Members of the press interested in participating should dial in ten minutes prior to the call. Reporters should dial (213) 493-0800 and enter the participant access number, which is 1098901#.  Reporters should dial 1-800-977-8002 and enter the participant access number, which is 6853325.

SARG is an advisory committee composed of experienced scientists, researchers and educators dedicated to furthering the research and education potential of commercial suborbital launch vehicles.

SARG’s goals include increasing awareness of commercial suborbital flights among scientists and educators and working with policymakers to ensure that payloads will have access to a new generation of research and education tools.

SARG is now recruiting Ambassadors to help achieve these goals by communicating the broad benefits of suborbital spaceflight through public appearances and talks.  SARG Ambassadors will be connected with opportunities to communicate in their respective surrounding areas and will be encouraged to reach out to local policy makers and government agencies with their important message.

SARG chairman, Dr. Alan Stern of the Southwest Research Institute added, “The SARG Ambassador program will be an extension of the SARG committee, increasing the outreach ability for research and education missions. SARG Ambassadors will allow us to increase our reach and our expertise base manifold.”

Alex Saltman, the Executive Director of CSF said, “Suborbital spaceflight will be important for science, research and education, and this program is an important part of SARG’s grassroots efforts. With the Ambassadors program, we will be able to link talented scientists, researchers and educators to those wishing to know more about research and education applications on commercial suborbital vehicles and to inform a broader audience about the exciting opportunities in suborbital science, using real-life and close-to-home examples.”

For more information about the SARG Ambassador Program, please visit the program’s webpage.

For more information about SARG, please visit the Commercial Spaceflight Federation’s webpage.

About the Commercial Spaceflight Federation

The mission of the Commercial Spaceflight Federation (CSF) is to promote the development of commercial human spaceflight, pursue ever-higher levels of safety, and share best practices and expertise throughout the industry. The Commercial Spaceflight Federation’s member companies, which include commercial spaceflight developers, operators, spaceports, suppliers, and service providers, are creating thousands of high-tech jobs nationwide, working to preserve American leadership in aerospace through technology innovation, and inspiring young people to pursue careers in science and engineering. For more information please visit www.commercialspaceflight.org or contact Executive Director Alex Saltman at saltman@commercialspaceflight.org or at 202.349.1121.

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Suborbital spaceflight will bring unique opportunities for students to fly their experiments into space, inspiring an entire generation of innovators for years to come. Please watch the Suborbital Coalition web page to follow real world researchers and students as they design, build, test and fly their experiments on suborbital platforms. Groups from Purdue University and University of Central Florida will take you through their trials and triumphs and share their experience in a series of video and blog entries on the Suborbital Coalition webpage starting next month.

The Coalition will work with government agencies, nonprofits, national and educational organizations to find opportunities to do research more easily, quickly and cheaply than ever before. It will facilitate interaction between policymakers in Washington, researchers and educators on the emerging frontier of suborbital spaceflight. To learn more, visit the Suborbital Coalition webpage at www.suborbitalcoalition.org.

“The funding level provided in the draft Commerce, Justice, Science Appropriations bill produced by the House Appropriations Committee represents a commitment to the Commercial Crew Program that is greatly appreciated by the industry,” said Commercial Spaceflight Federation President and former NASA astronaut Michael Lopez-Alegria. “As important, however, is preserving competition in the program, as the vehicles are not sufficiently mature to enable NASA to confidently select a single vehicle at this time. The next phase of the program should also maintain the use of Space Act Agreements, which require meaningful investment by the competing companies to augment NASA funding. NASA does plan to move to FAR-based contracts at the appropriate time prior to certifying any provider to carry crew. We believe NASA has carefully designed a program that maintains competition, and preserves safety, through the development and certification process, and that uses the appropriate contracting mechanism at each stage. It is best to leave decisions on program management to the NASA human spaceflight professionals who have access to all the information and have worked closely with all the competing companies. If the language in the report were applied to the current round of competition, it would result in a significant delay in restoring U.S. human access to orbit.”

About the Commercial Spaceflight Federation

The mission of the Commercial Spaceflight Federation (CSF) is to promote the development of commercial human spaceflight, pursue ever-higher levels of safety, and share best practices and expertise throughout the industry. The CSF’s member companies – which include commercial spaceflight developers, operators, spaceports, suppliers and service providers – are creating thousands of high-tech jobs nationwide, working to preserve American leadership in aerospace through technology innovation, and inspiring young people to pursue careers in science and engineering. For more information please visit www.commercialspaceflight.org or contact Executive Director Alex Saltman at saltman@commercialspaceflight.org or at 202.349.1121.

