The Winners In All This

Source: Commercial Spaceflight Federation

If you know anything about the space business, you know NASA has never built its own rockets – it has always relied on commercial contractors to get astronauts – and for that matter into space and back safely.  So when we talk about injecting the private sector into space – what we are really talking about is a different sort of relationship between the government and those companies. The Obama Administration is betting heavily on companies that do not have a long history in defense and aerospace contracting – instead focusing on smaller more entrepreneurial  outfits that will not be supervised as closely by NASA  – and who will not have cost plus contracts. The hope is – these businesses are more nimble and will be able to create a whole new private space industry. On budget day, I also caught up with Brett Alexander – who heads the association that represents these smaller space companies: