[Senate Hearing 113-277]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
S. Hrg. 113-277
PARTNERSHIPS TO ADVANCE
THE BUSINESS OF SPACE
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HEARING
before the
SUBCOMMITTEE ON SCIENCE AND SPACE
of the
COMMITTEE ON COMMERCE,
SCIENCE, AND TRANSPORTATION
UNITED STATES SENATE
ONE HUNDRED THIRTEENTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
__________
MAY 16, 2013
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on Commerce, Science, and
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SENATE COMMITTEE ON COMMERCE, SCIENCE, AND TRANSPORTATION
ONE HUNDRED THIRTEENTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
JOHN D. ROCKEFELLER IV, West Virginia, Chairman
BARBARA BOXER, California JOHN THUNE, South Dakota, Ranking
BILL NELSON, Florida ROGER F. WICKER, Mississippi
MARIA CANTWELL, Washington ROY BLUNT, Missouri
FRANK R. LAUTENBERG, New Jersey MARCO RUBIO, Florida
MARK PRYOR, Arkansas KELLY AYOTTE, New Hampshire
CLAIRE McCASKILL, Missouri DEAN HELLER, Nevada
AMY KLOBUCHAR, Minnesota DAN COATS, Indiana
MARK WARNER, Virginia TIM SCOTT, South Carolina
MARK BEGICH, Alaska TED CRUZ, Texas
RICHARD BLUMENTHAL, Connecticut DEB FISCHER, Nebraska
BRIAN SCHATZ, Hawaii RON JOHNSON, Wisconsin
WILLIAM COWAN, Massachusetts
Ellen L. Doneski, Staff Director
James Reid, Deputy Staff Director
John Williams, General Counsel
David Schwietert, Republican Staff Director
Nick Rossi, Republican Deputy Staff Director
Rebecca Seidel, Republican General Counsel and Chief Investigator
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SUBCOMMITTEE ON SCIENCE AND SPACE
BILL NELSON, Florida, Chairman TED CRUZ, Texas, Ranking Member
BARBARA BOXER, California ROGER F. WICKER, Mississippi
MARK PRYOR, Arkansas MARCO RUBIO, Florida
AMY KLOBUCHAR, Minnesota DEAN HELLER, Nevada
MARK WARNER, Virginia DAN COATS, Indiana
RICHARD BLUMENTHAL, Connecticut RON JOHNSON, Wisconsin
WILLIAM COWAN, Massachusetts
C O N T E N T S
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Page
Hearing held on May 16, 2013..................................... 1
Statement of Senator Nelson...................................... 1
Prepared statement........................................... 3
Statement of Senator Coats....................................... 1
Statement of Senator Cruz........................................ 2
Witnesses
N. Wayne Hale, Jr., Director of Human Spaceflight, Special
Aerospace Services, NASA Flight Director and Program Manager
(Ret.)......................................................... 4
Prepared statement........................................... 6
Patti Grace Smith, Principal, Patti Grace Smith Consulting, LLC.. 8
Prepared statement........................................... 10
Captain Michael Lopez-Alegria, USN (Ret.), President, Commercial
Spaceflight Federation......................................... 14
Prepared statement........................................... 15
Dr. Steven H. Collicott, Professor, Purdue University School of
Aeronautics and Astronautics................................... 22
Prepared statement........................................... 24
Appendix
Response to written questions submitted by Hon. Bill Nelson to:
N. Wayne Hale, Jr............................................ 39
Patti Grace Smith............................................ 41
Captain Michael Lopez-Alegria................................ 42
Dr. Steven H. Collicott...................................... 44
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THE BUSINESS OF SPACE
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THURSDAY, MAY 16, 2013
U.S. Senate,
Subcommittee on Science and Space,
Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation,
Washington, DC.
The Subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:06 a.m. in
room 253, Russell Senate Office Building, Hon. Bill Nelson,
Chairman of the Subcommittee, presiding.
OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. BILL NELSON,
U.S. SENATOR FROM FLORIDA
Senator Nelson. Good morning. As an accommodation to the
Senator from Indiana, who wants to make a special introduction,
Senator Cruz and I will turn to him first.
STATEMENT OF HON. DAN COATS,
U.S. SENATOR FROM INDIANA
Senator Coats. Mr. Chairman and Senator Cruz, I thank you
for the privilege of doing this. I commend both you and Senator
Cruz for your leadership on this.
It's a real pleasure for me to introduce a distinguished
constituent from Purdue University, Steven Collicott. Dr.
Steven Collicott is an expert in his field. He received his
undergraduate degree from the University of Michigan and his
Master's from Stanford, but joined the Purdue faculty in West
Lafayette, Indiana in 1991, where he is a Professor in the
School of Aeronautics and Astronautics.
