Critical Thinking - Report
Team One Report Cheryl Nickerson |
Team Three Report Louis Stodieck |
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Team Five Report Bonnie Dalton |
Team Seven Report Terri Lomax |
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Team Ten Report Bruce Pittman |
Team Eleven Report Patricia Allen |
Team Three Report
We took the perspective on infrastructure from a business standpoint.
In order for a biotech industry to flourish there needs to be an infrastructure
for customers. We believe the government will eventually become secondary
customers. Today there are several companies that are capable of building
a vehicle. The time frame is between two and five years. Competition will
help drive time for development and cost-per-launch. What we really have
to make sure we focus on is launch array. We need to get them up. We're
hopeful that a major breakthrough will come about between now and the
next five years. If we can get launch arrays up, prices reduced, breakthroughs
in microgravity research, and our customer base to think about the biotech
world in space, then the infrastructure will be available. That's it.
Now, can I have some money?
Question
Under launch, that's the LEO cost not ISS, right?
Well, the numbers are very ambitious. We don't have the numbers yet for how the business case will work. The numbers are just a ballpark figure. The real story is that any significant decrease in going from earth to the station is a significant advantage and win-win for everyone. We're talking about a 50% or more decrease.
Team Ten Report 
We were' asked to address what NASA's role will be in the future. We see
NASA as being like a landlord. They will make sure ISS is operational
and biotech friendly. It should not provide launch vehicle services, fund
the research, or prioritize it. They should just allocate space. They
shouldn't cost approve or do ground ops either.
In relation to the infrastructure we think that NASA shouldn't become the center for the place to negotiate with commercial entities-- the biotech community will deal with commercial companies. They would be responsible to get with NASA and schedule facilities. NASA would just provide facilities.
Originally, we see that NASA should be an advocate to the international community. They would allocate time to ESA and US companies. NASA will have to be a good landlord and that means they'll have to low cost delivery, and great maintenance. Basically, you're in the background making sure the customer is in good shape. NASA should provide this at no cost to the user.
We want to be able to scale things up. It should remain free. NASA should prime the pump for investment. NASA should fund the ABC companies to attract the biotech community. These companies would basically become NASA's customers.
We see NASA providing basic equipment in the lab and transfer technology to these companies, not specific test equipment. They need to prove to the community that they've made all the correct changes. As a landlord NASA facilitates the tenants. This is not a model that would save a lot of money off the books for NASA. It would keep the ISS funding the same but would allow for the creation of commercial biotech use. Once that's created then private industry can look at this and say, I can do this better than NASA and that will create competition. Then we can phase out the NASA support of this.
Questions
I see what you're heading for. But take the research lab at Tulane, where would someone like that fit in.
They would be getting grant research. NASA could provide the grant. The grant would cover the launch vehicle cost.
So the companies and the universities would be in some sort of consortium?
I would think they would be just another biotech customer from their perspective.
Did you think how it would interface with the operations that resupply space?
We drew a line in the sand. We embraced the landlord concept meaning, NASA just does the logistics and makes sure the facility is operating well. I think the biotech community will address the economies of scale on how they will engage the commercial sector.
We discussed the issue of priority. As soon as you put payloads on NASA vehicles you get NASA priorities. The payloads should pay their own way up. It's first come, first serve at the dock.
NASA would oversee the common interface.
But landlord's usually get rent? How does the public get the investment back?
We don't think it's a starter if you begin taking the ISS cost off the bat and saying to the customer that they should pay for this?
We had a different model that would say that perhaps the first year is free and you would have to start paying later. But the incentive of making it free is to foster the growth of this new paradigm. I don't think in any of these models we will ever be able to recoup the cost of ISS. If you burden these people with that then it's not ever going to happen.
There may be a way to do simple platforms that do not use people, or platforms for LEO that can service a small niche community. They key is to prove to the investor community that the market exist.
Let me add, NASA is a conservative organization. The amount of money it takes to keep a station going is extraordinarily high. If you want to return that investment to the space station you will have to get that out of the hands of NASA. There's a huge amount of offloading of cost if you get an entire commercial community supporting this. The grants are just for startup.
So how long do you see the market going?
We think that it's NASA's responsibility to start this off. NASA has to prove this upfront.
What we're trying to do is to remove the blocks from startup and allow the homerun to take place.
Perhaps the DOE user facility model is a better analogy.
That's a good point.
