National Space Foundation’s Compelling Tidbits For 2012

[SatNews] The following are a few excerpts from Elliot Holokauahi Pulham’s forecast for 2012 from the National Space Foundation.

Aloha from Colorado Springs, and welcome to 2012 — which will either be the most auspicious year ever, or the end of life as we know it, depending upon whether you ascribe to the Chinese calendar or the Mayan one….

The answer, of course, is up to us. If we dwell on all the things that could make it bad — ITAR, the injured U.S. space industrial base, a clueless and arrogant White House, etc. — …

Certainly, we’re sensitive to the difficulties that many in the space community face. NASA has bet the farm on commercial orbital transportation systems, yet the COTS lynchpin could pop right out of the machine if competing interests both inside and outside the agency divert crucial funding…

Going back to COTS, it’s worth keeping an eye on United Launch Alliance and its partner companies this year…

Speaking of Dragons, January 23 kicks off the Year of the Dragon on the Chinese calendar. Dragon years are believed to be the most auspicious…I believe we’re going to see some auspicious developments in China’s space program in the next 12 months.

Not all that’s worth watching in 2012 will involve human space flight. The Mars Exploration Laboratory “Curiosity” is presently hurtling through space, en route to an August rendezvous with the Red Planet….

One group that will not want to be glued to its seats will be the passengers and crew aboard Space Ship Two when Virgin Galactic makes its historic first passenger flight to the edge of space…

And that’s not all.

2012 will undoubtedly bring us more stunning imagery from the Hubble Space Telescope…

The U. S. Air Force AEHF-1 satellite will become operational and ULA will launch at least nine spacecraft for the national security space community…

JAXA will launch its Kounotori 4 spacecraft on an autonomous docking resupply mission to the ISS, while Hayabusa 2 is being prepared for Japan’s second asteroid encounter…

Yes, it’s true that there is so much more that we could and should be doing in space. Election year politics are going to be ugly, and federal space programs are going to suffer because of it. The ITAR dragon will defy efforts to slay it, and U.S. space companies will continue to cry for their freedom to compete in world markets.

To enjoy this forecast in its entirety by Elliot Holokauahi Pulham Chief Executive Officer please see the upcoming issue of January 2012 SatMagazine.