Space tourism is close to being reality. Tickets to go into outer-space are reportedly going on sale soon, but there are a few problems that need to be resolved first. The first issue is the fact that there is no destination for tourists to travel to. NASA’s lunar base is far from production, and traveling past the moon would require warp drive, which is far from a reality. This barrier would mean that any tourism in the near future would consist of an orbital trip of Earth. One would think this is an easy solution, yet there is still a problem that arises: radiation from the Sun can cause health concerns to any potential space tourists. The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has purchased a high-performance micro-modular data center from Elliptical Mobile Solutions (EMS) and Nor-Tech, in hopes that this will be a solution. This miniature data center will be able to detect how much radiation a potential customer would absorb during a journey outside the Earth’s protective ozone layer. Ideally, this technology will help the FAA decide how much protection is required for tourists, and to make space tourism that much closer to becoming a reality.

Since assuming the position of federal Chief Information Officer one year ago, Steven VanRoekel has already saved the government $300 million and plans to expand those savings to $2.5 billion by 2015. His PortfolioStat program includes a multifaceted approach beginning with an examination of how federal agencies utilize IT commodities. The program is designed to later consolidate and improve the efficiency of data centers and in doing so empower agency-level CIOs. A new plan put forth by VanRoekel and acting Office of Management and Budget (OMB) Director Jeffrey Zients highlights the need to lower the costs and power footprints of federal agencies. By determining the agencies’ IT needs and not solely focusing on closing ‘non-core data centers’, the program can substantially improve the efficiency of IT services consumed by federal agencies.

The upcoming government furloughs will put many hard-working employees out of work. In his letter to OPM director John Berry, Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK) proposes to eliminate employees that aren’t doing jobs necessary to their agency’s mission. This would cut out any employees who are considered AWOL, non-mission critical, on standby, or are waiting for their security clearances. From 2001 to 2007, the employees that were AWOL from 18 agencies, missed 19.6 million hours. Employees who perform work unrelated to their agencies missions accounted for $155 million for their 3.4 million hours of work. Coburn also wrote that some 1,800 employees on standby received about $13 million between 2010 and 2011. On top of all this, around 20% of government contractors received a salary while they were waiting for their security clearances. These contractors could cost the government as much as $1.8 billion a month, while they were not doing the work stated in their contracts. Coburn believes that if these areas are focused on for the job cuts, then the employees performing critical jobs will be protected.

Terry Halvorsen, Navy CIO, said he will green light the move of low-impact IT systems and mission functions to a commercial cloud provider unless a better financial DOD solution is identified. The statement was part of a memo he signed on April 1st, which gave guidelines for the proper use of commercial cloud services throughout the Navy. This new direction is a result of what many are calling a successful pilot with Amazon Web Services, which was used for the migration of the Navy Secretary’s public facing portal. The pilot has proved that the Navy can move publicly releasable information to a commercial cloud provider.

The recently passed continuing resolution has allotted the Department of Defense an additional $10 billion; however, the DOD still faces a cut of nearly $41 billion. With the financial restrictions in place and a $22 billion shortfall in the current fiscal year, the Department must determine its spending priorities. The DOD’s missions, military readiness, and personnel cannot be compromised, which leads to the difficult decisions forced upon the incoming Secretary of Defense, Chuck Hagel. Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Martin Dempsey expanded on the difficult task acknowledging, “the uncomfortable truth is…on Monday, we’ll be halfway through the fiscal year, and we’ll be 80 percent spent in our operating funds.” While DOD has cut the number of furlough days from 22 to 14 saving roughly $2.5 billion annually, the cuts to equipment and facilities are unpopular and all employees must remain flexible and willing to adapt to the inescapable reforms.

Amber Corrin has reported on the growing need for a relationship between the federal government and private sector with regards to cybersecurity. Following the failed cybersecurity legislation in 2012, the private sector has expressed interest in coordinating with the federal government to improve security measures and become operators of critical infrastructure. The desire to work with the government has increased in the previous year as utility CEOs identify the importance of security measures. Recognizing the partnership will benefit both parties, the private sector has determined the necessity to work alongside the government to reach economic and security goals.