There has been a flurry of email activity over the holiday weekend about the long-moribund Office of Space Commercialization (OSC) within the Commerce Department. In the past OSC has been charged with promoting the space industry in the US, and to those ends has published a number of studies, such as one of the earliest studies on potential markets for commercial suborbital vehicles. However, the office suffered from neglect in recent years and most of its staff left for other government or private sector offices, leaving just one person behind.
Now, it seems, there’s a push afoot to at least install someone in the vacant director’s office. There are at least three candidates for the job, but a decision, which had been planned for before the July 4 holiday, may now not be made for weeks. [Note: a previous version of this entry mentioned a specific individual candidate, who has since asked not to be mentioned by name because of the sensitive nature of the hiring process.]
Here’s a devil’s advocate type of question: do we even need an Office of Space Commercialization? What would this office do besides generate more reports? It seems like FAA is doing this today with the launch industry, including suborbital vehicle developers. Will more bureaucrats writing more reports really help support increased space commercialization, or is there something else this office could/should do to help the industry?
Yes we do need an Office of Space Commercialization. GPS is actually important. (And the Department of Commerce should be thinking about it.)
And in many cases its the Commerce Dept that will go to bat for you against the State Dept with respect to ITAR. The more you move stuff into Commerce and out of other departments the better off you are.
“Yes we do need an Office of Space Commercialization. GPS is actually important.”
But is GPS really a good case of “space commercialization”? GPS, after all, is a DOD-funded and operated system, with no plans to privatize it; indeed, the military’s hold on GPS is one of the main reasons Europe will be spending billions of euros on its own copy of it. Sure, there are companies that make money off of commercial GPS receivers and assorted services, but wouldn’t they be better served by an office of GIS commercialization? These “GPS companies” care little about space per se. If there was a way to deliver GPS signals by aerostats or ground-based towers or piggybacking on cellular services, they’d operate pretty much just the same.
I can’t fault GIS/GPS companies for caring about their own customers and profit instead of caring about space. Companies are supposed to care about customers and profit. In this case, some space satellites happen to be supremely useful to humanity, whether or not the same infrastructure could in theory be built on the ground. There is no sense being a purist who only cares about the Star Trek style of space flight.
Europe’s mistrust of GPS and its plan to build an alternative could be taken as a failure of American economic diplomacy, and therefore a failure of the Commerce Department. Maybe a more capable Office of Space Commercialization could have headed it off.
> Here’s a devil’s advocate type of question: do we even need an Office of Space
> Commercialization? What would this office do besides generate more reports?
> It seems like FAA is doing this today with the launch industry,
> including suborbital vehicle developers.
The FAA’s been doing it because the Office of Space Commerce didn’t have a budget and staff to do it. The fact that it’s working doesn’t make it ideal.
> is there something else this office could/should
> do to help the industry?
There are any number of things such an office could do, but first there has to be a functioning office.
“The fact that it’s working doesn’t make it ideal.”
Well, one could argue that any time the government does something that works the situation is pretty close to ideal! If it’s not broke, do you really want to try and fix it?
“There are any number of things such an office could do, but first there has to be a functioning office.”
Maybe I’m dense, but what exactly could (or should) such an office do? I’m sorry if I sound so stubborn, but I really don’t see how another government office writing government reports will help promote the commericalization of space.
> Well, one could argue that any time the government does something
> that works the situation is pretty close to ideal! If it’s not broke,
> do you really want to try and fix it?
The fact that your car still runs with the spare tire doesn’t mean it isn’t broke and you shouldn’t fix the flat.
>> “There are any number of things such an office could do, but first there
>> has to be a functioning office.”
> Maybe I’m dense, but what exactly could (or should) such an office do?
Market studies. Insurance studies. ITAR reform. Spaceport coordination.
I think the point of the DOC is to serve as a
business advocate to other agencies and international
partners. Commerce serves as a think tank
the suborbital institute has advocated on this issue for 3 years.
I think the point of the DOC is to serve as a
business advocate to other agencies and international
partners. Commerce serves as a think tank
the suborbital institute has advocated on this issue for 3 years.