NASA embraces its role in shaping the space economy

Everything about how NASA does business has changed significantly over the years and large driver of that is the commercialization of space.

The agency has always leaned on the private sector to build things for them, but the shift in recent years is toward commercial companies operating flights and launches.

Casey Swails, NASA's deputy associate administrator, told attendees of Washington Technology's Doing Business with NASA Power Breakfast last Friday about how the commercialization of space touches all of aspects of NASA operations. This includes aeronautics, space exploration and scientific discovery.

“Where we are going, we need everyone,” she said in describing the collaborative nature of how NASA works.

The big initiative at NASA is Artemis, which will return astronauts to the moon for the first time since the Apollo program ended in the 1970s.

By the way: In Greek mythology, Artemis was Apollo’s twin.

The Artemis mission will be very different than that of the Apollo.

“The first time we went, I described it as a short duration camping trip of going and picking up some rocks coming home,” Swails said. “This time we're going back to stay, and I'd probably be overselling it by saying it's like a city on the moon, but it is kind of like a one-horse buggy town, but with lunar rovers and cool technology.”

The goal is to have a sustainable presence on the moon to learn how to work, how to live, how to practice as preparation for going to Mars, she said.

While Artemis captures the imagination, NASA is also hard at work on initiatives closer the Earth. One of those areas is aeronautics, where NASA is conducting research to make airliners more efficient and working to bring back commercial supersonic flights by reducing the sonic boom.

In keeping with NASA’s strategy to collaborate with commercial companies, Swails described how NASA is working with more than 100 companies and the Federal Aviation Administration to develop electric air taxis and drones.

“Right now, you can’t fly a drone outside of the visual line of sight,” she said. “We're transforming the future of the airspace to allow for that in the very near future. There is super exciting stuff happening in our aeronautics community.”

Those kinds of initiatives are part of NASA’s mission to foster a strong and growing space economy, Swails said.

Collecting data is a critical component of NASA’s earth science mission.

“We have partnerships with a dozen other agencies on to utilize the data, so think of NOAA, the National Weather Service, EPA and USDA,” she said. “It really gets to the application of science. We are helping farmers think about when to plant crops with the irrigation data NASA provides.”

On the horizon is NASA’s 2040 initiative, which is focused on long-term investments in the technologies NASA needs to meet its objectives.

"This is really about making some tough decisions today to propel us into the future and making some investments today to propel us into the future,” Swails said. “It isn’t just about mission technologies but the technology we need to do our jobs.”

One example she gave involved a a scientist working with a wind tunnel hundreds of miles away and managing robots to do the hands-on work.

“That doesn’t seem so far away but it also isn’t easy to implement, particularly when you have a lot of old stuff,” Swails said.

The plan to implement this vision is in the works and NASA will be asking for industry input. The investments will begin in the government's 2026 fiscal year.

“You are going to see a lot of work coming out of the agency, because we know we have got to have a plan and we welcome your feedback,” she said.