Senator Hutchinson of Texas is going to promote the use of the space station as a federal laboratory. And that's exactly what Argon is, so we have an analogy and a precedence.
It's up to the scientists to prove that they deserve the grant money. We have built this X-billion dollar facility and it created this new commercial venture. I think that it should eventually start charging, then private companies may then say I want to compete against NASA.
Joe Carroll has a comment for discussion. Commercialization ambiguous. It can mean either NASA spending money on commercial services or commercial entities paying NASA for ISS services. The second option is unlikely to get customers because of ISS's high fixed costs.
If it does take off then it will create an infrastructure that will take NASA in a lot of other directions. As a taxpayer, having NASA do something that creates a new business for the US is a good thing.
Team Eight Report 
We actually agree with a lot of what they said. Right now ISS is not ready
for commercialization so NASA has to be the catalyst for that. We all
see the potential and we love the entrepreneurial triangle model for ISS.
We're not here yet though. We think we need to backup a bit. Companies
will want to see proof before they invest. They're looking for targets
in-flight. We truly don't think entrepreneurs will invest in ISS if they
don't believe they can hit a homerun. They care about making money so
you have to establish proof-of-concept. NASA needs to provide the funding
for their most robust research, then you take your evidence to the commercial
community. NASA needs to look at Program Project Grants from their most
robust research in the biotech field. They need to cherry pick the most
developed ones and show that to the commercial investors first. That's
how ground-based research was built. You need to have in place the basic
necessities for ISS.
NASA will have to fulfill its obligation to ISS to make it a migrogravity research platform. If NASA makes that commitment then they will come.
Right now there's good research on the ground but you have to prove the additional research in-flight. In the future perhaps free-flyers will get investment. Until we're at proof stage we can't go to the next steps of setting up commercialization.
At the center here, we've depicted the establishment of a nonprofit entity/foundation that would receive some funds from NASA or from other sources like corporations both national and international. You have to build a little wall between NASA and the rest of the world. If you're going to use commercial launchers you have other funders like FAA, and research funders like DOD. Also there are research universities that could take part in this. Another thing to consider is that exploration and research needs might provide equipment to make this cheaper. The idea is to create an independent entity to stimulate private enterprise and smooth government interaction.
Where's private capital in this model?
We're talking about doing research in space and then getting ready to market some drug. The market develops when they are able to see evidence that there's a viable business case. One has to question how much private money is at risk today. There are a lot of companies that have significant government funds, like SpaceX. We're not there in terms of having a truly competitive business.
How long will it take to mature?
I think NASA has to convince the public and its customers that it's serious about this. If they're committed then the time to actually do the experiments might be a couple of years, I'm not sure.
A certain amount of science and investigations is needed. If you can't prove the case then you won't get the funds.
We just want to commit to a portfolio of research at the outset.
Aside from wealth generation there is an enormous public good that can contribute to public well-being that can come out of this. For that reason alone it's appropriate for government to support this. The same problem of throughput that would make a case for biotech is the same that would affect other sciences.
It brings to mind what Alan Marty said about learning cycles. Right now, you have not had very many learning cycles in terms of flights. The question is, if we created a way to shorten the learning cycle, then can we achieve what we want?
Yes. The right timing for establishing something like this is critical. Too soon you fail, too late and you don't need it. How do you know what the right time is? That requires quite a bit of analysis. There's convergence that needs to be taken into account, on the research side and on the commercial side. When that's right the venture capitalist will come in. We have to walk before we can run. Can we validate any piece of the triangle right now? Probably not, but we are working toward it.
We have to be able to have a sharp focus here.
We must do good science in this process. We have to get the significant repeats, consistency, and learning cycles. It's not the timing it's the time frequency that matters.
But you can have different options.
We will have to ask how many we will need. There are many ways to go about this.
But NASA is getting out of NIH type research.
NASA just has to be able to show that it can do good research on ISS. The potential is on a wide variety of fronts.
The NASA today is not the NASA of a couple of months ago, and that's a good thing. This is a pivotal chance to change our direction.
In our model we want NASA to get out of the way in the sense that the customer will be the one that shapes private enterprise.
The problem is that if ISS is half of NASA's budget then NASA will not get out of the way easily like you want them to.
I mean out of the way of commercial investment. They should be involved in maintenance and operations.
Team Eleven Report 
We addressed the role of competition in general and competition in how
it relates to ISS. Competition comes out of demand. As of yet, we don't
have demand, we have to get something going first. Then what happens?
