Boeing will bid on an International Space Station cargo logistics contract currently held by Lockheed Martin.
A video from Spacevidcast looking at a possible shuttle replacement, the shuttle-derived DIRECT Jupiter vehicle.
The Space Review examines a glut in spaceports, space science policy, and missile defense.
XCOR CEO Jeff Greason will appear on The Space Show this week.
XCOR's Lynx suborbital vehicle
The British consulting group FastForward has released a report last week looking at the world of 2030 tilted, “The Shape of Jobs to Come.” The study, funded by the British government, looked at a range of new careers that would be created, including a number of interesting ones in space.
White Label Space kicked off the Japanese branch of its group with a presentation in Tokyo on Saturday, according to a post on its website.
Aviation Week reports ESAÂ has been dealing with the economic recession by borrowing money, freezing spending and slipping programs. However, it is still moving ahead with plans for the Galileo navigational system and a new Ariane booster:
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James Dunstan and Berin Szoka published an op-ed piece in Forbes recently in which they proposed an interesting solution to the growing problem of orbital debris:
Space-faring nations should create an Orbital Debris Removal and Recycling Fund (ODRRF). Satellite operators would pay relatively small fees to their governments, who would contribute the money to the fund. These governments already charge satellite operators large licensing and regulatory fees. Private companies would be paid bounties out of the fund for successfully removing debris according to the debris-creation-avoidance value assigned to each object. Apart from the obvious long-term benefits of preserving the usability of the space environment, satellite operators would benefit in the short term from reduced insurance rates and fewer mysterious satellite outages caused by collisions we cannot track. With the right funding mechanism, entrepreneurs can solve this problem. Governments must encourage innovation rather than crippling industry or creating yet another large government program to build and operate systems when the expertise for doing so clearly resides in the private sector.
The Aerospace Safety Advisory Panel has advised against ditching the Ares I rocket.
Oklahoma officials are optimistic about attracting tenants to the Burns Flat spaceport as the commercial space industry grows.
COMMITTEE ON SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY PRESS RELEASE
January 13, 2009
House Committee on Science and Technology Chairman Bart Gordon’s (D-TN) bill to extend the commercial space transportation liability regime was signed into law (P.L. 111-125) by President Obama on December 28, 2009.
H.R. 3819, the Commercial Space Transportation Liability Regime Extension, passed the House on October 20, 2009 and was approved under unanimous consent by the Senate on December 23, 2009.
This Week in Space, January 15, 2010 from Spaceflight Now on Vimeo.