Doug Messier of Parabolic Arc - America's Rocket Renaissance: Opportunities, Possibilities, and Threats

Doug Messier of Parabolic Arc - America's Rocket Renaissance: Opportunities, Possibilities, and Threats

Some of been thinking our best days are in the past.  Doug feels like there are a number of projects and programs, some of which will bear fruit.  He reviewed them.  America is in a good position to dominate the space age.  We could have trillion dollar corporations.  There will be off-world exploration and settlements.  We may have affordable energy satellites.

Politics could be disruptive.  Policy are often changing.  There is a great potential for over-regulations.

Industry might also suffer a set back from accidents, unreliable systems, uneconomical programs, overestimation of the market and poor transitional management.

Doug considered various scenarios.

Scenario One: 2013-2021:  American launch vehicle competitive, profitable suborbital market develops, 2 commercial crew systems in operation ....

Scenario two: 2013-2021:  American launch vehicle competitive, profitable suborbital market develops, 2 commercial crew systems in operation, 2 profitable Bigelow, private industry beats NASA into deep space

Scenario three: 2013-2021:  Commercial projects fail at suborbital and orbital levels, deep space ventures premature bubble, NASA's SLS/Orion remain only way into space, other countries dominate space

Conclusions:

Enormous potential in this New Space Age
Open up space to a vast array of activities
America in the lead
Capabilities based exploration
\Many Obstacle to over come
Need to maintain an environment of innovation and risk taking
Companies need to deliver on promises
Government needs to be consistent


The full agenda for Space Access 2013 agenda.