New Mexico has spent millions of dollars setting up Spaceport America, and bringing the commercial space industry to the State. Entrepreneurs at the International Symposium for Personal and Commercial Spaceflight said money spent on commercial space helps entrepreneurs and the country as a whole.
Having a United States influence in space is crucial to the nation’s defensive capabilities, and the day-to-day operations of the government. But now, the only way the United States gets to space is through the commercial sector, according to Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Space Policy Douglas Loverro.
“We are going to rely on commercial space to go ahead and drive the future of this Nation in space,” Loverro said. “Not just in defense, but in space at large. Commercial space launch, the only way this country gets to space today is through a commercial firm’s that launch things into space. We don’t have any US government owned space systems anymore.”
Bob Richards, co-founder of Moon Express Inc. says that US cutting funding to the government space program led to the spike in commercial space companies.
“It kind of started with ‘Hi, I’m with the private sector and I’m here to help”, and NASA said OK” Richards said.
And support from NASA, helps start-up companies gain investors.
“When you have a validation that comes in that you can say, ‘well NASA is our partner and we have some contracts with them,” Richards said. “That really helps create the confidence among the investor community. Together with examples of successes out there.”
Sean Mahoney, CEO of Masten Space Systems gave some advice to those just starting out in space.
“There’s ways that we can definitely work together,” Mahoney said. “For the new entrepreneur that thinks, well, the government is the enemy. They are treating the government as perhaps monolithic and are kind of missing the points.”
