At Air Show, NASA Explores Business Side of ‘Final Frontier’

On the 35th anniversary of man’s first landing on the moon, NASA came to the international air show to take one giant leap into the business side of space exploration.

Never before has the space agency been a participant at the Farnborough International Air Show, where major global aerospace and military contractors show their wares. But on Tuesday, Craig Steidle, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s associate administrator and the head of a 50-member delegation from the U.S. agency, was out drumming up global business partners to help it pursue missions to the moon and Mars.

The Bush administration announced in January that it wanted to bring about a greater privatization of NASA, turning over to the private sector all launchings that do not involve astronauts.

“We want to start the dialogue with companies and industries,” Steidle, a retired rear admiral, said. “We want to pull our needs and desires into partnerships.”

But many may find it difficult to go through Steidle’s open door.

Companies based outside the United States account for less than 1 percent of NASA’s $9.4 billion procurement budget. This low percentage is due, in part, to trade regulations intended to protect sensitive satellite technology but that also make it hard for non- U.S. companies to compete with American suppliers.

Still, NASA put on a good show, in part driven by the realization that, given its daunting new agenda, it will be difficult to go it alone.

“The main reason we’re here is that we need to gather as much innovation as possible,” Steidle said in an interview after his presentation. “There are technical programs that we can work on collaboratively.”

Steidle called on representatives of the Japanese and Russian space agencies as well as the European Space Agency to join in.

Backing up Steidle’s words was a splashy and popular display by NASA that trumpeted President George W. Bush’s call for a manned mission to Mars. But the biggest attraction of the exhibit may be a space suit available for passers-by to try on.

The traveling exhibit, which will cost $600,000, was a cross between a sophisticated science exhibit and a clever marketing tool. Already, four U.S. senators attending the air show have stopped by. This is the exhibit’s first stop on a worldwide tour.

“We are extremely excited about the people who have been coming through,” said James Hull, the exhibit manager, who, like all the NASA employees here, was wearing a polo shirt with the round NASA logo. “We’ve got stakeholders, senior advisers, directors of international businesses. We are trying to send our message out.”

It is a message that NASA has plenty of business opportunities, among them a lunar rover; a nuclear-electric propulsion system, called Prometheus, that will guide a craft to Jupiter’s moons; and a service program to repair the beleaguered international space station.

“The NASA budget is bigger than the gross domestic product of many South American countries,” said Alan Ross, a Washington-based lobbyist who advises companies seeking federal contracts, “so the opportunities are there for great rewards.”

Yet even the most enthusiastic speakers recognized the trade barriers as did those in the audience.

“The big issue is the fact that it is difficult to get information to participate in the program,” said Philip Davies, senior account manager of Surrey Satellite Technology, a satellite maker based in Guildford, England. “How can you get work if you can’t get details of the program?”

Surrey is a case in point. It has sold one of its satellites to the Los Alamos National Laboratory, but Los Alamos would buy only the satellite’s structure, refusing to give Surrey the business of putting in the payload, the sensitive innards of the satellite.

Still, given the size of NASA’s budget, even a small level of participation can pay off. “There will be opportunities for non- U.S. companies,” Davies said. “The U.S. marketplace is so big, even 1 percent of the business is a lot of money.”

David Purll, space program manager of Sira Technology of London, a maker of optical devices for earth imagery, said that international participation on contracts was inevitable.

“Going to Mars is so big,” he said, “even the U.S. cannot do it alone.”