Once you have demand and competition you need the rules. We need rules
because of the complexity. Suppose there are a lot of companies that want
to launch at the same time. We've talked about doing launches on a first
come, first serve basis, but maybe that's too narrow of a definition.
Maybe there might be a research project that has a critical time element
and would benefit mankind sooner or perhaps there's a pandemic crisis
to address.
There's one intangible to competition and that's fear. No one wants to be left behind.
The final thing is once you have the homerun, and the rules, the question becomes about competition to ISS. Do we start then having free-flyers for lower cost missions? Do we then start looking at other ways to do this?
Questions
I think you need to add that our team talked about physical constraints of ISS too?
Yeah, my assumption is that you can't have an infinite number of dockings. The station can't accommodate that. The analogy is airplanes. Airplanes don't get their landing spots by who gets there first. You have to have rules in place for scheduling.
The rules exist. It's all there in plain English. Actually the official rules are very complex. If you insist the rules have to change then private money will not flow.
That's why we changed the question to being about getting competition to ISS.
Access to ISS will be a problem in the future.
I guess in a world when there are so many vehicles that can fly to ISS then it won't be an issue because it will take care of itself. The real issue is how do you get the first one there?
Team Twelve Report
We had three challenges. 1) If you assume ISS and biotech is achievable,
what's the first step? 2)What's outside of the scope of your scenario
that would affect the attainment of the goals. 3) What ways could ISS
enhance the NASA exploration vision?
The first thing that has to happen is understanding the organizational responsibilities. Government and the private sector will play different roles in putting the puzzle together.
Secondly, once you define the organizational structure you have to look at resource requirements. Specific market sectors and customer needs have to be defined, and also their requirements.
Thirdly, we need to define the business model. Knowing what's involved in this will help NASA create the new paradigm.
Next on our list is establishing a means for long range planning and support. This needs to be a national project that Congress funds, private sector supports, and NASA acts as an open house.
Lastly, we need consistent to-and-from logistics. Each launch will probably come in all shapes and payload sizes. We need to be able to accommodate that.
The second question we had was about the external events that could affect this.
There are fundamental biotech challenges that have to do with disease, and lignin, and things that will benefit the planet that could accelerate the development of this. We could also see joint partnerships developed to tackle common problems. And example of this would be like we've seen Boeing and Lockheed do on certain projects to create a a win-win situation for both players. Why not carry this forward to the private sector? If there are a half dozen paper companies that would benefit from a mutual discovery, then why not combine resources to get the solution from space? Maybe there's a way to do this.
Congress can provide tax relief for space research aboard the ISS. The RPCs can support this exploration but there are a lot of things that they do that don't really specifically relate to exploration. That constraint of exploration targets needs to be lifted in the new NASA.
Another external thing that could happen would be some sort of pandemic, like the bird flu or something like that. That would spur investment. God forbid that happening though.
The third question was, how does this benefit the acceleration of the exploration platform? Commercial partnering would help the Government by sharing costs. Biotech discoveries would benefit in ways that affect astronauts and life in space. There has to be spin-offs for LEO. Use of ISS and LEO can bring benefits about for Mars and lunar research. A mature ISS business model will likely have exploration applications also.
We also were able to ask other questions. The question we came up with was, is ISS the only platform that can optimize the biotech revolution? There are going to be a lot of competing customers, governments, corporations, etc. to consider. ISS is a perfect platform but there's a lot of research that can be done on alternative platforms. Also having multiple platforms could encourage interagency agreements. That would be a way to lower the cost of research and be a lot more cost effective.
Team Four Report 
Our question was what was the appropriate cargo infrastructure. We looked
at launch operations, on-orbit operations, and ground operations. The
customer interface is the most important piece. This has to be a private
enterprise. There has to be an interface so the researchers don't have
to deal with the nasty ISS procedures. It'd be like Fedex. You deliver
your research and it's delivered back to you in a timely fashion.
Another thing to note is that this has to work in the existing ISS system. Some of the issues, like on-orbit communications require cost. Ground stations determine when you can dock with ISS and that's a big cost item.
Other issues are around the launch site. If it's not insurable it's not commercial. You have to look at the launch characteristics of the vehicle and trade all that on an economic basis. There are launch vehicles that are flying today that can't give you late access and that's a big issue.
ISS has to be free for this to work. This entity negotiates with ISS and pays ISS -- they get some cargo via this commercial company. Right now, ISS is a barter economy. We're trying to make this as transparent as possible to the ISS community. This entity would look for financial incentives to find other customers.
