Final Debate: Commercial Space Operations –
Who’s leading? What are the current contributions?
Possible Talking Points:
Spaceports: Who’s developing them? How many do they have? Are there any categories? What
does the Licensing and Approval Process look like?
Frequency of launches: Who’s launching? Where? What parties are involved?
Private vs. Public entities: Is the government leading the task in that country? Are private
companies leading the charge? Are they combining efforts?
Procedures for integrating space vehicle launch/reentry operations into the airspace: Are
there rules in place to allow this? What does the airspace access look like?
Aircraft and Space vehicles: Who’s making these? What technology do they incorporate? What
can they do?
Space Tourism: What country is mostly engaged in this? How many launches and/or passengers
have been sent to space?
Space Resources: Commercial recovery of space resources is the exploitation of raw materials
from asteroids, comets and other space objects, including near-Earth objects for construction
materials and rocket propellant or taken back to Earth. Who’s engaged in this activity? What are
they doing?
Space-based industries: What countries are currently producing and manufacturing goods in
space? What are they manufacturing? Are they building space stations? Are they mining
asteroids?
Some players might be:
Space X
Blue Origin
LS Technologies
FAA – Office of Commercial Space Transportation – Space Transportation Development Division
NASA
Virgin Orbit
Virgin Galactic
Sierra Nevada Corporation
Commercial Spaceflight Federation
Spaceport America
Alaska Aerospace Corporation
ICAO – Space Learning Group Secretariat
