Commercial Orbital Transportation Services: A New Era in Spaceflight provides a history of the NASA Commercial Orbital Transportation Services (COTS) program executed by the Commercial Crew & Cargo Program Office from 2006 to 2013 at the Johnson Space Center, Houston, Texas. It discusses the elements and people that ultimately made the COTS model a success.

This book offers a comprehensive overview of current space exploration in terms of geopolitical and commercial aspects. Despite multiple attempts to foster commercial activities in the field of space exploration, for decades the domain largely continued to be funded and led by governments in the form of national and international programmes. However, the situation changed with the retirement of the Space Shuttle and the introduction of NASA’s Commercial Orbital Transportation Services (COTS) programme, which employed an innovative procurement scheme based on competitive, performance-based, fixed-price milestones. The success of this programme marked an important milestone in the evolution of the relationship between government and industry. The growing opportunities for private actors to make more prominent contributions to space exploration also lie in the “New Space” ecosystem, a sectoral transformation characterised by a substantial increase in private investment and the emergence of commercial efforts to develop disruptive concepts and address new markets.

Reinventing Space is the largest global conference and exhibition for one of the space industry’s fastest growing sectors. Over its 82-year history, the British Interplanetary Society has acted as a forum for new and innovative ideas and developments in astronautics, low-cost access and utilization of space. These conference proceedings reflect the work done at the 13th Reinventing Space Conference, the second biggest space event in the UK during 2015. The global economic climate is creating demand to reduce expenditure, leading to new challenges and opportunities in the world’s space industry. The need to create more responsive systems and launchers that are capable of delivering to space quickly, cheaply and reliably has never been more vital. This collection from RIspace brings together industry, agency, government, financiers, academia and end users. It focuses on the commercialization of space and addresses a range of topics including low-cost launch opportunities, the rebirth of constellations, beyond LEO activities and novel technologies. These papers encourage and promote forward-thinking ideas and concepts for the future exploration and utilization of space. The proceedings address: • New ways of doing business in space – how do we make money on affordable and responsive space missions? • Tactical space systems – how do we best serve the needs of defense missions; civilian missions; the needs of emergency responders? • Interplanetary missions – can we use new technology to explore the Solar System at dramatically lower cost? • What are the methods, processes, and technologies that we can use to make major reductions in the cost of space missions? • New application areas for low-cost space systems – which ones can take advantage of newer, much lower-cost systems? • How do we educate and motivate the coming generation, without whom there won’t be a space industry?

This book analyzes the commercial space activities and commercialization processes of the last fifteen years and maps the future challenges that NewSpace companies will face developing commercial space markets. What is new and what has happened in these markets up till now? Is there a business case for private companies for commercial space? What are the targeted commercial space markets? Who are the future customers for commercial space transportation markets? How can NewSpace companies attract investors? Can we learn lessons from traditional space industries or other companies in other areas? In what way have the last fifteen years made a difference in the evolution of space markets? Is there a future for in-situ resource mining, space debris services, in-orbit satellite servicing and sub-orbital transportation? What are the lessons learned from ISS commercialization? In addition the reader will find a synopsis of several space transportation programs, commercial space markets, future Moon and Mars missions, in-situ resource exploitation concepts, space debris mitigation projects and sub-orbital commercial markets. Major lessons learned are identified, related to the attraction of first time customers and long term R&D funding, managing technological and market risks and developing new markets and applications.

As the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) retires the Space Shuttle and shifts involvement in International Space Station (ISS) operations, changes in the role and requirements of NASA's Astronaut Corps will take place. At the request of NASA, the National Research Council (NRC) addressed three main questions about these changes: what should be the role and size of Johnson Space Center's (JSC) Flight Crew Operations Directorate (FCOD); what will be the requirements of astronaut training facilities; and is the Astronaut Corps' fleet of training aircraft a cost-effective means of preparing astronauts for NASA's spaceflight program? This report presents an assessment of several issues driven by these questions. This report does not address explicitly the future of human spaceflight.