During his speech yesterday at a Women in Aerospace breakfast in Washington, new NASA administrator Mike Griffin brought up the issue of commercial opportunities in the Vision for Space Exploration. Griffin made it clear that he would like to find ways to bring in entrepreneurial ventures into the exploration initiative, he is wary of crafting the plan so as to rely on them:
I cannot put public money at risk depending on a commercial provider to be in my critical path. He might not decide to show up, for good and valid business reasons. I cannot put return to the Moon and the Crew Exploration Vehicle… at risk, based on whether or not a commercial provider decides that he actually wants to do it that way. But I can provide mechanisms where, if a commercial provider shows up, government will stand down… I don’t want to pick winners, but I do want to be able to reward them.
Griffin offered similar sentiments in an exchange with Space Frontier Foundation co-founder Rick Tumlinson that Tumlinson shared (with permission) during last weekend’s Space Access ’05 conference:
Public money can be used to support more than one objective. In fact, I view my challenge with respect to commercial providers as being succinctly thus: How can I use public money to make a space market available to purely commercial enterprises — pay for performance, period — without having a government program that sits on the sidelines waiting for private industry to deliver? This latter alternative would constitute malfeasance for a public official. I have to execute a government program with public money that does NOT depend for its success on whether industry can do what they promise, or not. Yet, one of the “grades on my report card”, when I am done, should be, “What kind of commercial space industry have you left behind you?” The idea is not to pick winners, but to craft a program which rewards them, while not wasting public money. I have some ideas. Stay tuned.
Nice of you to NOT mention that you were at this event wearing a name tag that said “Futron”, that you were sitting at a table paid for by Futron, and that you were attending this event on Futron time.
Keith,
And why do I care what badge Jeff wore and what table he sat at? In Phoenix last week everyone wore at least 3 different hats and no one had any problem with it. Those who know Jeff will know who is sometimes employer is. So far you’re the only one who gets all “tin foil hat” about it… I assume that by your post you require all of us to list all of our affiliations? Ok, I’ll bite:
Artemis Society Chair
VP Business Development – Masten Space Systems
EPCglobal SAG ONS Working Group Chair
IETF URN Evaluation Invited Expert
Refactored Networks, LLC – CEO
Rocketforge.org – Editor
I think Keith was just asking for some professional disclosure as to Jeff’s access to the event. I heard it was sold out, so access connotes some degree of privilege.
But why does Jeff get asked about “professional disclosure” and no one else? Asking everyone to disclose might be considered an attempt at transparency, but asking one person to repeatedly disclose something everyone already knows and not asking anyone else sounds more like snarky jealousy to me.
And what would the professional disclosure have accomplished anyway. Does it change the meaning of what Jeff reported?
Take last week for example, Jim Muncy gave a talk on t/space and the political stuff polispace had been doing. Everyone knew that Jim was working for both but no one really cared. And noone ever asked which organization payed for his plane ticket and hotel room. Its the nature of our incenstuous little business.
So why pick on Jeff?
Jeff runs a commercial news website, is quoted as a launch policy analyst (recent Space News), shows up at “press” sites for launch events, often attends events on company time which he then writes about, and is paid to analyze the things he reports on by a company which takes federal funds as well as money from the very launch companies whose efforts his company analyzes. I have no problem with him doing this per se – I just think he needs to be a much more forthcoming about who is subsidizing his activities – and his access to events.
For the record I got in free to the event yesteday as media. I had 2.5 cups of coffee and only ate 60% of the greasy breakfast.
If Keith Cowing wants professional disclosure from Jeff Foust, he sure picked an unprofessional way to ask for it!
Yea, Jeff does all that. I run a news and commentary website that I make money on and I actually work for a launch company. I guess you’d have a point if any of us were actually getting rich off this stuff. We aren’t. We’re all doing whatever we can to pay the bills, not have our wives kick us out of the house, and still live a dream most consider insane. Jeff found a company that pays him a salary and lets him blog and go to cool press events. Good for him! I’m still mooching off of frequent flyer miles from VeriSign, staying at friends houses and trying to find funding for my non-space startup.