As you know, Mr. Chairman, our Aero-Astro program at Purdue
is fairly well-known. Twenty-two astronauts have come out of
Purdue and flown, maybe one of them with you on your flight.
I'm not so sure about that.
Senator Nelson. Do you know the institution that has
produced more than any other university?
Senator Coats. I'd love to say it was Purdue, but I think
you are probably going to name some university in Florida.
Senator Nelson. No. It is actually the Naval Academy.
Senator Coats. Oh, really? OK. That makes sense. The
ultimate in flying assignments.
But such notables as Gus Grissom and Neil Armstrong and
many, many others have come out of the Purdue program. Dr.
Collicott has led a team of students in providing an
experimental project that will be operated on the International
Space Station and a number of other distinguished
accomplishments. So I want to just welcome him here today.
I would love to stay, but other Subcommittees have made
other callings, so I have to excuse myself on that. But I thank
you for the opportunity to introduce Dr. Collicott.
Senator Nelson. Thank you so much.
Senator Cruz?
STATEMENT OF HON. TED CRUZ,
U.S. SENATOR FROM TEXAS
Senator Cruz. Well, thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you to
each of the witnesses who are here today. I thank you, Mr.
Chairman, for the opportunity for us to have this hearing and
to get to know more about the exciting potential for advancing
our space-related knowledge and achievement by taking advantage
of the competitive forces and creative drive of the private
sector.
Our economy has a great stake in the space race. Last year,
78 orbital launches were conducted worldwide, 20 of which were
commercial launches. And those 20 launches generated more than
$2.4 billion in revenues, of which an estimated $108 million
was attributed to U.S. launches. Activity in the space industry
creates good, high-tech jobs now, and it inspires our next
generation of leaders as well.
For years, the U.S. Government has worked as a partner with
the commercial space industry, and the NASA Authorization Act
of 2010 set in place a productive balance between the two that
continues to bear fruit.
Today, I look forward to hearing from our panel about how
we can achieve even greater efficiencies from that balance and
how we can encourage more significant investment from the
commercial space industry and what legal and regulatory
challenges are presented by its future development.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Senator Nelson. Thank you.
As you can see, we run things a little differently on this
committee. We are a little more informal. But when it gets to
the subject of commercial space, it becomes extremely
important. It becomes extremely important that we get American
vehicles flying Americans back up to the Space Station. It's
extremely important that we have vehicles that are designed to
be as safe as possible, as the new generation of rockets are
being designed. It was certainly an admonition of the Gehman
Commission that investigated the last Space Shuttle disaster
that said that once you have completed the Space Station with
the Space Shuttle, you shut it down and you replace it with a
safer rocket. Of course, that is being designed right now.
We see the new applications of commercial activity in
space, and although we have always had--basically, it has been
the contractors that have produced the hardware and the systems
under NASA's direction that has given us this extraordinarily
successful program. It now enters a new dimension of commercial
space.
I just came from a meeting with the President's nominee for
the Department of Transportation, and we discussed how it is
very important that the Office of Commercial Space
Transportation in the Department of Transportation understands
that they should never get into these stovepipes that are so
typical in government, where turf becomes more important than
the mission, and then the turf battles and all the little
jealousies occur.
And the Department of Transportation, I shared with the
nominee, should do what their mission is, which is to handle
administratively and let NASA do what NASA does best and not
try to compete with each other.
Now, we are going to be doing a NASA authorization bill
this year, and we also plan to update the Commercial Space
Launch Act. So we are going to be using these hearings to help
us develop the policy that will continue to guide our space
community toward the goal of exploring the heavens.
So there is a lot to discuss, suborbital space, and I am
going to insert in the record my comments.
[The prepared statement of Senator Nelson follows:]
Prepared Statement of Hon. Bill Nelson, U.S. Senator from Florida
Good morning! Thank you all for being here today for the third
Science and Space Subcommittee hearing of this Congress. In today's
hearing, we will hear about private sector partnerships with the
Federal Government on suborbital and orbital space flight and the
opportunities these capabilities afford this nation in advancing the
space industry.
As you may know, we will be reauthorizing NASA this year and
updating the Commercial Space Launch Act (CSLA). We will be using these
hearings to help develop the policy that will continue to guide the
space community toward our goal of getting people to Mars. And we
cannot reach this goal without the likes of the private and civil
investments.
We've discussed orbital space flight in our previous hearings, but
it is worth again mentioning just how promising the future is for the
U.S. space industry. Since the last Authorization of NASA we have seen
a lot of progress. Less than a month ago, we witnessed a successful
test launch of a new rocket that will soon deliver cargo to the
International Space Station, setting the stage now for two companies to
conduct cargo resupply missions to the International Space Station. The
second company has successfully completed two cargo delivery missions
to the ISS.
