The opening of CommunicAsia comes at what could be the beginning of a new era in the Asia-Pacific region. For many years, the satellite communications sector has viewed the region with a sense of frustration, as governments throughout the market placed national pride above economic sense, and the desire to operate their own satellites hurt the business climate for established regional players that were trying to grow their business in order to compete with global players.

Progress seems to have been made with some governments, such as Asia Broadcast Satellite’s (ABS) November acquisition of Mabuhay Satellite of the Philippines. While parent company Philippine Long Distance Telephone (PLDT) may have enjoyed owning and operating its own satellite, the financial realities of having to replace the nearly 13-year-old Agila-2 as well as continue to operate and maintain a satellite communications facility probably did not make much sense. Selling the satellite and associated facility to ABS benefits PLDT, ABS and the overall satellite communications sector in the region, as a smaller number of healthy players and more reasonable transponder prices for the operators will help those surviving regional players compete against the global operators in a market considered ripe for satellite communications growth.

But moves like this likely will remain few and far between, as Asian governments continue to both invest in their own space technology as well as try to protect their markets for their domestic satellite operators.

It is due to these twin problems that operators like ABS have been or are turning more attention to areas outside of the region for growth. ABS expects only 20 percent of its future revenues to come from within the Asia-Pacific region, and the majority to come from markets in Eastern Europe, the Middle East and Africa, where competition is healthier according to CEO Tom Choi. “Unless the growth rate in Asia catches up with the supply in Asia, we are not going to see high fill rates or strong capacity prices. In other markets, supply is outstripping demand, resulting in higher prices.”

Another operator, Measat, also wants to become a global player. “While Asia will remain our core market, we are developing more into an emerging market operator. We want the company to be more of a global player than an Asian player,” says COO Paul Brown-Kenyon. Markets such as Africa are “easier” for new operators to gain a foothold than in some promising countries in the Asia-Pacific region.

While this may mean good news for users in Africa, who often complain that transponder prices are too high, it is customers and end users in the Asia-Pacific region who will suffer if governments around the region continue to place their own pride above smart business practices. Maybe some of the moves by the larger satellite operators in the region will convince governments to change and improve the situation once and for all.

The contrast of the two scenes that took place June 4 could not have been more apparent.

On one Web stream, NASA administrator Charles Bolden and U.S. Secretary of Commerce Gary Locke hosted a meeting in Orlando to discuss the Presidential Task Force on Space Industry Work Force and Economic Development. The event highlighted a $40 million initiative to spur regional economic growth and prepare space industry workers for opportunities after the retirement of the space shuttle fleet.

On a separate Web stream later that day, SpaceX broadcast the first demonstration launch of its Falcon 9 vehicle, a mission performed as part of the company’s contract to supply cargo to the International Space Station after NASA retires the Space Shuttle.

It was a banner day for those advocating that private companies take the lead on space. But, for those who believe that space holds the imagination of the country’s youth — specifically referring to NASA’s work in the past, it was not a day to remember.

This issue of Via Satellite includes the first of a two-part series that looks at the efforts that governments, companies and other organizations are taking to attract the next generations of engineers and other employees which, hopefully, will lead the industry into the future. The space workforce is aging and competition from other high technology sectors has cut into the talent pool that NASA and private companies used to rely on. “Within the aerospace industry, we really have not done a very good job of trying to keep up or keep our sector looking fresh or competitive, even though many of those career degrees have relevance here at NASA,” says Jim Stofan, acting associate administrator for education at NASA headquarters.

And an anecdotal look at one day in the life of the space sector highlights the problem for NASA — the agency and the government seem to have lost the ability to inspire, ceding that ground to private entrepreneurs. NASA is aware of the problem, but SpaceX and private companies won the media war on this June day, as there was exponentially more coverage of the SpaceX launch than of a task force discussion on the future of the NASA workforce in Florida and the potential loss of 8,000 jobs at Kennedy Space Center.

Of course, some of the reactions to the Falcon 9 launch are overblown. The success of one demonstration mission does not immediately change the paradigm of space. SpaceX and its commercial brethren still have a long way to go to be able to take over many of NASA’s functions. But as one organization that supports private space efforts said, “today heralded SpaceX’s successful test flight of Falcon 9 as an important milestone and proof point toward NASA’s vision for an expanded private sector role in commercial crew transportation to low-earth orbit.”

There will be a role for NASA and the U.S. government in space in the future, but the agency needs to take some lessons from the private sector as well.