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Check it out on nature’s webpage here.

“Thousands of people poured out of office buildings across Washington DC this week to welcome the Space Shuttle Discovery to her new home, an inspiring reminder of how important the space program is to all Americans,” said Michael Lopez-Alegria, President of the Commercial Spaceflight Federation. “The next astronauts to fly to space from American soil will be on American-made, commercially-built rockets, and by continuing to advance the vital Commercial Crew Program in a time of tightening budgets, Congress has sent a strong signal that this is an important priority for NASA and for the nation.”

A robustly funded Commercial Crew Program is the quickest way to restore America’s access to space and avoid spending taxpayer dollars buying flights from Russia. The amount of funding for the program has a direct impact on the date of entry into service for the commercial providers. NASA is currently spending about $400M annually launching six astronauts from Russia, with the price rising every year. A less expensive, American capability would bring that money home and allow for maximal utilization of the space station for science, industry and education, while creating high-paying, high-tech manufacturing jobs across the country.

“As the House and Senate work to agree on appropriations for the upcoming year, we support the highest possible funding level for Commercial Crew,” said Commercial Spaceflight Federation Chairman Eric Anderson. “We look forward to working with Congress and NASA to reinstate America’s manned spaceflight capability as quickly as possible.”

The Commercial Crew program is using a staged competition for fixed-cost cooperative agreements and contracts to develop an American capability to deliver astronauts to low-Earth orbit. By including competition at all stages and leveraging private investment, it will save taxpayer money and allow NASA to invest in deep space exploration and scientific research.

About the Commercial Spaceflight Federation
The mission of the Commercial Spaceflight Federation (CSF) is to promote the development of commercial human spaceflight, pursue ever-higher levels of safety, and share best practices and expertise throughout the industry. The Commercial Spaceflight Federation’s member companies, which include commercial spaceflight developers, operators, spaceports, suppliers, and service providers, are creating thousands of high-tech jobs nationwide, working to preserve American leadership in aerospace through technology innovation, and inspiring young people to pursue careers in science and engineering. For more information please visit www.commercialspaceflight.org or contact Executive Director Alex Saltman at saltman@commercialspaceflight.org or at 202.349.1121.

Read about Zero-G’s 300^th flight and the soldiers’ experience here on the Sun Sentinel website.

The article discusses the overall plans of the U.S’s return to space, acknowledging that space exploration is an expensive venture but maintaining that, “the money America has spent on its space program has proven to be a wise investment.” In response to the oped, the President of the Commercial Spaceflight Federation, Michael Lopez-Alegria commented, “Senators Hutchison and Nelson underscore a critical theme throughout the article: It is important to regain U.S. human launch capability and preserve our nation’s leadership in space, a goal that both the industry and Congress share.”

Read the op-ed here at The Sacramento Bee.

The article can be found on Aviation Week’s website here.

Also in this week’s issue, the Commentary section featured a letter from ten industry leaders in education and research voicing support for not only Commercial Crew, but science as well. The letter explains that the programs are complementary, as cheaper access to ISS enables more research to be done.

The editorial and the letter can be found on SpaceNews’ website.
The full text of the letter is below:

Commercial Crew: Science’s Friend, Not Enemy

Recent congressional hearings on the NASA fiscal year 2013 budget request have revealed a flawed and dangerous hypothesis by some members of Congress — that NASA’s Commercial Crew Program has robbed funding from its planetary exploration efforts.

This conclusion is factually flawed. This can be seen from the fact that the fiscal 2013 budget request for commercial crew is no higher than the 2013 request made last year as a part of the Obama administration’s fiscal 2012 five-year NASA budget projection — before this year’s significant and misguided cuts to planetary exploration.

What’s worse in this hypothesis and suggestions of cuts to the Commercial Crew Program is that commercial crew is a friend of science. Why? Because it enables more international space station (ISS) research, because it reduces the cost of ISS access (thereby removing a threat to NASA’s other science budgets), and because it opens a budget wedge for human exploration of asteroids, the Moon and Mars that will have tremendous positive value to planetary exploration.

We hope that congressional appropriators — both members and staffers — will come to agree with us that cuts to commercial crew would be damaging to both science and human exploration at NASA, and would be the wrong way to restore NASA’s planetary exploration budget.