MINUTES OF TRANSPORTATION RESEARCH BOARD SUB-COMMITTEE MEETING
AV010 (1) Sub Committee on Commercial Space Transportation
10:15 – 12:00 AM EST, Wednesday January 14^th, 2015
Marriott Marquis Hotel, Judiciary Square Room, Washington DC

1. Attendance

The second meeting of the TRB-CST sub-committee was attended by 28 interested individuals, most of whose names and affiliations were recorded on the attendance roster sign-in sheets which are attached to these minutes.

 

2. Agenda

The agenda for this second meeting of the TRB-CST sub-committee is attached to these minutes.

 

3. General Items for the Record

There was an extended discussion on perhaps a key focus for the subcommittee, which is the development of research needs and the progress of these needs to creating a knowledge base to help the industry. It was considered that the time is ripe for such an emphasis right now. There was discussion about the Airports Cooperative Research Program (ACRP), which needs to add some material to represent the needs of the CST and spaceports sector. Last year, perhaps only one research request relevant to this sector was funded (on sonic booms).  There are a number of documents and links related to the development of Research Needs Statements (RNS) at the Committee Research Coordinators page: http://www.trb.org/abouttrb/crcresources.aspx  including this link which includes access to a recorded webinar on the subject: http://www.trb.org/ResearchFunding/AppendixAWritingaResearchStatement.aspx. Even more can be learned at: www.trb.org/acrp/acrp.aspx. It was suggested that, in crafting needs statements for this forum, there should ideally be some linkage to the needs or operations of airports. Statements needed to be submitted by mid- March to fit in with the 2015 review schedule.

 

4. Sub-Committee Business

4.1   Approval of CST Sub Committee Mission, Scope and Goals (see Attachment)
There were no dissentions, so this document is approved.

4.2   Approval of CST Sub Committee Strategies and Actions (see Attachment)
There were no dissentions, so this document was approved.

4.3   Continuation of Spaceport Panel discussions with focus on:
Funding Spaceport Infrastructure and Business Model for Success. The members were directed to access two relevant papers to obtain a deeper understanding of these factors.

Dr. Wayne Finger’s and Rick Roger’s AIAA paper, Financial Aspects of Aerospaceport Implementation and Operations, provided good material for continued discussions.

4.4   Next Year’s TRB/CST Sub Committee Objectives

The website will continue to be developed and populated with data. Attendees are requested to send ideas to Wil Laska on content.
There will be quarterly teleconferences
Discussions will take place to understand the process for graduating the subcommittee to full committee status (including considerations of subcommittee “friends” and “members”).
The subcommittee will make a determined effort to assemble a prioritized list of research needs. The work done to date by Dr Wayne Finger (one of the panelists at the TRB annual Conference panel) will be a very good start.

4.5   Request for Volunteers

The chairman made a request for volunteers to help support the work of the Sub-Committee, and in particular asked for:

• Website Communications Support person [to assist Garrett Bernard?]
• Membership person to be a volunteer coordinator, amongst other things. Rick Rogers volunteered to do this work.
• Research contact person. Ken Davidian and Bill Tippin have volunteered to lead this effort.

The chairman expressed his thanks for this new volunteer support, to help make the subcommittee progress through 2015.

 

5. Other Business

TRB 2016 Annual Meeting Possible CST Sessions/Workshops

• There will be a focus on “Next 100 Years”
• This subcommittee will probably be offered at least one session
• The subcommittee might be able to put together an all-day workshop (on the Sunday, or preferably the Thursday) maybe focusing on intermodal issues (water, rail, highways and space transport) to appeal to students and attendees of the conference from other modes.
• In general, it would be good to start to widen the reach of this TRB/CST work to involve other TRB Committees from other modes.
• There is a selection process in June where alternative TRB Conference sessions are considered

 

Sub-Committee Website

The subcommittee had now obtained its own website address, which is www.TRBCST.org.  At present, only a skeleton structure was in place but it will be populated during the upcoming months. The chairman offered his thanks to Garrett Bernard for getting the website started.

 

Closing Comments

The chairman offered his thanks to his volunteer support team and all those attending, and suggested the subcommittee consider aiming in 2015 at doing what is necessary to become a full committee of the TRB.

 

Distribution of Minutes
Sub-Committee chair, attendees, members
Sponsoring Committee chairs
TRB Staff representative