Creating Affordable & Responsive Space Missions
This year the Responsive Space Conference has become the Reinventing Space Conference in order to put a renewed emphasis on the importance of reducing cost. Most of the people working in Responsive Space have also wanted to create much lower cost space missions. At RS3, Dr. Pete Rustan urged the community to use Responsive Space developments and advancements as a means of reducing the cost of larger, more traditional space systems. The current economic crisis makes that need even more critical if we are to meet the ambitious goals of the American space program. If a solution to the prohibitively high cost of space is not found, then the shortfall in future years will require major cuts in space activity. We are already starting to see that occur. It’s a problem that must be addressed and addressed quickly. Our goal for RS 2011 is to try to help. A classified session (DoD Secret) will also be held on Friday, May 6, 2011. As in prior years, RS 2011 will accept papers on all aspects of Low-Cost, Responsive Space, but particularly solicits papers that emphasize economic analysis and methods, techniques, and examples of ways to drive down space mission cost and schedule and create affordable and responsive space missions. Such topics include:
Business — How do we make money on Affordable and Responsive Space Missions? Is there a business case for “low-cost, instant gratification”? What does “low-cost” mean to the builder and to the user? Missions and Applicationsand Applications — What are the commercial, civil, military, and educational applications for low-cost, responsive missions? CONOPS — How does Affordable, Responsive Space work for the end user who doesn’t care about space? If we have instant replacement for destroyed military satellites, how do we use them at low cost without creating an entirely new Operations infrastructure? Launch — Where are we (or where aren’t we) with respect to responsive, low-cost access to space? Are the Russians and Chinese the only ones who will have launch-on-demand at low cost?	Technology — Where are we in plug-and-play; flexible, multi-use systems; low-cost components; software-driven systems; standards and procedures? Mission and Systems Engineering — What is the status of low-cost responsive mission design, measures of effectiveness, orbits, and getting information to the end user within hours of an unexpected event? Education and Motivation — How do we both educate and motivate the coming generation of space technologists? How do we use Responsive Space to convince young professionals that space is the place to build a career?
Let’s Get Together Again and Start to Make It Happen!

ORS Office Formation Press Release. DoD Press Release announcing the formation of the ORS Office at Kirtland AFB on May 21.

House Armed Services Committee FY08 Report on ORS reaffirms support for ORS, recommends an increase of $30 million in FY08 (to a level of $117 million), and encourages DoD to "re-balance" the funds between existing launch vehicle purchases, responsive launch vehicle development, responsive payload and bus development, and responsive launch control.

The DoD ORS Report to Congress.  Signed on April 17, 2007, this report provides the official government position on ORS and its implementation.  Includes the definition of the Tiers of ORS and the ORS Office organizational structure.

Papers From Past RS Conferences
The complete text of all papers from the RS1 through RS8 Conferences can be found on the website along with indexes by topic, author, and organization. This lets you find past papers and relevant background material quickly and easily.

Points of Contact:

General Chair:	Dr. James R. Wertz jwertz@smad.com (310) 219-2700
Administrative Chair:	Charles R. Kilmer charles.r.kilmer@boeing.com (562) 797-2353
Technical Co-Chairs:	Scott Jensen AIAA Space Systems Technical Committee scott.jensen@sdl.usu.edu (435) 797-4516 Peter Montgomery AIAA Space Transportation Technical Committee peter.montgomery@arnold.af.mil (931) 454-5852
Sponsorship POC:	Dr. Robert Conger rconger@smad.com (310) 219-2700