’s proposed Ares rockets “The Best Invention of the Year” based on a single purported “test flight” of the vehicle on October 28th , the Space Frontier Foundation congratulated NASA on its propaganda triumph. The Foundation pointed out that the rocket launched by NASA was not an Ares 1 at all, but a dummy vehicle cobbled together from pieces of other space systems, an elaborate mock-up shaped and painted to look like the actual vehicle, which isn’t even scheduled to fly for another 7 years.
“While many reporters know that Ares 1 is far behind schedule and likely to be canceled as an unnecessary distraction from real exploration missions, apparently Time magazine fell for this publicity hoax. There was no boy in the balloon and there most definitely was no Ares rocket launched in Florida last month,” said the Foundation’s Rick Tumlinson. “If anyone at Time had taken the time to go beyond the NASA and contractor flacks, they would have found out what most people in the space community already knew. This was a marketing ploy designed to save a program threatened with imminent cancellation.”
Time’s assertion that the Ares 1 rocket is “The best and smartest and coolest thing built in 2009” is a simple error of fact and should be immediately retracted. There was no Ares 1 vehicle built in 2009.
Even if a real Ares 1 launch vehicle were ever built and launched, it would still be an obscenely wasteful duplication of existing commercial and military rockets, which doesn’t seem too smart or cool during our federal budget meltdown.
Writing in the Huffington Post, Apollo Moonwalker Buzz Aldrin put into words what is common knowledge in the space launch community: “Turns out the solid booster was – literally – bought from the Space Shuttle program, since a five-segment booster being designed for Ares wasn’t ready. So they put a fake can on top of the four-segmented motor to look like the real thing. Since the real Ares’ upper stage rocket engine, called the J-2X wasn’t ready either, they mounted a fake upper stage. No Orion capsule was ready, so – you guessed it – they mounted a fake capsule with a real-looking but fake escape rocket that wouldn’t have worked if the booster had failed. Since the guidance system for Ares wasn’t ready either they went and bought a unit from the Atlas rocket program and used it instead. Oh yes, the parachutes to recover the booster were the real thing — and one of the three failed, causing the booster to slam into the ocean too fast and banging the thing up…. So, why you might ask, if the whole machine was a bit of slight-of-hand rocketry did NASA bother to spend almost half a billion dollars (that’s billion with a “b”) in developing and launching the Ares 1-X? The answer: politics.”
The Space Frontier Foundation urges everyone who thinks that accuracy in the media is important to point their browser at http://www.time.com/time/s
Let’s show the media that truth matters and that news should be based on objective reality rather than politics and PR.
The Space Frontier Foundation (SFF) has updated the organization’s website with a new interface and new content. This is part of a continuing upgrade to the SFF website. A team has been working to develop a new site that is more responsive to our members.
The Space Frontier Foundation is currently in the planning process for March Storm 2010, an opportunity for space activists to take their visions of space frontier-enabling policies to representatives on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C. The current event is scheduled for early 2010.
To quote the NASA release:
"The Northrop Grumman Lunar Lander Challenge involves building and flying a rocket-powered vehicle that simulates the flight of a vehicle on the moon. The lander must take off vertically then travel horizontally, flying a mission profile designed to demonstrate both power and control before landing accurately at another spot. The same vehicle then must take off again, travel horizontally back to its original takeoff point and land successfully, all within a two-hour-and-15-minute time period."
My take on it:
"This was an excellent Prize and worked exactly as such an incentive should. It had modest yet challenging goals that were clearly defined and designed to stretch the capabilities of those working to win them.
Congratulations to Northrop Grumman, NASA and The XPrize Foundation for creating and managing the Challenge. This could have been a disaster or a dead end, but they showed the ability to work with the teams involved, adapt their own agendas and when needed get out of their own way so the teams could "do their thing." The other teams who worked hard but did not win should also be acknowledged, as they too represent the best of what this nation has to offer in creativity and hard work. I hope they too can apply what they have done to other endeavours.
The real challenge now is twofold: Can these firms leverage their winnings to achieve commercial viability in any areas directly relating to what they developed to win the prizes; and can and will NASA leverage off of their demonstrated capabilities to improve, accelerate and lower the costs associated with their own Lunar Program?
In other words, NASA and Grumman need to make sure that the successes of these two firms can permeate the "not invented here" walls often put up by their own development teams. These private teams accomplished for pennies on the dollar what government programs spend to do the same things. But the government managers should not feel threatened, for if they are creative and embrace this work they can check some of their own technical hurdles and use their own funds in other ways.
If NASA, Northrop Grumman and the other contractors working on our exploration program do embrace Masten and Armadillo and incorporate their work into their own through accepted business practices and partnerships etc. the taxpayers and prize organizations will have really done something important - and the prizes will have been a worthwhile investment.
Prizes work, Masten Space Systems and Armadillo Aerospace have shown that the American people have what it takes to open the space frontier - if given the chance and the right incentives."
