Space Access 2007

Overview
Thu 22 Mar afternoon
Thu 22 Mar evening
Fri 23 Mar morning
Fri 23 Mar afternoon
Fri 23 Mar evening
Sat 24 Mar morning
Sat 24 Mar afternoon

These are notes I took from the presentations at the Space Access 2007 Conference in Phoenix, Arizona.

Friday Evening, March 23, 2007

8:20 Jerry Pournelle

• sci-fi author
• worked in aerospace industry including on DC/X
• "one of Pournelle's Laws: 90% of the time your computer problem is a cable"
• promoting a book he's co-authoring with Larry Niven
• "What do you want NASA to do? That isn't going to happen."
• Pournelle's Iron Law of bureaucracy: In every bureaucracy there are two kinds of people:
  • Those who want to do the job that the bureaucracy was formed to accomplish

• Those who are devoted to strengthening the bureaucracy and defending its turf and perks
• The second group is always in control.
• "If you don't learn to live with it, you're dead."
  • ways that the government can help:
    • prizes for accomplishments

• The NACA model: support commercial research
• X Programs:

	  * typically 4 years
	  * no new technologies - best we can build with the state of the art
	  * three tail numbers: one to break, one to test, one for the Smithsonian

• push the envelope

	  * what can we do with what we've got?

• bureaucracies never shrink voluntarily
• laws of bureaucracies also apply to corporations, especially if they have no competition
• New X Projects
  • small enough to avoid capture by big companies

• single principle
• 4 years or less
• team building
• demonstration of state of the art of existing technology

9:10 Andrew Tubbiolo, Old Pueblo Instruments

• mostly a hobby project but has some paying customers
• "garage aerospace" environment
• machining parts for rocket motors and aerospace applications
• at one time saw himself as filling the niche that Frontier Astronautics does "so I need to find another niche""

9:30 Misuzu Onuki, Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) and Chuck Lauer (Rocketplane Kistler)

• "Space Couture Design Contest - Final Selection"
• video of female models showing space suits which are contestants for use by Rocketplane Kistler and JAXA

9:45 Kevin Sagis, Paragon Labs, LLC entrant

• inspired by watching the XPrize Cup in 2006, Kevin decided to try the challenge
• single engine LOX/ethanol
• aluminu tanks
• airframe construction 50% complete
• engine: pintle injector, regenerative cooling, movable for throttling
• engine gimbal for pitch and yaw axis control
• cold gas thrusters for roll axis control
• pressure-fed blow-down system