SPACE Act of 2007
Here's an interesting one I saw over on Space Law Probe: the SPACE Act of 2007. Now, I'll be the first to admit that in spite of being rather vocal about space policy, I'm not exactly the kind of space activist who goes out and writes his congressman all the time. In fact, I'm not sure I ever have. I've never gone to March Storm, and doubt I will anytime soon, but I have to say that I think the general idea behind this act is intriguing.
The basic gist if I'm understanding it is that it would create a 7-member National Space Prize Board that would come up with prizes to encourage the commercial, scientific, exploratory, and national security applications of space. This board would be funded at the rate of about $100M per year, and could offer prizes of up to $400M without requiring special permission from Congress.
I have no idea if getting a $100M/year entity funded is realistic at all in these times of tight budgets, but the idea of having a prize entity that represents not just NASA, but the military, the Department of Commerce, and the Department of Transportation as well sounds like a good idea in general. By having the ability to give out bigger prizes, hold money in escrow, form partnerships with other government and non-government entities for funding/running prizes, etc this could be rather helpful.
What do you all think?
The basic gist if I'm understanding it is that it would create a 7-member National Space Prize Board that would come up with prizes to encourage the commercial, scientific, exploratory, and national security applications of space. This board would be funded at the rate of about $100M per year, and could offer prizes of up to $400M without requiring special permission from Congress.
I have no idea if getting a $100M/year entity funded is realistic at all in these times of tight budgets, but the idea of having a prize entity that represents not just NASA, but the military, the Department of Commerce, and the Department of Transportation as well sounds like a good idea in general. By having the ability to give out bigger prizes, hold money in escrow, form partnerships with other government and non-government entities for funding/running prizes, etc this could be rather helpful.
What do you all think?
Labels: Business, Space Policy
posted by Jon Goff at 9:38 PM
5 Comments:
Jon,
Minor nit. I don't remember a time when budgets were not considered tight. Govt, business or personal, excess funds are the exception. I consider tight budgets to be normal.
Jon-
I've seen some crummy congressmen on both sides over the years, but a phrase that you've used a lot, 'congresscritter' really bugs me. I wonder if you could drop it. As time goes on, you might actually have one of these folks look at your site, and not pushing easily pushed buttons like this might do you a world of good, support-wise.
Anonymous,
Good point. Fair enough.
~Jon
It will be very interesting to see if this even makes it into the front door of congress to even get a chance to be heard at all. Something very similar to this was proposed by Jerry Pournelle to none other than Newt Gingrich when he was the Speaker of the House, but it seems as though one congressional scandal after another has killed this even before it could be assigned a bill number in the past.
It should be noted that a somewhat similar bill is currently being proposed titled the "H-Prize Act of 2007". It will be interesting to see what the general mood of congress will be for science prizes in general if this "Space Prize" act even gets any traction a little bit.
Jon,
I am curious - what would it take to get you to go up for ProSpace, or some other Congressional lobbying activity?
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