Michael Kaufman

Everyone please come on down and take a seat and we'll start the session. First, I'd like to say a quick word about the report outs. Every group had a different area of focus, let us know what that was and tell us the "difference that makes a difference" about your work. After these reports we will have a working lunch. We can go in any order you like. Who's first?

Team 4: Policy

The first thing we did was identifiy problems. I'll start there and then look at the opportunities we listed.

One of the problems is that the Space Act was set up for NASA to develop partnerships with companies that had a good idea. Sometimes we want to be sure there's a lot of competition and sometimes there's a company that has an idea that no one else has. The act allows for NASA to contract with individual companies, but it isn't done often.

Second is the issue of international development. Many countries have been upset because they haven't been given a meaningful role.

ITAR is a major barrier to international cooperation.

Getting the right team together is another important issue that needs to be solved.

Next, NASA's role in commercial space isn't clear and consistent, and things change often. NASA's continual shifts in focus can be disruptive to commercial involvement. Finally, business can't count on NASA to maintain a constant direction.

Now for the opportunities and solutions.

As I noted, it's important to facilitate competitiveness and international trade. In the end there's more business for everyone by balancing domestic and international interests.

Second is advanced purchase over the long term. We need new legislation to do this.

Many of the entrepreneurial companies want fix priced contracts.

One possibility is to address the infrastructure need by a national infrastructure act. The infrastructure act would address things like: How do you produce power? How are our communications set up? What are the propellant guidelines? Basically the act would address how all these types of things would be built.

Government involvement is a major issue. How much government involvement are we talking about? And at what level - is it federal, state, or local? We want to invite participation.

We need to balance government roles in infrastructure and have incentives for involvement.

Allowing business to create intellectual property with government money would attract players.

Other key things we listed were: concessions, tax credits for investments, and advanced purchase contracts. Private sector development is big. We need things that the government will guarantee if it's actually produced. Also, we could expand the prize program to help incentivize this. R&D is big - venture capital is key.

Finally, we could create a new industry council. It would be made up of entrepreneursip, maintenance, non-space, etc. and call it The Advisory Committee on Commercial Enterprises in the Solar System - ACCESS.

First we had to figure out what was infrastructure. We looked at infrastructure from the earth's perspective first then we talked about things like space lanes. Then we talked about the potential players and the need to have a driving reason for infrastructure.

One of the first things we should look at from an infrastructure perspective is the idea of mining and its many benefits and opportunities.

We have to ask the question of government involvement. How much do we have and what does it look like? We need a single point of contact and an international interface. The international interface would work just like we have airports. Planes can land and take off from all over the world as long as they follow certain standards and communicate. We have to have standards, and the government could help facilitate this.

Easy Access is key. There's been a lot of research, but we need to make it easier to get to the information for private companies.

Other key things we talked about were: ITAR restructuring, tax incentives, and being a good customer. We have to help private companies become paying customers.

NASA has to focus on doing primary research. The government has to invest in research that will be used by all the private companies involved.

Services and marketing are other major issues. We haven't done a good job of letting people know what the benefit is to them. We need to translate what we're doing so people understand why it's a benefit to them. People want to know what they're going to get out of this.

Michael Kaufman

What was the most viable opportunity?

Space ports was one we talked about. We're starting to see joint ventures already focused on that.

The initial thing we looked at was "is it R&D or market-led?" We believe this has to be industry-led. We have to identify the markets. There are markets like mining, communications, pharmaceuticals, and biotech which are big. Tourism also has a lot of potential, and this includes space ports and ancillary things like Space Olympics.

What are the barriers now? The largest barrier right now is infrastructure. If it was already in place people would be coming to the table now. Once it's in place, things like floating ET tanks or Space Lab, then you could put together a lot of different industry sectors. I liken it to Fed Ex. Fed Ex is a coordinator. It takes someone with vision to coordinate resources like they did to lower cost the cost of delivery.

Competing versus cooperation is a major issue. There seems to be a lot of R&D on the same stuff now. We need to unify a lot of the common goals. We thought of this sort of like the ideal United Nations of Space.

There has to be a balance between government involvement and private involvement. From government there's a disconnect with a bottom line association. We have to blend the best of commercial with the best of government. Then we have to create roles and rules that support both. How do we mandate a set of rules to support this and not strangle the commercial entry?

Communication between players is key. How can we open up communications? Perhaps some of the things like the Space Portal or ACCESS could help here.

