The FAA Office of Commercial Space (AST, don't ask me how the acronym and the name line up...) is attempting to do just that.

Its really a quite nice arrangement, because the FAA has been working on this since when the concept of private space flight had an extremely large 'giggle factor', and they have been working back and forth with the commercial providers to ensure that the regulations make sense and won't be too restrictive, while still maintaining safety.

Plus everyone I've met from AST has been really friendly.

Not quite though. The difference between traditional government contracting and the current COTS/CCDev approach is subtle but important.

Development of all NASA vehicles (past the initial architecture studies) are done largely by private companies such as Lockheed Martin. However, the contracts for doing so are basically that the contractor is building exactly what the government asked of them, and they will be paid whatever the development costs with an additional guaranteed profit on top of it -- thus the name 'cost-plus contracting.' While this is necessary for high-risk, low-reward development, its something to avoid whenever possible since it combines the lack of competition of monopolistic or governmental development with the desire of corporations to increase their profits -- this is clearly a recipe for rising costs.

COTS and CCDev operate on a model more like how you and I buy things. The companies contracted this way are being paid a fixed amount and expected to produce. Because this is an expensive field, some of the money is being provided up front (and at certain milestones) in order to speed up development, but even if the final product ends up costing more than NASA pays, we the taxpayer don't pay any extra -- the companies involved will still finish it though because otherwise they don't get paid (assuming they're far enough along at the time of realizing they're going to be over-budget that its still cheaper to finish). After development, it will be a purely pay for service contract, different from getting a Super Shuttle from the airport only in scale. By having multiple competitors and fixed-price contracts, costs and quality will be controlled.

So yes, all previously development was 'commercial' as well. As someone involved in pushing for these "New Space" approaches, I really wish we had picked a better name for it, because the difference is subtle but importantly. Personally, I really like the name COTS because it implies the true goal: to make purchasing flights to orbit as simple as pulling the best competitor for the particular mission 'off the shelf' rather than requesting cost-plus custom solutions.

The problem isn't the NASA budget as a whole, which as you point out is doing all right by historical standards, particularly given the larger budget situation within the government. The talk of cuts has more to do with allocations within NASA.

Specifically, SLS (the new heavy-lift to nowhere rocket) and James Webb Space Telescope are eating everyone else's lunch. Planetary Science and Commercial Cargo/Crew development, along with Earth Science, are the programs suffering from this.

SLS is the real tragedy, because its 2+ billion/year funding is so senseless. NASA can't build it to meet the congress-specified requirements within the congress-specified funding, and doesn't know what they would do with it if they could build it -- it would be capable of launching very rarely and at an excessive cost. The only people who want the thing built are the lawmakers, thus its nickname, the Senate Launch System. Amusingly, its been described as a 'backup' to commercial development, which they want to cut from $800M/year down to $450M/year to pay for it, and require NASA to pick a winner now (which the government is notoriously bad at). The money is a complete waste because it will certainly be cancelled by a new congress long before it ever gets anywhere near being built.

The other killer thats causing budget cuts across the science division is James Webb, the next big space telescope. This one isn't quite as depressing because at least its likely to be useful when completed, but its been incredibly mismanaged as the costs have ballooned from less than $2B to more than $8B. In order to keep it alive, much of the rest of the science division has suffered.

Ultimately, when they speak of 'budget cuts' for NASA, its cuts for internal programs, and the blame can be laid largely on micro-management by Congress.

My interpretation is that Qt Quick is not yet suitable for desktop use, while the 'old-style' C++ objects should remain as usable as they are now.

While I'd love to see how Quick could help with improving my workflow, since I only work on desktop interfaces I guess I'll have to wait.

'Edge of space' is well below the Van Allen belts. The cost of space-electronics comes from having to harden them against radiation. Cosmic rays can and will cause bits to flip at random, so you need to harden them against all but the most energetic particles -- something in the upper atmosphere (which is where these high-altitude balloon cameras are), is protected by the same magnetic fields that protect us on the ground.

The other option is to stick your electronics in a lead box (see Juno), but a camera won't work very well that way.

And if imaging were the primary purpose of the mission (such as on LRO), then the camera would be much better, and much more expensive. GRAIL is intended to map the gravity of the moon, and the MoonKAMs are attached for the sake of reaching out to schoolchildren, not for science, since LRO is doing a fine job of that, so they went with something cheaper.

Look at the sequence of the failures: First 3 failures with all the ones after those being successful. This means that they learned the appropriate lessons from the early failures.

While the small number of flights is still too low to make me confident in their safety, I wouldn't say the early failures are a particular cause for concern. Its not like Orbital Sciences where the most recent launches have dumped their payloads in the ocean.

No. Just no. While thats true for some people, many people live in places well suited for public transportation, they just dont have it.

I live in LA. Winter means I might want to put on a scarf early in the morning, but I still may want short sleeves by the afternoon -- that's not weather extremes. Its also densely populated. This place would be great to have public transportation --- but they filled in half the light rail lines decades ago because they decided to be a 'car town'. Now, I'm fortunate to be able to take a bus to work only because my (large) employer subsidizes the city to keep my line open, and though I live on a metro station it doesn't seem to go anywhere I'd actually want to go -- the beach, the airport, etc.

While that excuse may work for Wyoming, the excuse of us being more spread out is nonsense for most Americans, just as it is when we talk about our flagging broadband market.

As a active supporter of commercial space efforts both within NASA and outside of NASA, as well as a someone who's paying job involves the unmanned Mars program, I will be the first to say that private spaceflight does not negate the importance of publicly supported exploration - they complement each other.

Government's job, in my opinion, is to do those things that private industry can't -- thinks that don't necessarily return an immediate profit (or shouldn't) but are nonetheless good or necessary for our society. For the space program, this means the 'Lewis and Clark' role, where the government funds a risky venture for the benefit of us all, leaving the infrastructure and knowledge for its citizens to follow.

Right now we're at a point where the government has demonstrated the abilities and technology required to get satellites and people to low Earth orbit. Most satellites, except those of actual use to other government agencies, have transitioned to private industry, which has worked hard to drive down prices and increase reliability. Now its time for the government to at least get out of the way, and hopefully help bootstrap (through COTS) the same transformation in manned flight. If there is no profit to be had, then we need to reconsider things, but apparently enough companies think that there is that we should let them have a chance.

Nonetheless, beyond Earth orbit is not there yet. There is not yet an obvious impetus for private individuals and companies to explore Mars or other planets, yet I think most of us (here at least) recognize that it is in the long-term interest of our society. Therefor this is the proper role of government, and something that should be supported -- especially since in the grand scheme of the US Federal Budget, NASA represents a few crumbs.

My hope is, though, that improvements in access to LEO encouraged by private development will truly complement the government programs, and allow the us to do more with the same amount of money.

Actually it does.

The second aspect of my statement focuses particularly on non-gravitational forces on the asteroid, which would not be measured by a free-floating beacon.

Understanding the effects for a small asteroid could inform our understanding of how larger asteroids would behave as well, thus serving to help us better predict contintent-killers like Apophis.

Of course, I'd much rather bring them in closer and mine them, but that would be more difficult, so tracking would probably happen first (and be good practice for eventual capture missions).

As far as allocation of resources go, that really depends. I'd have to see detailed studies on what a mission like this would cost.