[12-06-07 – Satellite News] The business of space is heating up, particularly in the area commercial private human spaceflight, Patricia Grace Smith, associate administrator in the Office of Commercial Space Transportation for the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) said in a Dec. 6 speech to the Washington Space Business Roundtable.
    Since Smith last addressed the organization, worldwide space revenues have grown from $97.6 billion in 1998 to $220 billion in 2006. She credited much of the growth to investments in the development of private human spaceflight opportunities.
    “The FAA was not yet the agency in charge of private human spaceflight” in 1999, she said. “There were no regulations for experimental permits governing the testing of suborbital reusable launch vehicles. There were no regulations governing crew and passengers on suborbital flights. Between 1999 and today there have been nearly 200 expendable launch vehicle launch attempts. As the result of a steady and durable momentum, matched to a growing awareness of opportunities in space, all those things are now realities.”
    Events such as the Space Investment Summit are asking entrepreneurs to submit space commerce business plans. These entrepreneurs are expanding the definition of space to include other kinds of investments, especially those that are less “exotic” to conventional investors, Smith said. 
    Smith cited examples such as Google’s Lunar X-Prize, with the goal of putting a performing rover on the moon by the end of 2012, the Colorado School of Mines “Eighth Continent Project” to promote the development of space-oriented companies and Bigelow Aerospace’s $760 million contract offer for the development of a commercial space vehicle to take people into Earth orbit.
    “For all the years that people have wanted to do this, to make spaceflight a private enterprise, they are finally getting there,” she said.  “Vehicle developers and potential vehicle users alike understand that commercial space services extend the promise of more direct, less expensive access to low-Earth orbit.”
    The business of space contains many examples of ideas that originally may have been overlooked but later flourished. The key is to demonstrate that there is the opportunity to both make and save money in space.
    “Once private enterprise in the United States sees a money maker, it goes after it. In the [expendable launch vehicle] world, Boeing did. Lockheed Martin did. They sold the services of their vehicles and because they did, we take for granted Internet correspondence with New Zealand. We listen to XM and Sirius radio in our cars. We can talk to friends or family in Guam or in Tokyo or watch live TV from Cairo.”
    The FAA also is working to introduce smaller and newer companies to government programs. For the past two years, the FAA has hosted a summit for private entrepreneurial reusable launch vehicle developers to meet with U.S. Air Force representatives. “The purpose was to explain the quality of their hardware, the ability to deliver and the potential for lower private sector costs,” Smith said. “Private sector — that means space entrepreneurs looking to serve customers. Sounds like a winner to me.”
    Other opportunities exists with governments around the world, U.S. State Department trade controls such as International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR) inhibit the ability of American space companies to compete in the world market, Smith said. “I think [ITAR] is a barrier, I think it’s an impediment, I think it’s troublesome as we attempt to compete on a somewhat level playing field with international competitors,” she said. “It troubles me greatly that countries are saying ‘come here to us we can offer you an ITAR-free launch.’”
    It is vital that the United States get into the space business markets, not only for the money that is there to be made but also to maintain its reputation in the international community, Smith said.
    “In today’s fractious world, in today’s economy where there is no word in the language robust enough to describe the intensity of world economic competition, reputation and prestige count, a lot,” she said. “The United States has built a reputation for excellence in science by being excellent, by being the best. We were pioneers in manned spaceflight. We are leading the way to private human spaceflight. In so many areas of spaceflight, we have earned the right to be known as the best. We have more to earn.”