Former House Science Committee Chair Robert Walker’s Comments on Space Policy in the 21st Century

Summary by Keith Cowing, Editor, NASA Watch

Robert Walker was the luncheon speaker at the FAA’s Commercial Space Transportation Forecast Conference. Walker is former House Science Committee chair. He is currently chairman and CEO of the Wexler Group and a science advisor to the George W. Bush presidential campaign. Walker spoke to conference attendees about the three main things he sees as having a strong effect upon how we use and explore space. He calls them his “three E’s” – which stand for exploration, exploitation, and entrepreneurship.

Exploration

Noting that we now live in an economy that is increasingly dominated by knowledge based business, Walker feels that any new venture in space is going to need to take this into account. According to Walker, any nation or economy that has the lead in information will lead in other ways as well. Since the exploration of space is very much about the gathering of new information, this will be true in space as well. Exploration is pushing boundaries and doing things no one has done before. Funding for this exploration is likely to continue to reliant mostly upon government funding and, as Walker sees it, this is probably a proper role for government to take.

Exploitation

Space is also an arena wherein both commercial and military needs are expressed and met. With the advent of so-called “dot com’ companies, and their ability to deliver goods and services fast, Walker feels that this will help drive the exploitation of space- if government can facilitate the proper environment. People want things fast and show an ever-increasing willingness to pay for such services.

He suggested that the analogy wherein Federal Express emerged was an apt one to apply to the prospect of high-speed delivery (via space) on a global scale. People though that the FedEx concept was nutty i.e. that people would pay a lot of money just to deliver something over night. Now that their vision has more than proven itself, it is not too much of a leap of the imagination to expect that people might be willing to pay even more if they can get something on the other side of the country – or the planet, within a few hours.

Entrepreneurship

Walker posed the question of what we need to do in order to get an investor to seriously consider the prospect of space as a place to do business. Walker expressed a desire to see government facilitating the environment such that people could be inspired to invest in space commercialization. He suggested that time honored methods of raising capital such as municipal bonds be considered in space. With appropriate legislation, Walker feels that tax incentives could spur an influx of new capital into space-based ventures. Walker noted that our new digital economy has caused a larger number of people to have ever increasing amounts of capital at their disposal.

“What if”, Walker proposed “we say to potential large investors that you build and operate a permanent base on the moon and we will exempt your corporation from all taxes for 25 years. Further more, we’ll exempt taxes on any dividends”. He then joking added “maybe we could make that 50 years for a base on Mars.”

The Big Picture

Walker urged the audience to consider policy and our future in space from the standpoint of the big picture. He noted that far too often, how we (or other nations) are doing vis a vis space is couched in how big NASA’s budget is or what large government contract some corporation just won.

He feels that coming up with an overall policy that serves to inspire people to take chances and make investments – one that takes private and government needs into account is the only way to make this happen. When asked by someone in the audience how such enabling legislation might come to pass, Walker replied that members of Congress such as Reps. Rohrabacher, English, and Dunn had all expressed interest in similar concepts.

Walker was reminded by a member of the audience of the “zero gravity, zero tax” concept that the House Science Committee had proposed when Walker was chairman. He noted that its progress towards legislation had been rather slow, and that the Ways and Means Committee had to be further encouraged to consider the concept, probably in the context of larger tax packages, before further progress could be expected. An aid for Rep. Dave Weldon rose to note that Weldon had voiced support for tax-free bonds to support spaceport development, news that Walker found very encouraging.