We need a catalyst for synergy. ACCESS could help do this and the RPCs are already doing a good job. We have to look at what are the profiles of the players we want to involve? Independent societies can help. Do they realize how we can benefit them? We also looked at other government agencies like the US Geological Society. They could be a stakeholder in the mining development.

All of this has be be lead by ROI. But the flip side of this in the humanitarian issue - we have to make it clear about all of the benefits to mankind that can arise from space. Things like fresh water, and disease research are just a couple of things where space can help us.

Michael Kaufman

What was the most viable commercial opportunity?

We said pharmaceutical and biotech. It's hungry and investor-friendly and already it's demonstrated results.

But other things like space tourism and sports entertainment may be the leaders in making a lot of stuff happen in the future. In the future there could be a huge revenue and interest generation due to sports. If you can get sports up there, that will equal a lot of money.

The defining point of exploration is to see what we can uncover and learn about space.

We started off by looking at problems. Then we defined opportunities as being either "push" or "pull" processes. There are pain points in the biotech industry that space can help - this is a "push". "Pull" are things that we have mastered in the biotech world that can help the space industry. We came up with five opportunity areas to focus on:

1. Protein Crystallography. It's tricky for us in the lab to grow proteins in general. By utilizing space we can derive many benifits. This is a "push" because the biotech's need would be driving space exploration.

2. Infectious disease. Once you take pathogens and put them in zero gravity environment genes are increasing their virulence. Here's another problem that could be solved using space so this too is a push.

3. Micro-sequencing is third, this is a pull. In the late 90s there was the huge genome sequencing efforts. A lot of instrumentation was created around that. Thirty percent of Applied Science Revenue came from sequencing machines alone. So how could you develop a sequencing machine the size of a grapefruit so that when you go on interplanetary missions you could see if life existed there? Taking a problem and miniaturizing the technology to take it into space is a pull.

4. Micro Fluidics. This is used to create reagents and miniaturize equipment to use in space. It's a demand pull and related to the third point.

5. Beher Imaging. This is multi-spectral and hyper-spectral imaging. We need better imaging for medical and research purposes. It can be used in pathogen detection. This is a push.

Our goal is to take these 5 items and look at the small steps needed to create a proof of concept. We have to create things relevant to people's needs so we can start.

Our job was to talk about science partnerships. Though we didn't talk enough about them. One process comment is that the nature of the discussion swung from models that included government money to ones that did not. I think that hasn't been successfully looked at. If we talk about government money being able to do commercial buys, versus commercial money, that leads you into another direction.

At a high level. What is the demand for science? The commericial sector needs it to be cheaper and to have shorter lead times. We talked about short/high ROI. You have to demonstrate ROI. It doesn't have to be about cash. Other important things we listed were: IP protection; emerging demands - the things we cannot predict; regulatory framework; and strong advocacy - we need good leaders.

On the supply side there are a few ideas that we talked about. Here are the sciences: material science, physics, chemistry, biotech and med. Also they influence your ability to work in space. Other key sciences are psychcology, geology, robotics, and astronomy.

We discussed many different players. Some of them are: existing RPCs, universities, industry R&D, telecommunication, space entrepreneurs, VCs and angels, government and international, business services, educators and non-profits.

There are many opportunities. We said that space is a destination and a medium so there are many different opportunities in many different realms. There are opportunities for processing in the microgravity environment in biology, tissue growth, new drugs, and antibiotics in space. Materials and composite development in space is another area to focus on. We also listed sensing. We said that a business model could be selling returns from the moon to fund a few sciences like astronomy. We could sell time to amateur astronomers and book their time on the Hubble or a Hubble-like instrument.

Next, we discussed success factors. Some of the critical success factors we need are: better access, fewer regulations, and new markets. Corporations are interested in returns that show up in 3 years, or less. Science and private industry have a real time-line difference. Business doesn't have 20 year development cycles.

Leadership and advocacy is another key sucess factor, particularly on the industry side. We'll also need better PR and marketing. Under business services we said that business has to be brought together with science. How do we get business plans developed? How do we do the research and development? All of this is absolutely critical.

These are the obstacles that we talked about: access; regulatory; IP; technology issues - how do you bring stuff back without harming it? There's not an obvious value proposition to doing space science. The dots have to be connected. That may have to be addressed first.

Partnerships are based on mutual advantages. There has to be an overlap.

