Category: Aviation

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.