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The View From 2015: Integrated Space Plan's 100-Year Plan
garyebickford writes: Wired Magazine has posted an article about the new 2015 version of the Integrated Space Plan, updated 14 years after the last version and descended directly from the original 1989 version. The original one was printed in the thousands, distributed by Rockwell, and appeared on walls throughout the space industry. One even hung behind the NASA administrator's desk. The new one is prettier, great for dorm room walls and classrooms, and Integrated Space Analytics, the company behind it, promises to expand their website into an up-to-date, live interactive tool. This is a great new beginning after over 30 years.
I was one of the contributors to this plan, and one of the big misconceptions is that NASA is the only player in space. In reality, worldwide space industry was $323 billion in 2014, and NASA's $17.6 billion only represented 5.45%. Most of the 1250 active satellites in Earth orbit are commercial ones, and a lot of innovation is happening in that arena. For example, ion thrusters for boosting to synchronous orbit are standard procedure these days, using solar arrays 2.5 times as efficient as the ones powering the Space Station. SpaceX is working on recovering their first stage so it can be used again, while NASA is going backwards on the SLS solid boosters. In the Shuttle era the boosters were 2/3 re-used, on SLS they will be thrown away.