| In case you didn't see it, on last week the Washington Post had an article discussing how Robert Herbert (currently an Colonel in the Army National Guard) is in the running to be the next head of the FAA. The reason that this is important to space and space development is that all commerical space launches are regulated by the Office of Commercial Space Transport (often referred to, for reasons that are beyond me, as AST), which is a division within the FAA.
Now, Colonel Herbert is a senior adviser to Senator Harry Reid. And Senator Reid proved very important to the passage of the Commercial Space Launch Amendments Act of 2004. Given this, and given Colonel Herbert's area of expertise, it seems very likely that he agrees with his boss about the potential of NewSpace.
And its not like Colonel Herbet is an unqualified lackey, ala Alberto Gonzales. He has over 7,000 hours in multiple aircraft (fixed wing, rotar, military, civilian, commerical). As a colonel in the Air National Guard, his current assignment is Deputy Commander for the Army Nevada National Guard, and he oversees Nevada's Command Inspection Program. Prior to this, for 6 years he was Director of Aviation for the state of Nevada.
I hope President Obama does indeed consider Colonel Herbert, and utilizes him as FAA Administrator. And if he were, that would be a good indication that President Obama (which, BTW, I NEVER tire of hearing) is interested in going in a new direction, in space!! |
STATE BLOGS