Questions
You said the ground rules for ISS wouldn't have to change? Is that the case?
This isn't an ISS issue, it's a ground ops issue that has nothing to do with ISS. There are time scales that are written in concrete. We have to be able to develop a system that meets regulations. If we have to change regulations then we're not getting it funded.
Team Nine Report 
We looked at practices and policies that should be taken to foster the
commercial development of space. We came up with investment banks, federal
grants, tax credits, and monetary incentives for capital in commercial
development. The other theme is international concerns that have to be
dealt with. We came up with a National Space Development Industry act
to address international concerns. We also talked about IP issues.
Then we dealt with which of these could affect commercialization of biotech directly. We thought all of them were relevant, then we added that the federal government's policy needs to be updated.
Events outside the scope of what we developed here are a sudden revolution in LEO.
A private space consortium that could compete with ISS.
Major market drivers like an incentive that drives investment. We're talking about things like a possible cancer cure.
Threats could be foreign competition.
The last part was how these government policies contribute to NASA's exploration issue.
Major contributions include 1-6.
Consistency is key. Incorporating mission controls into ISS it's about rewriting the exploration of NASA to incorporate the commercial aspect.
Questions
You said that because the shuttle is going away that would free up more money for ISS. But I think there's a danger in assuming that. There's no guarantee Congress would put that money back in.
A lot of times NASA directly competes with commercial aspects. Will commercial profit be pumped back in? There isn't a level playing field between government and the commercial sector when it comes to how funds are used. NASA needs to realize that profit is okay and where there are commercial aspects available to use, then use it.
What's the time order?
Thinks like the Space Investment Bank should begin implementation now. Early investment should be done right away. Other things like modifying government policy will take time.
Team One Report
Our charter was about different options. We came up with some fairly out
of the box thinking.
One scenario is the Russian one. You give the Russians the money to do what you want to do. That's not acceptable to Congress. The other was to sell off our part of the station to other international partners like the Swiss.
Some of the pieces that made sense was, do you really need people in the loop? What do you need paella for?
Where's the impetus? It starts with Government then moves to business.
The next thing to answer was who was going to steer the boat? That's key.
An idea that came up this morning was the concept that NASA can't run this. If it's not NASA then what's the entity to do this? That's how we got to the culture change issue. Culture is about attitudes, beliefs, and values. What is good? What is bad? Are the values that cause you to be successful in NASA today compatible with commercial entities -- like silicon Valley? The whole idea of taking reasonable risk is a major change for NASA. One of the worst things you can do in a bureaucracy is be successful because it threatens the status quo. The purpose of bureaucracy is to resist change and it does it well.
So one of the ideas was setting up an entity outside the gate. We thought this would somewhat be like GM creating Saturn because they had to go to Tennessee and get out of Detroit bureaucracy to create new paradigms. There are models like that we can look at.
We're looking for alignment of business goals. We need to have a win-win scenario of business and NASA being successful. If one of us fails then all of us fails. One of the real mismatches in NASA was the sense of time. NASA doesn't worry about interest that accumulates over time. It's very difficult to get that sense of alignment and urgency. I think it's important to remember what Mike Griffin said, "we all have to have some skin in the game here" and that's a great thing. The other option is going around NASA and doing this privately and I think that in the next 5-7 years that can happen.
The time for NASA to lead is now.
Questions
If we accomplish jacking up the throughput certain cost might go down, like cost-per-launch and payload. But in NASA you have infrastructure support and those cost don't stop.
The idea is that you have to have a robust infrastructure. Like if Delta goes on strike then you go on another airline carrier. Can we apply those same market forces to what we're talking about here?
Eventually you'll have many more launches and payloads, are there cost savings in there? I think we will have to look at jacking up the throughput and its impact on cost.
Let's say, if you fly every day what the cost will be. What would the cost go down to. We could save a ton of money and have $4M pounds of payload every year. We're trying to lay the foundational stones. The next step is finding a propulsion breakthrough like space elevators or something.
Are you saying the throughput needs will lead to a breakthrough in the commercial launch vehicles as well?
Yes. A lot of people in this room are already building the infrastructure, the Kistlers and the Spacelabs, now can we put all this together for a win-win for this country.
Team Five Report
I'll be short. Our job was one of the easier ones. We took the position
that we're filling in the blanks. The subject is on-orbit services. We
arrived at the conclusion that lab facilities are about 80% ready. Roughly
80% of the financial expenditures on these kinds of projects is done.