If the criteria for disclosure is that tight then yea, we will all have to start disclosing things. I guess my criteria would be: have you done something bad in the past and are you making money off of it. So far, with the exception of Walt Anderson (and even then he had good intentions) I haven’t seen anyone in this business do anything horrible enough to require that kind of continuous, SEC-esque disclosure everytime he says something. None of us are making that much money…
Tax evasion with noble intentions?
Tax evasion done badly with noble intentions. From what I’ve seen Walt wasn’t trying very hard to hide it. Most of what he was doing was kindergarten style tax evasion techniques. If it took the IRS that long to “get him” then no wonder they can’t get the guys who are really good at it.
“Dave” writes:
I heard it was sold out, so access connotes some degree of privilege.
The event was open to the paying public up to the capacity of the room (on the order of 200 people), so the only “privilege” connoted was to those with the ability to pay and who signed up before the room filled to capacity. And, as previously noted, members of the media could attend and eat breakfast at no charge, a not-uncommon practice. I was pleasantly surprised when my employer purchased a table and invited me to sit there; prior to that invitation I had planned to purchase admission myself.
In today’s spirit of full disclosure, I will also note that I am a dues-paying member of WIA (yes, they let men join), but did not play a role in organizing the breakfast event beyond answering a few questions about the venue for a colleague who is a WIA officer and helped organize the event.
What most surprises me, though, is that no one has commented yet on Griffin’s message itself. The role that commercial ventures will play in supporting the Vision for Space Exploration—as discussed in the original policy statement and endorsed strongly by the Aldridge Commission—may be one of the keys to the ultimate success or failure of the overall Vision. I’m curious what people think, positively or negatively, about Griffin’s stance on the topic: is he striking the right balance, or should he be more aggressive or cautious?
I blogged about it here. Here’s the gist of what I had to say:
Or as Rick said last week: “Don’t trust _AND_ verify”…
Interesting discussion.
I combine a part-time career in spaceflight journalism with a hobby of investing “play money” in a large number of small public space-related companies in the hope of ending up on the bottom floor of the first “British East India Company” of the Solar System. (For the record, in well over a decade I haven’t made my fortune but I haven’t lost significant money either — which I consider a vast success in today’s investment environment!)
I am the first to admit that these two activities do not sit well together.
My personal rule is that any financial interest should be disclosed. Therefore, whenever I mention a company that I own stock in, there is a notice at the bottom of the article stating that I am a small shareholder in the company. So far, every journal I have written for has published my notice. While I think I am successful at keeping my financial interests out of my writing, my audience is entitled to know that there is the potential for a financial bias in my reporting.
I would suggest that a similar model would work for most people. If you are providing opinions and / or information, and you have a financial interest in that information, your audience has a right to know. On this rule, I would suggest that it would have been nice to know who was paying Dr. Griffin to speak, even if they were only paying his expenses.
— Donald
I attended the WIA breakfast and was quite impressed with Dr. Griffin’s remarks. His careful description of the roles of commercial and civil space are exactly right, in my opinion, and his sense of duty to the American taxpayer was evident.
I was particularly impressed with his characterization of human migration through space taking thousands of years. Few leaders in this city think much beyond ten feet, and it is refreshing to hear one describe the future in terms of centuries or millennia. For a NASA administrator to think in terms of such long time spans is not only appropriate, but required when considering the magnitude of the adventure that awaits us.
Kieth – I’ve worked with Jeff for several years and can tell you that his sense of honor and integrity, particularly in terms of his research and writing, are very high. Given the crass nature of some of your reporting, I’m guessing your motivations for consistently attacking Jeff have more to do with professional jealousy than anything else.
Phil,
That statement actually makes my point. A good number of us are putting work and money into building businesses that make space available in our lifetimes and migration available in our kids lifetimes (or ours assuming lifespans keep growing). Having Mike Griffin come out and say “routine migration into space will take thousands of years” does actual harm to businesses who are attempting to attract investors to businesses now.