First, what are the core needs? Easy access to space and access to a viable robust infrastructure is key. Something else we talked about is that a favorable business environment between nations has to be there.

Then we addressed the notion of the players. It's probably the same types of industries we've discussed like biotech, space tourism (presently there is not as much interest from Europe and Japan) , earth sensing and communications. There are also governments interested in the commercialization of space. That issue is blurred. There are also new players coming on to the scene, like China and India. Remote sensing is growing even in Africa.

There are many opportunities. Access to global markets has huge potential. Access to global labor and technology is key. Asset sharing like capital and infrastructure will help us greatly. We mentioned the "World is Flat" by Thomas Friedman is a good way to look at the opportunities.

There is also opportunity to do huge things like on global warming and assessing natural hazards like tsunamis and hurricanes.

Next, we explored the obstacles. Raising money across borders is a major one. Government regulations - the playing field isn't level - is also an obstacle. Roles and Responsibilities is a big issue - everyone wants to build a rocket but where's the synergy? ITAR and regulatory issues; political considerations, which may change once partnerships are put in place; and security, which ties back into ITAR are big obstacles. The biggest obstacle is tensions between national and commercial interest - defense and security (ITAR). Other things we listed are economic competitiveness and education.

Some critical success factors are: increase communication and collaboration to break down barriers. There has to be a stable political environment and business landscape.

There are commercial opportunities in biotech space; space tourism which is showing some traction already; Sim Space - where modeling is done - this can spur the gaming industry.

What's the government role? To open up access to infrastructure here and off-shore. Also to provide access to government funded technologies. There should be consistent rules of engagement. In the end the government needs to act as an invisible agent and not interfere with these things.

I would like to introduce you all to the International Science and Technology Center in Russia. It is a transnational model for a great deal of what we've been talking about. It's a "fake it till you make it" type of thing. A lot of money that comes into Russia is funding their space research. There are many different agencies and corporations working with them. It's the kind of model you need for sustainability.

One of the obstacles is that the space treaty has to maintain and overcome political problems.

I suspect there's a lot of restrictions that are there.

To summarize, we came up with a laissez-faire open-market relationship. Let's let the market place come in and seek out the lowest cost rate.

China is an issue because the theft of IP will stifle this. We need to make sure China adheres to international laws and standards.

We dealt with the technology view over the next 10 years.

First we talked about the core technologies. A few we listed were: transportation, habitation, closed system, ISRLL, and power. Then we talked about medicine. Then we talked about contracts - meaning, how do you deal with off-earth issues like that? I've been impressed by the similarity between several of the reports we've heard so far.

Next we looked at obstacles. Fundamentally, ROI is the major one. How can you get people to invest? To do so you have to shorten the timeline. Near-term: what does NASA really want? The system, sub-system, and interface standards are obstacles. With standards we have to look at how do things plug and play. Overzealous ITAR is a big obstacle. Some ITAR is good, you have to protect security but there's a balance that is needed. NASA has no equity and that's another huge obstacle. How do you handle risk? In some areas people are very risk averse.

And there's a labor issue. The word used was the "dumbing down of the labor base." It's the slide rule vs. the cad cam.

Technology sharing is an obstacle. Searching on the NASA website for technologies is worse than a dry hole.

State and local government interactions is important with things like the Space Port.

NASA in-breedingis a problem, both internationally and within the country. Another issue is looking internally versus externally.

Next we talked about critical success factors. Equity, risk tolerance, and meeting a timeline were the first few we listed. Also, what happens when the partnership is no longer needed or went bad? What's the exit strategy? IP and property. How do you work out the deals? Fortunately RPCs can handle this well. How do you put teams together? Shared information is key. We need a technology clearing house. Another good idea is a deal making center. These are all things that you need.

Other success factors are state and local government interfaces. Perhaps some NASA centers could be privatized. Working with the RPCs is another big success factor.

What's the commercial potential? The drawing here of the three circles shows how the commercial entities overlap with non-commercial and other opportunities. The issue is how do you bring those things - capital, needs, privatization, etc. - together to make it a success. There are huge applications for service and infrastructure. Right now, technology is languishing in some areas. Government involvement plays a huge role. How can you underwrite things? Dollar underwriting reduces risks. We need to reduce all the barriers to technology.

Talking about education, the problem is that China and India are doing a better job at engineering education.

