1st Meeting of the National Space Council

In general, I felt that this a very meaningful 1st NSC meeting. However, I'm still saddened that our government is still missing a critical partner in the national space strategy given the absence of a fourth panel: science and technology (S&T) research via Academia. Most commercial space companies suffer from a shallow pool for a competent and skilled workforce. Education is a critical need if we, the US, want to be leaders in space. Moreover, there is no credible national space strategy for space S&T research (the current strategy is what I call the "spray and pray" model...draw your own conclusions) and engaging our universities in motivating them to provide the solutions of tomorrow, exploring state-of-the-possible versus the typical myopic state-of-practice. Our country's most challenging problems have not been solved in the absence of strong and meaningful academic partnerships and a dedicated stream of funding to develop and sustain that research enterprise. For the space domain, this is all but absent! I'm hoping that the NSC will recognize this S&T gap and absence and will move to engage academia to fill it quickly and rigorously. An academic consortium dedicated to solving our space S&T challenges should be formed with government oversight. Participating (top 10) universities that make sense to have as founding partners, especially regarding space object motion (astrodynamics), space situational awareness, and space traffic are: The University of Texas at Austin, University of Colorado at Boulder, Purdue, Texas A&M, Penn State, Stanford, Missouri S&T, Georgia Tech, University of Florida, and Utah State. I have a strong vision for this...it's attainable if we move now and together!

The Academy is also likely the best suited to develop and sustain strong international collaboration and partnerships, helping our government with so called "Track 2.0" diplomacy. I wrote an op-ed on this very topic here

My most recent articles on this topic can be found here and here.