I would be much happier if Mike Griffin had said “human migration into space will probably exist in our lifetime in some form. A large scale human diaspora into space may take a few hundred years to really get going, but given the pace of technological acceleration I don’t see it as a “thousands of years” proposition”.
What I think Mike has to realize is that, even though he doesn’t want to pick a winner, he already has by assuming that NASA is right. Investors looking at private companies will listen to NASA more than they will a startup. Sure, Burt is helping prove that wrong, but Mike isn’t helping. He’s hurting the effort by saying things like “thousands of years”.
Griffin also talked about heavy lift at that same breakfast:
> > “As NASA administrator today, I already own a heavy lifter,” Griffin said. “Every time I launch, I launch more than 100 metric tons into low orbit, which of course is what you need for returning to the moon. … I will not give that up lightly, and in fact, can’t responsibly do so, because it seems to me that any other solution for getting 100 metric tons to orbit is going to be more expensive that utilizing efficiently what we, NASA, already own.”
Bill,
Yep. So if SpaceX does build a Falcon VI that was in that realm of heavy lift does that mean Griffin is going to toss the Shuttle C in the closet? What about during the phase before Elon actually launches the Falcon VI, is NASA going to actively tell Elon’s investors that Shuttle C will close down the day it flies? Given the size of the standing army that Shuttle C would command, I can’t see them doing that. That statement by Mike Griffin suggests that he wouldn’t let go of the really cool rocket he “already owns”.
As a taxpayer, I want rational, practical thinking on the part of the manager of public space funds, not a cheerleader for the unlikely. I am tired of the unrealistic exhuberance so prevalent in the space community, a condition probably exacerbated by the proliferation of science fiction ideals. We need inspiration, to be sure, but we also need to make sure we don’t sell the taxpayers a bill of goods.
The President is actually the person who should articulate a vision in such a way as to be inspiring, but not overly so as to make policies that defy reason. He failed miserably at the inspiration part, but at least a plan of some worth was produced. The NASA Administrator needs to carry it out to the best of his or her ability, nothing more. That’s the essence of Dr. Griffin’s comments.
As for human migration through space, it has indeed already started. The first phase, Entering Space has already occured (biginning, I think, with Jules Verne’s 1865 De la Terre a la Lune), and will continue for a few more decades. Accessing Space is the next phase (we are transitioning into this), when more efficient forms of space transportation from Earth to orbit have been achieved. This will take longer than most people think, because the challenges have more to do with socio-economics than technology (though the latter is not trivial).
Settlements on the Moon will not be that impressive for some time. By this I mean that Shackleton-like expeditions and McMurdo-style bases will be the norm for about 100 years or so, if not longer. Living on the Moon (that is, living comfortably) is a long way off. Settling Mars? Well, that you and I won’t see. Nor will your kids.
As you know, space is a vast and dangerous realm. It makes the challenges we encountered on Earth pale in comparison. We must meet this enormous challenge with a combination of courage, humility, and measured enthusiasm. It took us 10,000 years to get from plow to where we are today, and this is a relatively big, complicated world still in the throes of global development. A solar system that spans billions of kilometers is an entirely new thing altogether. To simply overlay our planetary experiences on this new environment is shortsighted. A classic example is this idea of technological advancement – “Just look at where we were 100 years ago. Surely we will be living on Mars in the next 100 years.” Really? Based on what? Technological advancement is only one part of a complicated equation that makes the best derivative equation in calculus look like simple arithmatic.
We will become a spacefaring civilization. Of this, I have no doubt. I feel it in my bones. But it will take a dreadfully long time to become such a thing. I feel honored that I am alive at a time when I can see the light and participate, if in some small way, in the early tentative steps off the Earth.
We can be inspired by the idea that our descendant, near and distant, will be citizens of a vast interplanetary civilization composed of many distinct societies. It is a vision of hope and promise for humanity. We can also be strongly inspired by the idea that we are, today, the founders of such a civilization. That’s the message we want to convey, I think: We can be the founders of a spacefaring civilization. My guess is that doesn’t happen very often in the galaxy…
I am well aware that I am in the minority with this viewpoint, but it is what I think.
