Dale Skran is the National Space Society’s chief operating officer and senior vp. Dale worked at Bell Labs for 17 years and held executive positions at Ascend Communications, Sonus Networks, and CMware, Inc.
David Huntsman is a Space Frontier Foundation member who serves on the Alliance for Space Development’s board of directors.
The Outer Space Treaty (OST) requires nation-states to supply “authorization and continuing supervision” of the activities of their nationals in space. In recent months the National Space Council (NSpC), chaired by Vice President Kamala Harris, has asked federal agencies for his or her opinions on which agencies or departments must have this role for in-space activity. Here, “in-space activity” is largely every little thing aside from launch and reentry operations, already regulated by the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Federal Aviation Administration (FAA); communications, regulated by the Federal Communications Commission; and Earth statement, regulated by the Commerce Department’s National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. The NSpC also accepted comments from most of the people. Many of the input has centered around giving the extra authorization and continuing supervision role for all in-space activities to either the FAA or Commerce.
Recently there was considerable discussion of how “supervision” under the Outer Space Treaty may be implemented in the US, with some arguing that this vital enabling function for space commerce should reside within the Office of Space Commerce (OSC) or elsewhere inside NOAA or the Department of Commerce. Others argue that the FAA, which regulates space launch, must have this wide-ranging responsibility.
The FAA can be a nasty fit for the Authorization and Continuing Supervision Role that nation-states are required to perform for his or her nationals for in-space regulation, particularly in these extremely early years of the initial development of whole recent industrial space industries.
The implication of this recent direction is that the FAA would assume the responsibility of “supervising” (i.e., regulating) all industrial activity in space, not only transportation through Earth’s atmosphere to and from space as is now the case, including but not limited to such uses as:
- Business low Earth orbit space stations being enabled by the NASA Business LEO Destinations program;
- Business LEO space stations being constructed by firms reminiscent of Vast and Gravitics that rotate to supply gravity;
- Business missions to and across the moon, in addition to lunar bases;
- Any industrial lunar operations, including mining and tourism;
- Automated LEO factories reminiscent of those being developed by Varda Space Industries;
- Satellite servicing, refueling and relocation (e.g., space tugs) – whether around Earth, the moon, or Mars;
- In-space manufacturing of satellites reminiscent of those planned by Arkisys;
- All space hotels and tourist-related businesses in space;
- Business missions to Mars, reminiscent of those currently planned by Relativity Space and Impulse Space, in addition to any industrial bases on Mars;
- Business missions to Venus, reminiscent of those currently planned by Rocket Lab;
- Communication, positioning and distant sensing satellites across the Moon and Mars; and
- Space Solar Power satellites in any orbit.
Besides its current role of regulating industrial space launches and reentries through Earth’s atmosphere, the FAA has other responsibilities, including:
- Regulating air navigation facilities and flight inspection standards; encouraging and developing civil aeronautics, including recent aviation technology;
- Issuing, suspending, or revoking pilot certificates;
- Regulating civil aviation to advertise transportation safety in the US, especially through local offices called Flight Standards District Offices;
- Developing and operating a system of air traffic control and navigation for each civil and military aircraft;
- Researching and developing the National Airspace System and civil aeronautics;
- Developing and carrying out programs to manage aircraft noise and other environmental effects of civil aviation.
As might be readily seen, the FAA has no experience with or responsibility for the final regulation of economic activity on the Earth outside the realm of transportation. Thus, extending an FAA already straining to support the rapidly growing space launch business seems unwise in the intense. It’s akin to deciding that since the FAA regulates airlines flying to a brand new continent, the FAA also needs to regulate all business and activities on that recent continent.
A possible source of this concept lies within the indisputable fact that many destinations in space repeatedly move in an orbit, allowing them to be confabulated with transportation systems. Simply because a industrial LEO station orbits the Earth doesn’t make it a “transportation system” subject to FAA regulation. It’s a industrial facility at a location in space.
The Department of Transportation is a possible candidate to “supervise” the activities of space transportation firms, but extending this purview to every little thing in space wouldn’t follow established practice on the Earth. Novel industrial enterprises and industries should be encouraged with a ‘light touch’ of regulation that encourages them to create, innovate, and grow with the relative presumption of encouragement and approval for practices that follow the intent of international law, in addition to the intent of things just like the Artemis Accords (each of which encourage deconfliction of space activities, for instance). It might be way more logical for the Department of Commerce to authorize and supervise all recent industrial activities in space that should not transportation, whether or not it’s by expanding the present Office of Space Commerce, making a recent, higher-level Bureau of Business Space, or something in between. It might also help keep America competitive in industrial space vis a vis its strategic competitors.
Inadequate resources have already been a problem, regardless of which Department is referred to. Each the Office of Space Commerce and FAA’s Office of Business Space Transportation have been underfunded for the tasks each have (reminiscent of by the record-setting level of economic space launches the FAA needs to control). That have to be fixed no matter which agency gets the extra role of in-space authorization and continuing supervision of space activities. But, make no mistake: It is just not aboutthis responsibility must be assigned to a component of the federal bureaucracy; just and to which part. The earlier the US fixes this, the greater the likelihood is that the U.S. will proceed to steer other nations in industrial space development.
If the FAA is about up as the brand new “Emperor of Space,” the U.S. will probably be setting forth on a path that ignores history and threatens the nascent space industrial sector. The FAA is a nasty fit to control in-space activities aside from the up-and-down through the atmosphere launches and entries it currently oversees and potentially future in-space transportation. For the reason that risk environment for in-space transportation is fundamentally different than that involved when flying from ground to space, it will probably be argued that in-space transportation ought to be left to the Department of Commerce within the short to medium term. Regardless, the Department of Commerce is clearly the higher place for the required authorization/supervision role for other industrial space activities.
