The Space

Frontier Foundation

Berin Szoka
Chairman of the Board
SpaceFrontier.org
bszoka@spacefrontier.org
The Importance of Strategy
Alice: Would you tell me, please,
which way I ought to go from
here?
The Cheshire Cat: That depends a
good deal on where you want to
get to.
Alice: I don't know where…
The Cheshire Cat: Then it doesn't
matter which way you go.

Alice in Wonderland, Lewis Carroll (1865)

Our Strategic Perspective:
Realistic Revolutionaries
 Our goals are revolutionary:
 To enable the opening of the space frontier to human settlement
as rapidly as possible
 To create a freer and more prosperous life for each generation
by using the unlimited energy and material resources of space
 But we are also realists:
 “Space is a place, not a program”
 Governments can help enable and support the opening of the
space frontier, but only the private sector can make space
projects economically sustainable
 An innovative “NewSpace” industry must lead the way
Our History
 U.S.-based non-profit citizens’ advocacy organization with
members around the world
 Founded in 1988 based on three principles:
 It is technically possible to realize their shared vision of large-
scale industrialization and settlement of the inner solar system
 This was not happening (and couldn't happen) under the status
quo: a centrally-planned U.S. government space program with
exclusive access to space
 Our Founders took on the task of replacing the existing
bureaucratic program with an entrepreneurial, frontier-opening
global and inclusive enterprise, primarily by working “on the
outside” to promote radical reform of U.S. space policy
The High Frontier by
Gerard O’Neill (1976)
 Focus: building large scale
settlements in free space
 Vision: a sustainable economy
involving two key elements
 Resources from the Moon and
asteroids
 Using those resources to construct
space-based solar power satellites
capable of delivering cheap energy
from Earth orbit
The Broader Vision of the
Space Frontier
 Cheaper and more capable satellites to
send data through space (communications)
and from space (remote sensing)
 Personal spaceflight for the experience of
space
 Zero-G research
 Zero-G manufacturing
 Point-to-point transportation
The Catalyst:
Cheap Access to Space
 The business case for Space-Based Solar
Power, like many space projects, requires
cheaper access to space
 The significance of personal spaceflight:
lowering launch costs and thus enabling
other NewSpace business models
What Can
Governments Do?
 Enable an industry, instead of “building a program”
 Buy commercial space services when available
 The Kelly Airmail Act of 1925 – the U.S. Government spurred
development of commercial aviation by buying mail delivery
services from commercial providers
 Help spur the development of new services with:
 Prizes (Ansari X-Prize and NASA’s Centennial Challenges)
 Technology demonstration projects (NASA’s COTS)
 Partnering with industry (NASA’s Space Act Agreements,
Russia’s Rosaviacosmos)
 Funding research and development (X-vehicles, NACA,
DARPA)
 Tax incentives (“Zero G, Zero Tax”)
The Opportunity
for the U.A.E.
 To lead international collaboration on space
projects by attracting talent and investment
from all over the world
 The U.S. Government has made international
collaboration with Americans prohibitively difficult
with strict export control laws (ITAR)
 Ironically, this approach has had largely the
opposite of its intended effect by undermining
U.S. leadership in space
The Ultimate Resource:
Innovation
 Talent is attracted by
 Bold vision, such as
 Settling the space frontier
 Making the world cleaner and greener
 Providing cheap, reliable energy
 Low taxes
 Minimal regulations
 Subsidized infrastructure
 Personal freedoms
 Talent produces results
A Space Strategy
for the U.A.E.
 Goal: To become the premiere anchor of
the NewSpace economy
 A nexus of investment and innovation
 A space port
 A registry for space businesses
 Focus on
 Promoting Cheap Access to Space (CATS)
 Enabling the businesses made possible by
CATS
Practical Steps
for the U.A.E.
 Recognize
 Property rights in space resources
 Salvage rights in space objects
 Learn from the mistakes of the U.S. Instead of building a space program in
the model of NASA, create institutions to enable NewSpace
 NASA’s predecessor, the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (1915-1958),
whose mission was to advance aeronautical technology
 NASA’s Institute for Advanced Concepts (1998-2007)
 A Space Development Agency
 A second International Space University Campus with heavy R&D focus
 Institutes for researching
 Launch & propulsion technologies
 Space-based solar power
 The use of space resources
 Deflection and mining of Near Earth Objects
 Recruit foreign intellectual capital with targeted visas
More About the
Space Frontier
Foundation
 Leadership
 Founders
 Jim Muncy
 Rick Tumlinson
 Bob Werb - Treasurer
 Board of Directors:
 Berin Szoka - Chairman
 Reda Anderson
 A.C. Charania
 Jim Muncy
 Mike Mealling
 Tom Olson
 Misuzu Onuki (Japan)
 Krysta Paradis
 Megan Seals
 William Watson
Projects
 Community Building

 Public NewSpace Education

 Policy Statements – Truthsaying

 Technology Investigation
Community Building
 Annual “NewSpace” Conferences
 Attended by NewSpace CEOs, investors, NASA leadership,
U.S. & international government leaders, U.S. military
 Space Investment Symposiums
 Partners with Boeing, National Space Society, 62 Mile Club,
and others
 Networking Events
 New York City, Paris, Tokyo, Strasbourg, Glasgow, Munich,
L.A., Amsterdam, Dallas, San Jose, D.C., Las Vegas, Abu
Dhabi, and other locations around the world
Public NewSpace Education
 Teachers in Space Program – aiming to bring hundreds of
“astronaut teachers” into the classroom
 Five flights donated by five different private suborbital
service providers
 NewSpace News – The NewSpace Portal with over 90
entrepreneurial space company links and briefings on the
top NewSpace stories
 SpaceContest.org – $3500 in cash Prizes to the top
YouTube Videos answering the question, “What
should the future of spaceflight be?”
Policy Statements
 Truthsaying
 Calling attention to the U.S. Government’s failures
(e.g., Ares)
 White Papers
 Supporting EELV and COTS over Ares for U.S.
access to ISS and NASA’s return to the Moon
 Media Statements
 Advocating funding and expansion of COTS-D
 Calling for further development of Space-Based
Solar Power
Technology Investigation:
Space-Based Solar Power
 Since 2001 the Space Frontier Foundation sponsored U.S. Senate
Roundtables on Space Solar Power
 SBSP Project Manager: Margo Deckard
 CEO of Space Policy Consulting, Inc.
 Principal investigator for a NASA-funded study in 2000 that reintroduced
SBSP to the environmental community, and gathered input from this
community on perceived costs and benefits
 Space-Based Solar Power Project History Page:
www.space-frontier.org/Projects/spacesolarpower
 Space Solar Power: A Public Discussion Sponsored by the Space
Frontier Foundation (85,452 hits as of Nov. 6, 2008)
spacesolarpower.wordpress.com
 Resulting NSSO Report:
www.space-frontier.org/Presentations/SBSPreport.html
Accomplishments
 In addition to our formal Projects, the Foundation
and its members work throughout the space,
science and business communities
 The Foundation’s Advocates (the core members
who elect the Board) have been leaders in a
wide range of space ventures
www.space-frontier.org/accomplishments.html
Annual Conference
 NewSpace 2009 (July 17-20, 2009) at NASA
Ames (California)
 The Space Frontier Foundation has held its
conferences over the Apollo 11 anniversary for
the past twenty years and looks forward to
holding celebrating the 40th Anniversary of the
Apollo 11 landing on July 20th, 2009