House Science Committee Approves Space Commerce Free Enterprise Act
SST Committee Approves the American Space Commerce Free Enterprise Act of 2017
“The American Space Commerce Free Enterprise Act of 2017 simplifies and strengthens the outdated space-based remote sensing regulatory system. At the same time, this bill enhances U.S. compliance with international obligations, improves national security and removes regulatory barriers facing new and innovative space companies.”
Support Grows for the American Space Commerce Free Enterprise Act of 2017
“The U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Science, Space,and Technology announced growing support for H.R. 2809, the “American Space Commerce Free Enterprise Act of 2017.” The legislation was favorably reported out of committee today by voice vote. Keep reading to see what they’re saying.”
Keith’s note: This press release has quotes from 19 people representing New Space companies or organizations. Only 2 females are quoted. New Space is still a boy’s club. Just sayin’.
Smith Introduces American Space Commerce Free Enterprise Act of 2017
“Rep. Bridenstine: “Providing maximum certainty with minimal regulatory burden for the commercial space industry has been one of my top priorities in Congress. The American Space Commerce Free Enterprise Act moves us in the right direction. Years of uncertainty over which government agency has the responsibility to authorize and supervise commercial space activity has created a chilling effect in the industry, hindering capital formation and innovation. Chairman Smith, Chairman Babin, and I authored this bill to provide a clear, transparent process to meet Outer Space Treaty obligations while ensuring America is open for business in space.”
Markup of the American Space Commerce Free Enterprise Act of 2017
Opening statements: Committee Chairman Smith, Subcommittee Chairman Babin, Rep. Bridenstine, Ranking Member Johnson
Not just NewSpace, it is a broader engineering industry issue.
2 out of 19 is about the right proportion for the engineering industry in my experience. For example, the latest statistics from Engineers Australia show just 9.7% women engineers (ie, those that are actually employed and actually working in engineering businesses – graduations are higher at 14.7%). Some Googling suggests a similar situation in the US.
Diversity is highly desirable for a number of reasons and should be pursued though.
In our experience in NASA, the data show that, even when new hires in engineering are ‘appropriately diverse” (whatever!), that changes over time; with, 20 years later, (almost) all female engineers choosing the management path, not technical, to advance; leaving over 90% of our lead engineers/technologists as male. So to understand these issues, we need to get more and better data over time to see exactly what happens, and why it happens. to understand things.
At the last OPAG meeting, Janet Vertesi gave a fairly good talk on the subject of diversity in planetary science. The New Frontiers 4 AO requires some discussion of how the proposed mission would encourage diversity, and no one is really sure how to do that. So they asked a sociologist’s opinion.
http://www.lpi.usra.edu/opa…
I don’t entirely agree with her, and she freely admits she doesn’t have any magical solutions. But it’s an interesting discussion of the subject.
I would like to read that research but continue to have problems with the redirects via viglink from this site. Anyone else?
The link worked for me. I try to check the links I post. But that might not work for everyone. You can also find Janet’s presentation by doing a Google search for “OPAG”. Additional search terms, like “Outer Planets” or “NASA” may be necessary, to avoid false positive hits to “Organization for the Promotion of Active Gardening” or some other group using OPAG as an acronym. Once you find the OPAG page, find the link to the latest meeting, and you will see a list of links to the presentations.
[expletive deleted] disqus.
Copy, edit, paste into browser.
http://
www.
lpi.
usra.
edu/
opag/
meetings/
feb2017/
presentations/
Vertesi.
pdf
Thanks, that worked!
But I’m not sure it’s disqus, though I really don’t know. I know that
• Safari says it cannot connect; here I am pasting what appears in the resulting new tab because the text in the new tab is non-selectable;
• I also know that links on other sites also using disqus links out work without issue;
• Searching on the web for ‘viglink’ reveals many tales of woe, having to do with website monetization, which is fine, obviously;
• I didn’t have trouble until recently with this site (the past year or maybe longer)
• I don’t run any sort of adblocking on this site or other sites I want to support;
• Unlike some, I’ve not had an issue with disqus ever, having used it for at least a decade.
https://uploads.disquscdn.c…
Firstly, Disqus only recently introduced the re-direct on all links. Prior to that, it shortened the displayed link, but the underlying URL was the same.
As for Viglink, I don’t see that domain for the redirect server. I’ve copied the domain that is in the link above, and again broken it so Disqus doesn’t recognise URL components and try to re-re-direct it:
http://
disq.
us/url?url=http%
3A%2F%2Fwww.
lpi.
usra.
edu%
2Fopag%
2Fmeetings%
2Ffeb2017%
2Fpresentations%
2FVertesi.pdf%
3AcaQRb0BM-85r-DAFbVDvA7cGvoM&cuid=757452
Paul: First, thanks for the help. it’s vexing for sure.
So I copied the URL you provided above, and what do you suppose happened? Same thing! the whole viglink thingie.
Curious. I’d like to blame it on disqus but I’m not so sure, as outlines on other sites where I’m also logged in as a disqus user work.
I’ll do more research. You’ve helped. Thanks.
Thanks, and sorry for the slow reply. Interesting reading, indeed. It’s given me some ideas for improvements in my own hiring practices.
I understand the principle of the “30% rule” but it doesn’t really consider the availability problem. There’s obviously a barrier to entry (perception issue?) that industry and educational institutions need to work hard to address.
Nice to see Congress addressing and attempting to facilitate the development of commercial space. Encouraging to note there seems to be bi-partisan support for this bill. I also like that the bill essentially says, “Our companies can go out and develop space for profit and this fits within the OST.”