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
IATA
Interflight Global
CACI
Jacksonville Aviation Authority/Cecil Air and Space Port
Mojave Air and Spaceport
Boeing
Airbus
Indian Space Research Organization
United Launch Alliance
German Aerospace Center
UK Space Agency
CNES
Roscosmos
China National Space Agency
European Space Agency
JAXA
Italian Space Agency
China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation
Some countries that are space players are:
U.S.
Russia
Europe (Spain, Belgium, Great Britain, Italy, etc.)
Asia (China, India, Japan, etc.)
Remember to develop your mini-essay (250 words) to defend your selected country/region. This debate
will occur after viewing all space history movies and, at least, one week before the final exam.
