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March Storm update

By Jeff Foust on 2006 February 3 at 5:27 am ET

The 2006 edition of the March Storm grassroots lobbying blitz is scheduled to begin in just over three weeks (given the timing of this year’s event, “February Blizzard” might be a more apt title.) In the online version of Ad Astra, the NSS magazine, ProSpace president Marc Schlather outlines the key items on this year’s agenda:

  1. Additional funding for the Commercial Orbital Transportation Services (COTS) program;
  2. The creation of a “Center for Entrepreneurial Space Access” at the Air Force Research Lab to foster cooperation between the military and entrepreneurial space companies (this seems linked to the industry consensus document released last month);
  3. Support for the “The Space Prizes for the Advancement of Commerce and Exploration Act of 2006″, a bill yet to be introduced that would establish a board to oversee spaceflight prizes (presumably superseding NASA’s Centennial Challenges program) and be authorized to offer prizes of up to $100 million;
  4. Additional funding for near Earth object (NEO) search programs included in last year’s NASA authorization bill as well as for the Minor Planet Center, the clearinghouse for asteroid observation data.

On the last point, ProSpace had advocated an expanded NEO search program during previous March Storms, supporting separate legislation that was eventually included in the authorization bill last year.

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1 comment to March Storm update

  • Tom
    February 3, 2006 at 9:32 am

    I receieved an email from ProSpace saying that they were dropping the last item:

    In December, the Congress passed the NASA Authorization Act of 2005. Contained within it is an instruction to NASA to begin searching for objects of 140 meters and larger and to provide a report to Congress within 12 months on how the agency is going to accomplish this new goal.

    This victory also presents us with an opportunity to revise our agenda this year. As this win completes much of what we have been seeking in our NEO program, we can now substitute the NEO portion of our agenda with another subject.