Rick Tumlinson, co-founder of the Space Frontier Foundation
Nyack, NY, August 11, 2009 – After a weekend of presentations by several new companies in the NewSpace field, the judges of the 2009 NewSpace Business Plan Competition awards the following:
1st Place – Flagsuit, LLC
2nd Place – Syntiant
Honorable Mention – Santa Clara Satellite Solutions
The first place winner, Flagsuit, LLC, received a $5,000 cash prize courtesy of the Heinlein Trust and will have the opportunity to present their vision to entrepreneurs and investors alike at Space Investment Summit 7 on September 30th in Boston and attend an upcoming Space Angels Network event. Courtesy of FundingPost.com, Flagsuit will also receive a three month membership to the Space Angels Network website, 2 tickets to any one of their 15 VC conferences held annually nationwide (including attendance in their workshop), and the FundingPost Developed publication, “How to Raise Your First Million Dollars.”
Flagsuit, LLC Company Description:
Affordable spacesuits will transform the emerging private spaceflight industry by making it practical for humans to utilize cheap access to space. Flagsuit LLC is seeking funding to develop a hyperbaric (pressurized) suit with excellent mobility at a price that enables affordable spacesuits. The same product will fill a nonspace consumer need for a mobile chamber for hyperbaric oxygen therapy, creating a convenient way for people to treat and prevent disease. By pursuing both markets, risk from low early demand in the emerging spaceflight market is mitigated, positive cash flow is reached sooner, and Flagsuit becomes well positioned to deliver space qualified hyperbaric suits once that market solidifies.
Syntiant, Inc Company Description:
Syntiant will create a unique platform based on:
/– SynseVisionTM Virtual Visionware: a pair of glasses containing bio-feedback technology, GPS, Bluetooth, and stereo HD cameras. Data is captured and transmitted to Syntiant’sTM virtual world for 3D reconstruction so others can plug-in and experience the user’s vision and bio-response virtually.
/– Syntiant’sTM virtual world will offer 3D gesture-based data manipulation (as seen in Minority Report) to create an intuitive, easy-to-use navigation system. This overlay will permit a user to organize his or her data in 3D mind maps, navigate social media sites in a 3D gesture-based environment, and add immersive virtual reality 3D to gaming environments.
/– Base services are free as long as the user donates 5 hours per day of unused computing time to Syntiant’sTM Global Supercomputing Grid. The more computing time users donate, the more energy credits they earn to buy additional SyntiantsTM products and services.
The Space Fontier Foundation extends a sincere “Thank You” to all of this year’s finalists!
Aeronautic Enterprises
Aerospace Technologies
Flagsuit, LLC
Next Giant Leap
NoumeniaCS
PD Aerospace
Santa Clara Satellite
Syntiant
Thunderbird Communications
If you have a business plan that you would like considered for the NewSpace 2010 Business Plan competition, please watch for updates on next year’s schedule and submission deadlines at the Space Frontier Foundation
website.
Washington, D.C., August 19, 2009 – The Space Frontier Foundation today congratulated the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) and NASA on their joint discovery of water across the Lunar surface.
“This discovery marks a turning point for humanity’s future in space,” remarked Foundation Director Berin Szoka. “Just as lumber, coal, and oil found in the New World powered America’s development, the precious resource of Lunar water will enable a truly open frontier in space.”
Scientists had previously assumed the Moon was bone-dry except for small concentrations of ice at the poles, but the Indian probe Chandrayaan-1 has confirmed the presence of water throughout the Lunar surface frozen in Lunar soil where it could easily be harvested.
“If we have water we have the core elements needed to support life,” said SFF Founder Rick Tumlinson. “H2O is a magic formula: We can drink it, raise crops with it, or even break it down for oxygen to breathe. We can even recombine the hydrogen and oxygen to make rocket propellant. Confirming the widespread existence of Moonwater means we have a nearby oasis in space around which we can build true human communities beyond the Earth. There will be flowers on the Moon in our lifetimes.”
Since its creation in 1988, the Foundation has advocated using the resources we find in space to enable human exploration and settlement of the frontier-rather than carrying those resources from the Earth’s surface. These include both asteroid/comet materials and Lunar deposits such as those confirmed in today’s announcement.
“Lunar water will be the ‘mother’s milk’ of permanent human settlement not just of the Moon but of the rest of the Solar System,” concluded Szoka. “Finding water on the Moon is the key to opening the Space Frontier: Once you can refuel in space, you can ‘live off the land’ just like the early settlers who opened frontiers on Earth.”
Virgin Galactic, recently valued at $900 million, has secured Abu Dhabi’s Aabar Investments as a mega-angel investor with a $280 million investment. Rob Coppinger at Flight Global Virgin Galactic Gets Major Financial Push
Recent wind tunnel tests have been completed on XCOR Aerospace’s new suborbital spacecraft, the Lynx. Press Release at XCOR Aerospace An Aerodynamic Lynx