People my age are leaving the industry and taking their expertise with them. The commercial sector is much more attractive now to the best and the brightest. The commercial enterprise is the way to attract bright young people. The RPCs help train those bright young students.

We looked at the challenge of how we drive non-space to help space. Non-space has needs that space can provide. We looked at shared risks - looking at similar ends.

Space needs knowledge. There's philanthropic aspects we can benefit from. An improved regulatory environment would help. We need to develop our workforce. We need to leverage the enthusiasm that can be generated from this. And communication needs to be put in place.

Academia, biotech, agriculture, media, government and international players, VCs angels, advocacy groups were some of the players we listed.

When we talked about opportunities we said there's a shared challenge - like medical research in space. Knowledge for knowledge's sake is something we'd like to see more of. Inspiration and teaching is key. Tourism is another opportunity. Space movies and games excite the public. Reducing ITAR restrictions is key.

CrItical success factors was the next topic we addressed. There has to be profit. And we need facilitation - someone who can bring together space and non-space and partners willing to invest. We want partnerships based on mutually agreed-upon outcomes. We need clear market opportunities and we need to reduce barriers to entry - the government can help facilitate this.

Some of the obstacles we talked about were: regulations; lack of funding; lack of frequency; no clear commitment from NASA; international politics; IP; and culture clashes between space and non-space. Other obstacles were expert controls and disbelief. Disbelief is based on poor information.

There are specific opportunities in things like protein growth in space and fuel depots.

We examined the government's role. It can enable by providing breakthrough technologies, tax incentives, and helpful regulation. Government needs to provide the basics in science and education. It has to avoid being restrictive.

We've all mentioned education. There's a reason why that problem exists. That's not just unique to America. The main problem is that semester by semester 60-75% of professors are part-timers. Universities are being run like sweat shops. Industry has to lean on academia and increase the percentage of full-time professors.

I see an underlying problem. We have 50 million baby boomers retiring in the next 10 years. Right now there aren't enough people to take this forward. Is there a road map for the future?

What's the one solution? It's that there's not one solution. It sounds simple but what I see as a new person to the industry is that the aerospace industry and commercialization is full of thousands of different gears of all sizes. And yet, nothing is happening. Why? Because there's no synergy and they're not interconnected. We have to get them in synch.

We talked about all the things that you guys talked about. Everyone is doing their own thing now, but no one is really coordinated. We're all talking about the same stuff. The space industry should be able to pull up and take a bigger picture. Like a rocket, it takes a lot to get it off the ground, but once it's up there it doesn't take much to maneuver through space. We have to look at the principles of critical mass and tipping point to get people together.

So what has to happen? There has to be a multi-pronged/faceted approach. All the points we talked about were mentioned by everyone today.

This triangle on the single panel shows a model of the process. The demand, suppliers, and investors need to be fitted together. The answer to fitting them together is to look to the past. We need a modern-day Alexandria. If you show people the value in a virtual gaming world, and in the access to entertainment you can help articulate the benefits of space exploration technology. It's not a coincidence that the flip up cell phone looks like a Star Trek communicator. You have to put fuel in people's minds and then it becomes reality. You can't push a string, but you can have someone pull it for you to get it going.

Currently, the landscape is just political and governmental and there's this huge machinery. The good thing about commercial is that the desire to avoid red ink eliminates red tape. The gears have to work together.

Education is phenomenally critical. Science and engineering have to be accessible. Let's find a way to make this all interesting. NASA has made their mission boring to the public.

The unifying force in this is capitalism, and the public understands this. From a filmmaker standpoint you have to put things into a context, like at the end of Stargate: Atlantis. I have a friend who works on that TV show and said that they talked about having a list of things after the show or on the website that actually exist or are being worked on right now. We call this term "science-faction."

The role of government is another thing. The government shouldn't create this. Government should be a facilitator. Government has to find ways to make these collaborations happen. There's a problem of coordination, government can act as a beacon for unifying things.

Michael Kaufman

OK, now you're going to have an opportunity to do a lot of what we heard in the last report. Now we can crystallize into some specific opportunities. We want you to sign up for the groups that you have passion for. We added "Team Gene" as an additional group. We're going to work with our seven RPC foci, and add team Gene, and team Government. Then we're going to have you come up with a minimum of 3 opportunities. There's a set of questions to start building the investment pitch that we want each group to work on. The assignment now is the first opportunity to test our synergistic power. Come up to the wall and sign up for the topic you feel the most passionate about.