Thursday, June 11, 2015

A Vision for Florida's Space Future with Frank DiBello of Space Florida



 
Space Florida President & CEO Frank DiBello, National Space Club, June 9, 2015
On Tuesday I had the pleasure of hanging out with my space peeps at the National Space Club luncheon. It’s always a pleasure to see familiar faces, meet new ones, and hear a great talk.

This month’s lunch speaker was Frank DiBello giving his annual update on Space Florida. I keep up on the news well enough to know pretty much everything he was going to say, but it’s still interesting to note how he says it. Style, tone, and emphases matter just as much as facts and figures.

Space Florida is a state entity that focused on aerospace economic development. I’ve been working with them in various ways for a couple of years now, most strongly with the Shiloh commercial spaceport initiative, the NASA transfer of the Shuttle Landing Facility (SLF), and the annual Florida Space Day. I find it all exciting and a lot of fun!

Frank began with the usual warnings that Florida needs to evolve. This has been an issue for several years now. For so many years, Florida had the space shuttle program to keep us happy and complacent, but when that program ended, the world shifted under many people’s feet.

We need additional and diverse businesses to keep our high-tech sector here, and we need to make ourselves business-friendly to do so. We’ve seen companies choose to set up shop elsewhere because Florida isn’t evolving fast enough, but we’ve also seen companies such as mine choose to locate in Florida. Slowly, Florida is becoming a hub of aerospace industry outside of direct NASA influence. I would like to see it happen faster, but nothing in the space industry happens quickly.

Frank said that the marketplace votes with its investment dollars and its feet. We have aggressive domestic and international competition. To effectively compete, we need to be efficient, low cost, and responsive to the next generation. Florida can't rely on its space heritage. The goal is to become a business location.

Frank described his vision for the future of the Cape Canaveral Spaceport.  He spoke about the numerous infrastructure projects that Space Florida has financed, 20 if I heard correctly.
There is some state political/financial uncertainty at the moment that is holding up the final approval for the SLF handover, but he will ask his board to approve it next week. He spoke about turning the area into a private and commercial spaceport.

Frank touched on the concept of community. We need a community of businesses and capabilities to maintain business here. It is a community challenge that we all have a part in. We are expanding the pool of businesses here who might want to use the future spaceport. He spoke of future private commercial spaceport operations under FAA and OSHA regulations rather than Air Force, and that the Air Force supports moving in this direction (I wish I could be a fly on the wall for those talks!).

Frank spoke about simplifying: creating one regulation authority, one proving structure, and consistency in launch indemnification and insurance. He envisions evolving to a future where business processes are defined less by fences and more by marketplace need. Surprisingly, he noted that change needs to happen not only with federal partners, but also within Space Florida. As much as I love and support them, the common criticisms are valid: they are slow and not always responsive. Frank noted this and remarked that changes are underway.

Space Florida video
I and a couple others had a chance to ask questions after. Of course Shiloh came up. The environmental study on the land is progressing, but of course nothing ever happens as quickly as we’d like. Space Florida gifted us all with Florida state quarters that have the space shuttle on them. “Space Florida, because it’s who we are as Floridians,” says Mike Rowe on the talk's concluding video for the We Are Go campaign.

Some of the conversations that I had after the talk inspired me, and I’m looking forward to taking this inspiration forward. As awesome as my career is, somethings it can seem mundane until someone or something reminds me what we’re all working for.

Tokens from Space Florida - Florida state quarters with the space shuttle!

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