1. What statement best describes your interest in space? Please mark (or highlite with red font) all that apply to you
a. Supplier of space launch services or hardware/software
b. Supplier of ground processing or support services or hardware
c. Supplier of space based assets or services
d. Buyer/user of space services (e.g., biotech, material science, earth science)
e. Financier (Angel, VC, investment banking, etc.)
f. Media: News and Information
g. Other (Space Travel Agent)
2. Do you know about the NASA COTS program? (Commercial Orbital Transportation Services)
a. No or not much (if no skip to #7)
b. Have heard about it
c. Some knowledge
d. Very familiar
3. Did you or your organization apply for a NASA COTS award?
a. Yes
b. No
4. Do you think NASA should offer other COTS type programs?
a. Yes
b. No
c. Don’t know
5. Do you have any ideas for future NASA COTS type programs? If yes please briefly describe.
ESS would be interested in any program that would allow us to send our payloads to space for 4-12 weeks, and return to earth for delivery to our clients. A low cost $1500.00 per kilogram delivery system, capable of carrying thousands of KG to space, and then returning it when the client requirements were met, is a project of great interest to ESS.
6. Do you think the NASA COTS program could be improved? If so how?
For those of us in the emerging New Space markets, NASA and its COTS program look a whole lot like another NASA PR spin project, and not a serious commitment to developing entrepreneurial space. The best thing NASA could do in terms of developing a true entrepreneurial space program is to get out of the way.
You want to see innovation, stop pouring billions a year into BIG Space Lockheed / Boeing / Raytheon, while throwing table scraps at the little guys. True innovation such as the work being accomplished at Armadillo, Masten, Space X, X Cor, and others in the true entrepreneurial space markets could easily be fully funded to success for less than half the money being spent on the current COTS program.
Improve COTS by subsidizing the new commercial lift providers, and small market payload generators like ESS and we will reach out into Small Business USA and create new world wide markets for TINY SPACE which has completely been ignored by NASA.
NASA cannot be everything to everyone. NASA could open the doors to small businesses and educational markets by supporting the growth of the New Space lift providers with contracts subsidizing the payload providers in the educational services arena. This isn’t a market that requires a billion dollars a month to build. If you put 50 million a year in subsidies that stimulate payload development for these small lift service markets, you will see your investment returned a 1000 fold as new small businesses are created to develop and deliver lift services for small markets world wide. Since NASA is totally funded by taxes and not by Income it is in the best interest of NASA to expand the tax base by stimulating economic growth in entrepreneurial space. You best stimulate that growth by helping small companies succeed.
7. What do you see as the biggest barrier/obstacle to commercial space?
I believe the biggest barrier is NASA itself. Calling the COTS program a commercial venture is PR spin at its best and an outright lie at its worst. COTS is supported with tax payer money. It is not a for profit venture. It does not represent what Entrepreneurial Space is truly about. NASA is mandated to keep its big projects rolling and is blind to the small business sector opportunities. I easily can list a hundred markets that could benefit from having the capability to lift a small payload to space for a short period of time with a safe return to earth capability. Imagine the new markets that could be created by providing full cycle lift services for small packages. Biotech, Communications, Electronics, and other research, and specialty markets would open up quickly if such a service were available at a $500 a kilogram.
8. What do you think is the most important thing that NASA could do to support and promote commercial space?
Subsidize small New Space lift service providers to offer inexpensive lift cost to payload integrators for the small business and education markets. Not every dollar spent should benefit NASA, rather it should benefit the citizens of this country that pay the taxes that make NASA go. So by subsidizing New Space, without concern for the benefits to NASA, but rather the benefits to its citizens, NASA would then be accomplishing and important mission, and open new markets by getting out of the way.
9 Any other comments or suggestions regarding commercial space?
Stop calling COTS a commercial space program. It’s a subsidized tax based program that could disappear with the stroke of an administrator’s pen. The only true commercial space program is one built on profits, made from INCOME. NOT TAXES paid to contractors.
10. Name and contact information for follow-up (optional):
Name: Jerry Hilburn
Organization: Epsori Space Systems Inc.