We created a diagram. The green corresponds to things already on the station; the purple are things that are fabricated and just not on the station, and the other section depicts things that need to be developed.
On the left-hand side of the wall we have what kind of biotech research does this support. It supports things like aging, bone, animal organisms, tissue/cells, and lignin in the plant category.
On the right-side we have, how does this contribute to NASAs exploration mission. We listed crew health and maintenance. Plants support advanced life support.
If the research has to be done on ISS by a human then it might as well be an expert.
To summarize our keys: the capabilities needed to attract commercial biotech are similar to accelerating exploration solutions to enable breakthroughs in science.
Questions
It's my understanding that there is no reliable cryogenic system in space now right?
That's where the 80% comes in. We don't have snap freezing capability right now.
If you can get the samples back on a more frequent basis then you can speed up development.
Joe Carroll: The question of sending non-career astronauts is an important one. There's synergism between being commercial visitor friendly and commercial research friendly.
Team Seven Report
We were tasked with developing a secondary plan. What are the other options
for the biotech industry. Can biotech go on free-flyers? This is a short
flight span, about 30 days in orbit. We could go on small launch vehicles.
But with small launch vehicles there's no ability to change things while
the experiment is running because it's all automated. One of the major
benefits of using this type of launch is that this is true microgravity.
In ISS there are vibrations. There are also less regulations to get involved.
You can also change your flight path to any orbit you want with small
launches. Each free-flyer will have to be designed. We listed fixation
as a key item to address. You have to make sure reentry will not damage
your experiment.
The second thing we looked at was an extended alternative station. Bigelow is developing his own station. If you have that system you can phase out NASA as a governing body. Since ISS would be out then how could NASA be involved? Would they just be an oversight committee that makes sure everyone follows the rules? And what about NASA astronauts, will they be hired out to companies? Or will NASA be completely out of the loop?
The third thing we looked at was having secondary payloads. This is the piggyback system. But you can't schedule the experiments whenever you want because when you're piggybacking it's up to somebody else.
Questions
The joke was that this was like Moonraker being produced where Drac Industries runs the whole thing.
Team Six Report 
Return to Earth was our mission. What are we bringing back to earth? Is
it small things like samples that come once a week? You will have to bring
back larger equipment on a more infrequent basis for refurbishing. You
can use existing crew vehicles.
The next topic is developing a new type of high-throughput vehicle like the SPEED concept or the soccer ball concept.
Then there are questions around conditioning like freezing. You'll have to preposition smaller vehicles for reentry and return them as you need them. Some of these will require modifications to ISS like the hatches.
Perhaps if there's a space tug then you could load them into that vehicle. Also you could use a new logistics supply return vehicle.
Then there was a question of how much time is involved in this plan. It will take at least five years for major modifications to the ISS interface and also developing a new supply chain type vehicle. The SPEED concept could be done in less three years.
Both large and small companies would be involved in this. There could be international partnerships. Any questions?
Questions
Did you look at using the capsule that was used for MIR?
No, we didn't have all the details on existing capsules.
Team Two Report 
We had a good combination of people. We looked at the big picture of why
we were here. We were encouraged by this workshop. We looked at the strong
points of having biotech on ISS.
The first strong point to consider is that it exist. Next there's a history with doing biotech in-flight.
Another positive is that biotech is more complimentary to a large scale hi-tech industry like spaceflight. There's a complimentary philosophy about large scale investments.
There's a real relevance to public interest. The US population is getting older and we want to make sure we live better, longer, and smarter. That's relevant because those are the people that control the wealth.
It's also good to note that the US has a big play in the ISS. We will have to compete in a competitive marketplace and this is a great platform.
There's a willingness now in NASA to have this kind of dialogue and that's definitely a positive step.
We had some remaining questions. We need more information. We need to bring the university system to bear on this. We need to involve more young students.
The biotech industry is a good idea for the space station. That's it.
Langdon
Thank you all. That was more detailed than I envisioned but that had a
lot of value. Last night we came up with eight or nine activities that
we think compose the business case. Some of them you have done but we
want you to go deeper on it. I'm going to pass out a copy of the assignments
and I want you to read them, and choose which team you want to work on.
It's going to be about a 90 minute assignment. We will configure the teams
as necessary.
I had a food for thought on international. Maybe that should go with
team 4, and their user coalition mission.