ITech 2018 Jim Reuter Deputy Associate Administrator NASA Space Technology

ITech 2018 Jim Reuter Deputy Associate Administrator NASA Space Technology

Notes Transcribed by Paul Andreas Fischer

If you are in the imaging business and you look at it from the input to the output, the possibilities for application are limitless.

As long as you have a measure of urgency, you can use academic debate to reach a solution.

Ten winners have been selected and another 3 will be given.

Today is the day ten years ago that Columbia happened. Remembering Columbia.

I remember exactly where I was at the time. I was at Time Square.  It was the 15th birthday of my twin daughters. 

Strategic thrusts

4 mega drivers lead to 6 technology thrusts

Mega drivers:

Increasing access- to our systems

Accelerating pace of discovery - all we have to do is look at the planetary exploration and the emergence of private industrial investment, and even of private finances leading the way

Democratization of space - much broader participation, emphasis on public partnerships, and greater international participation. NGO investments in space was 3.9 billion, the increase was exponential after being flat for years, beginning in earnest in ’15. ISS as a cohesive agent.

Growing utilization of space - the nascent form of industry, sees manufacturing for use in space and on earth, assembly and mining  

These were four concepts when we considered which thrust to emphasize.

Strategic thrust

Accelerate industrialization - servicing, manufacturing, assembly there are many different parts to the process. Searching for life on another planet is an example. If we can assemble machinery onsite it will be faster and safer to transport the mechanisms

Safe and efficiency - even if we have to travel interstellar by the gram-size using directed laser energy, that is an example of how we have been willing to spend 100 million before.

increasing access to planetary surfaces - good places to land tend to be lest interesting, so hazard landing etc is important, we have a mechanism on landing Mars 2020

enable next generations of space discovery - we hope to greatly enhance data quantity and quality. Where those next generations can be on our icy moons, such as Europa. We believe there to be water and volcanic activity, yielding the essential ingredients to life, if we can drill through 5 miles of ice, and radiation and other hurdles.

enable humans t o live and explore in space and on planetary surfaces - Space habitation, radiation protection, increased crew effectiveness. I worked 7 years on the ISS from 1993 to 2000 on life support. We went through alot of iterations on how we could make ISS with multiple partners, with the Russians, we had the advantage of doing so close to earth, with a solid logistical supply. Our return capability on Mars will make us limited, we need robotics and other capabilities to enhance our abilities.

Grow and utilize the US industrial and academic base - iTech is part of achieving Nasa’s dream. Most of the time, 35 years at NASA, have been spent in logistics. We never bought services, we never did any of the cooperation with the private sector that we do today, so once you are used to doing something in one way, you have to adapt.

Space Technology Programs

Early Stage

NASA Innovative Advanced Concepts

Space Tech Research Grants

Center Innovation Fund

Game Changing Development

Small Spacecraft Tech

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Commercial partnerships

iTech

SBIR/STTR

tech transfer

Flight opp

Centinial challenge

Regional econ dev

I do not have time to go through all of these.

We are probably at about 8 now

Some of these are industry specific

But these can be conducted by anyone, such as NIAC, we pay 125k for research project and if we like it we up the pay to 500k for a further 2 years studying the topic.

We express the privilege to utilize the tech, but beyond that we exercise no additional copyrights

We see ourselves as the best in the world, approval for phase 1 gives 125k for 6 months, and phase 2 gives 750k for two years this leads to a contract phase.

We sponsor payloads for suborbital platforms, and we do not pay for the payloads, but we provide the launch and a small amount of money for integration. Servicer and payload get manifested.

My time is up but I also address regional economic development and centennial challenges.