Dear Phil,
If you’re a minority, I’m with you one-hundred percent. Check out the introduction to this article that I wrote many years ago . . . for a Science Fiction magazine!
http://www.speakeasy.org/~donaldfr/supersky.htm
While the rest of the article is painfully out-of-date, I wouldn’t change a word of the introduction.
The lesson of history, I believe, is the establishment of trade. When there is something to trade, and someone to trade it with, that is when human spaceflight will take off and not a moment before. That is why getting those early “Shackletonian” outposts like space stations, lunar bases, and astroid expeditions, up there have to be the highest priority, before efficient transportation, before applications, before science — before anything. Once we have a commercial reason to be up there, the rest will take care of itself.
That said, for this to work, once something is established it should be commercialized ASAP.
— Donald
Michael,
I believe alt-space should be prepared (if necessary)to just ignore NASA and maybe rally together to loft a Bigelow style LEO hotel with multiple Protons, or something like that. I saw a report that Protons now cost $50 million each because of current weak launch demand.
Sell name rights to a major hotel chain for a few hundred million and deploy an honest-to-God hotel to be serviced by Soyuz, at least initially. Maybe Richard Branson wants to buy a hotel chain and would pay $400 million for his name on the first ever commercial LEO hotel.
Then, Elon Musk has something to shoot for with a man-rated Falcon.
Lobby NASA? Of course. But don’t put all your egs in one basket.
Bill,
Most definitely. Few of us are waiting on NASA. I know Masten Space Systems isn’t. My point wasn’t that I was necessarily looking to NASA as a customer, but that Mike Griffin’s rhetoric around commercialisation wasn’t all goodness and light. Heck, even if NASA wanted to buy a ship from us we’d ask for their credit card and tell them where they could stick their paperwork requirements.
To: Greg Kuperberg
Man what a small world, your mother taught my Calc IV (Numberical Methods) class at Auburn during my freshman year in Computer Engineering.
This comment thread has gone all over the place anyway…
Ignoring Nasa may be possible but now that the FAA is in charge of space flight for everyone else. We now do have a very large paper mound in front of us just to go to sub orbital. Along with the problem of technology leaving the states for even spaceshipone to the brit’s for the virgin air plan. Very little will change as the big boys have now collaberated to lock everyone else out of the launch game.
We will see by the end of the year the direction that Griffin will take for CEV and of exploration as he takes on more control of everyday operations.
Griffin is building up Political Capital right now making everyone feel good. I still would like a full transcript. I think it was a correct thing to say right now. The “stay tuned” part has me on the edge of my seat like i haven’t been since the first couple of flights of the DC-X. Lets just hopes he spends it soon.
And Keith:
Spacepolitics.com is not a commercial site so why should he need to disclose here? He discloses on his articles on thespacereview. I don’t seem to recall your disclosures Keith when Nasawach wasn’t a commercial site. Just a whole lot of whining that the PAO wasn’t giving you press credentials.
So while we are all disclosing:
Former member of Artemis Society
Former member of The Planetary Society
Former founding member of The Mars Society
Former Game Develpoer for Mare Crisium
Current Systems Enginneer for Earthlink Inc. (I am currently on my lunch break)
Current Independant Space Activist trying to find the keystone that will wake up the people to that our very survival depends on cheap acess to space.
Why am I not a member of any space organization? Because none of the groups out there has enough public outreach that really matters. Nor do i have the skills or apptitude for those skills (i’ve spent years trying to get those skills) to spear head it in such an organzation.Plus it allows be to speak my mind without making a black mark on such organizations with good intentions. Or closer to the truth my time in those organzations have made me a bitter cynic.
Matthew et al: as I said before, Jeff runs a commercial news website, is quoted as a launch policy analyst (recent Space News), shows up at “press” sites for launch events, often attends events on company time which he then writes about, and is paid to analyze the things he reports on by a company which takes federal funds as well as money from the very launch companies whose efforts his company (Futron) analyzes. I have no problem with him doing this per se – as long as he is open about who pays him to do what. I just think he needs to be a much more forthcoming about who is subsidizing his activities – and his access to events – regardless of where he posts.
