Space Politics

The Florida state legislature is set to convene a special session this week, primarily to take on state Medicaid reform. However, some legislators hope to squeeze some other issues on the agenda, including incentives for the state’s space industry. The proposal, by Rep. Bob Allen, a Republican from the Space Coast region of the state, would provide up to $250 million in incentives to lure whoever wins the CEV development contract from NASA to establish an assembly facility in the state. Florida Today endorsed the proposal in an editorial last week: “The stakes are enormous, considering Florida gained $3.3 billion in economic impact from NASA in 2004 — a figure certain to plummet as NASA restructures unless state officials show leadership and vision.” Lt. Gov. Toni Jennings said she hoped the legislature would only consider those issues that can’t wait until the next regular session in March; the Tallahassee Democrat said that the space industry incentives proposal is among those topics with “less momentum” than some other pressing issues.

Some notes about what’s going on outside the US on space policy topics:

Space News [subscription required] highlights an unexpected comment by a French official: research minister Francois Goulard said in a speech earlier this week that France “would have no autonomous space policy” outside of ESA. The comment apparently took many by surprise, given that France spends as much on its own space agency, CNES, as it provides to ESA (and the CNES budget will grow slightly over the next few years while its ESA contribution remains flat), and the country has freely cooperated with many nations, including non-ESA members, on a variety of projects. Does this represent a real change in policy, a way to rationalize non-ESA spending on space in France, or did Goulard—who has reportedly said little about space in the half-year he has held the post—simply misspeak?

Speaking of Europe, Space News also reports that European governments are contemplating a “Buy European” approach to launch services, requiring ESA member states to use European launch vehicles for their satellites. This would primarily affect small satellites, which have used Russian vehicles (Dnepr, Kosmos, and Rockot); the Swedish Space Corporation has also purchased a Falcon 1 launch from SpaceX. ESA is developing its own small launcher, the Vega, that had been widely expected to capture those launches anyway. The policy would also permit Soyuz launches once that vehicle starts operations from Kourou.

The British space industry is keeping a close eye on decisions to be made by Parliament on the amount of funding the UK will contribute to ESA projects, according to the BBC. Under ESA’s juste retour policies, the more money a country contributes, the more contracts that country’s companies get in return. British companies are concerned that Parliament will agree to far smaller contributions to programs like Global Monitoring for Environment and Security (GMES), which means less money for them.

And, as expected, Marc Garneau officially threw his hat (his toque?) into the ring as a candidate for the House of Commons in next month’s elections. As the official Liberal Party press release put it, “his bravery is inspiring, his grace is charming and his credentials are truly out of this world.” Canadians should be thankful for their short election seasons: they will only have to deal with tired rhetoric like “out of this world” through January 23.

MAtthew Hoey, a research associate at the Institute for Defense and Disarmament Studies, passed along a note that the slides from a presentation he gave on “United States Military Space Systems – The Road Ahead” last month are now online. Hoey argues that the “monopoly” held by the “Big 6″ defense contractors (Boeing, Lockheed, Northrop, General Dynamics, Raytheon, and Orbital) is now slipping as new, smaller companies (like SpaceDev, MicroSat Systems, and SpaceX) enter the market. His presentation touches on developments like Operationally Responsive Space and the interest in the US military in both protecting space assets and finding ways to deny space assets to opponents.

While this presentation is free of some of the fearmongering and hyperbole seen in some space weaponization presentations, Hoey does perhaps overstate some of his claims. While the military is open to working with smaller companies, the so-called “Big 6″ still get the vast majority of funding, particularly on missile defense projects. In another slide, he claims that Microcosm will be offering low-cost rapid-response launch in 24 months (emphasis in original); given that Microcosm lost out on the FALCON small launch vehicle downselect and is seeking alternative sources of funding, that timetable seems highly unlikely. He also overstates the importance of the ESPA ring, an adapter that allows EELV launches to carry several small satellites as secondary payloads; it appears that the ESPA ring will be used only sparingly (perhaps once every two years?) and there’s no guarantee it will become the adapter of choice for smallsat payloads.