STORY WRITTEN FOR CBS NEWS & USED WITH PERMISSION The newly re-activated National Space Council is acting quickly to streamline convoluted regulatory requirements that frequently slow development of new commercial space initiatives, a shift in focus in keeping with the Trump Administration's directive to encourage more private sector development on the high frontier.
From article, (Chaired by Vice President Mike Pence, the space council met at the Kennedy Space Center Wednesday to review recommendations that will be sent to the president for approval, re-iterating the administration’s push to end government funding of the International Space Station in 2025 in favor of one or more commercially-developed follow-on outposts.
“President Trump and our entire administration believe that America’s prosperity, security and even our national character depend on American leadership in space,” Pence said in a cavernous room where space station components were once assembled and tested before launch.
But U.S. companies “are often stifled by a convoluted maze of bureaucratic obstacles and outdated regulatory processes,” he said. “Today’s launch licensing regime is plagued by burdensome government barriers.”
Government launch licenses, for example, “can’t be transferred from one site to another,” Pence said. “So if a company receives its license to launch a rocket from the Kennedy Space Center but then wants to move their mission to California or even just a few miles away from Cape Canaveral, that same company must complete the entire process all over again.”
“The government’s figured out how to honor drivers licenses across state lines, there’s no reason we can’t do the same for rockets.”
During Wednesday’s pubic session, Jeffrey Rosen, Deputy Secretary of Transportation, outlined a 45-day plan to overhaul, modernize and streamline the space licensing framework to speed up FAA reviews, expand the use of waivers to gain quick “interim relief” and to set up a joint task force to ensure better cross-agency cooperation.
The new licensing framework is aimed at enabling a much more rapid “file-and-fly” application-to-approval process.
Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross said the space business is a $330 billion industry supporting 211,000 jobs.
“But our share of the 1,700 new companies created worldwide last year was only 45 percent, far lower than our share of launches,” he said. “Private companies funded $3.9 billion of our space effort last year, but they’re competing against 70 foreign governments. So they need all the support we can give them.”
“Satellite companies now face a permitting timeline that can take five years … and provides no certainty or predictability to industry,” he added. “This is unacceptable and must change. Otherwise, companies and customers will go overseas.”
Ross said the Commerce Department is working to create a “new, one-stop shop for space commerce.” Several offices across multiple agencies that deal with different aspects of the space industry will be consolidated in a single Commerce Department office “to coordinate all space-related functions.”
Pence outlined four recommendations based on the council’s work since the first meeting last October that will be sent to the president for approval.
First, the Department of Transportation will be directed to replace restrictive launch and re-entry licensing regimes with a more streamlined system by March 1, 2019. As outlined by Ross, the Commerce Department will move all space commerce responsibilities into a single office monitored directly by the secretary to facilitate mission authorization for commercial space initiatives.
Space-related export control requirements also will be streamlined, with a new framework in place by Jan. 1, 2019. And the National Telecommunications Information Administration will work to develop guidelines for protecting the radio frequency spectrum used by satellite systems to encourage expanded commercial space activities.
“These recommendations, I believe, will transform the licensing regimes that oversee launch, re-entry and new commercial space operations, and they’ll empower American businesses to create the jobs of the future, attract new investment to our shores and unlock new opportunities, new technologies and new sources of American prosperity,” Pence said.)