So if I post on my blog which has no advertising no revenue coming in about some niffty new tech i find out about at a conference my company paid to me to go to, i have to disclose that?
What commercial site does he run? I’m unaware of the site and would like to see if he discloses there. If you mean this site, well Spacepolitics.com is not a commercial website. Commercial indicates revenue. The “.com” in the domain is no longer a desgnation of a comercial domain just like .org no longer means a non profit organzation. Those desgnations stopped meaning anything a long time ago. Around the time of your worm watch program
I miss the worm.
If you don’t see it that way well we can only agree to disagree. Just don’t see see any reason for you to force the issue then out of envy of someone who doesn’t disrespect others, or perhaps some sort of grudge, which you seem to keep for a long time. From my only exposure to your comments here and your editor’s notes on NASA watch.
No envy, Matt. Nor any grudge. Just annoyance that Jeff and Futron won’t simply admit the obvious.
Interesting hypothesis you are implying but stating directly. So I’ll state it as i see it.
That Futron suppliments Jeff for his work on this site and he uses his Futron creditals to get where others can’t. And that its government Money being spent to do so. Two questions at that:
How long has this site or Jeffs other endevours along these lines been around and how longhas Jeff been working for Futron? Might it not have been because of this and other works of his is how he got the job. I got that Game development job because of my personal intrest.
How much of futron is governmental contract and how much is private sources? (Tough question to answer because of NDA agreements think tanks have to deal with)
even if there is a collusion, what does futron get out of this? I know what I as a tax payer gets out of this.. Information I never would have gotten other wise. I live in the other Washington, i can’t make trips to DC everytime a talk like this occurs. (Which is why i wish transcripts were avaiable) I also get out of this insight to how it all works so I can keep the hope that the human race and culture and history and art will survive long after we are dust. Every plan I’ve come up with to help us become spacefaring always runs into politics.
Futron gets the same thing I, you, and everyone else who vists this site. A source of information and an eventual historical record of how things played out in the past. And a place to discuss our Opinions, thoughts, and yes annoyances.
Brown: “Every plan I’ve come up with to help us become spacefaring always runs into politics.”
DUH.
Well not “DUH” on everything a long long time ago back when i was in high school, I had a “brillant” plan to start a company that developed technologies
required for Space Habitation that had signifigant viablity on Earth. But i’d develop the earth uses and make money from that. And use the profits from one technology to start the next and so on. Well I thought, automatic hydroponics, that wouldn’t ruffle anyones feathers would it? (Well i should have asked myself that question at the time, before i spent a signifgant amount of my own money at the time tinkering with hydroponics) Then i read a book about the big 3 Agriculture companies and there lobbys. I then realsized exporting to desert countries would be blocked by them. And subversive space technologies was not even viable. AT the time i had a temper, I still have a bit of one but i’ve mellowed lot since then.
Politics is still a foreign concept to my highly technical mind. WHich is why I’ll never be well off but that others who can do the politics will get rich off me and my ideas. But i decided in the end i don’t care, as long as we do become space faring. I can see the walls, but i never can see the gate. And the gate is what i hope to see with this blog.
I have to agree with Kieth on this one (and Jim Muncy in an earlier post). We are talking about spending the public’s money. Politics is, and should be, involved any time we plan to spend public money, on spaceflight or anything else. Duh, indeed.
— Donald
Just for the record, Futron does not “take” money from government sources. It earns it through contracts which are competed.
Futron is a commercial company, not an FFRDC, a think tank, or a non-profit. Often, Futron is misunderstood. As for Kieth’s comments about Jeff’s disclosures, this is a dead horse that keeps getting beat on. I have no idea how or when this will be resolved to anyone’s satisfaction. One thing for sure, the nature of our interactions in this Information Age are becoming increasingly complex and difficult to characterize easily…
Futron is a company that is paid money by the government and aerospace companies for services rendered. Jeff works for that company. He is paid to do analysis for Futron’s clients. He also goes to events – as press – including launches. He is also quoted as an industry expert.