NASA and its industry partners are also actively developing a
commercial crew capability that will allow U.S. providers to once again
send NASA astronauts to the space station. The Russians are our
partners on the ISS, and we thank them for their safe delivery and
return of NASA astronaut Tom Marshburn just this past Monday, among the
two others, but we need our own capability as well.
Of course, NASA is also charged with building and flying the heavy-
lift Space Launch System and the Orion capsule, which will take humans
farther into space than ever before.
When it comes to sub-orbital space flight, I think many people are
at least familiar with this market, in part because of some of the
recent successes that have been publicized.
But sub-orbital space offers more than just a few minutes of
weightlessness for those who can afford it. Sub-orbital space flight is
also well suited to scientific research and education and can provide
students and researchers with new opportunities for studying the Earth
and for conducting short-duration experiments in micro-gravity.
We all know challenges exist, but the key to success here is
balance; not just a balance between public and private space endeavors
but also between competition and cooperation. As was said at our last
hearing, we cannot continue to go forward with the ``or'' mentality.
Helping to make the private space industry successful will help to send
humans beyond low-Earth orbit again--and vice versa.
As we move toward updating space policy, we also need to look at
the role of the Federal Aviation Administration's Office of Commercial
Space Transportation in developing appropriate safety regulations for
private space flight. We need to strike a balance here as well so that
both government and industry can ensure safety without stifling
innovation. Customer safety is a valuable component of the industry's
success and if we wait too long to address this issue, an accident may
compromise the whole industry.
With these issues in mind, I look forward to continuing to work
with the private U.S. space industry as it is a vital part of our
future space program. So, it is my pleasure to welcome all of our
witnesses.
Mr. Wayne Hale, Jr. comes to us as the Director of Human
Spaceflight for Special Aerospace Services. He is a retired NASA
engineer who has held positions including NASA Flight Director and
Space Shuttle Program Manager. Mr. Hale will discuss how commercial
space efforts contribute toward national space exploration goals and
the Government's role in supporting private space sector growth.
Ms. Patti Grace Smith is an Aerospace Consultant and Advisor. She
has extensive experience in the U.S. space sector both as former
Associate Administrator of FAA's Office of Commercial Space
Transportation and as the current Chair of the NASA Advisory Council's
Commercial Space Committee. Ms. Smith will address the Federal policies
needs and recommendations affecting the private space industry and ways
to maximize collaborations between the FAA, NASA, and private space
ventures.
Captain Michael Lopez-Alegria is the President of the Commercial
Spaceflight Federation. Captain Lopez-Alegria, a former NASA
astronaut--and veteran of four space flights and Commander of ISS
Expedition 14--now works to promote commercial spaceflight. He will
provide an overview of the progress and plans of the commercial
spaceflight industry as well as policy recommendations to support their
efforts.
I now would like to welcome my colleague and member of this
Subcommittee, Senator Coats of Indiana, to introduce our final witness
from his home state.
Senator Nelson. Let me introduce our panel members.
Wayne Hale comes to us as Director of Human Spaceflight for
Special Aerospace Services. He is retired from NASA. He has
held positions including NASA Flight Director and Space Shuttle
Program Manager. Mr. Hale is going to discuss how commercial
space efforts contribute toward national space exploration
goals and the government's role in supporting the private space
sector growth.
Ms. Patti Grace Smith is an Aerospace Consultant and
Advisor. She has extensive experience in the U.S. space sector
both as a former Associate Administrator of FAA's Office of
Commercial Space and as the current Chair of the NASA Advisory
Council's Commercial Space Committee. She will address the
Federal policies, needs, and recommendations affecting the
private space industry and the ways to maximize collaborations
between FAA, NASA, and private space ventures.
Captain Michael Lopez-Alegria is President of the
Commercial Spaceflight Federation. A NASA astronaut, a veteran
of four space flights, Commander of ISS Expedition 14, now he
works to promote commercial spaceflight. He will provide an
overview of the progress and plans of the commercial
spaceflight industry, as well as policy recommendations.
Dr. Collicott we have already had introduced by the Senator
from Indiana.
So thank you for being here and bringing your expertise to
the discussion.
So, with that, Mr. Hale, we're going to put your written
testimony in the record. If you will summarize it within about
5 minutes, and we will just go down the line. Thank you so
much.
STATEMENT OF N. WAYNE HALE, JR., DIRECTOR OF HUMAN SPACEFLIGHT,
SPECIAL AEROSPACE SERVICES, NASA FLIGHT DIRECTOR AND PROGRAM
MANAGER (RET.)
Mr. Hale. Thank you, Chairman, Senator Nelson. And thank
you, Ranking Member, Senator Cruz, and the entire committee,
for inviting me to testify on this important matter.
In the interest of full disclosure, you should note that I
spent most of my professional life working at NASA in the Space
Shuttle Program. As a matter of fact, Senator Nelson, I was in
Mission Control during your flight just a few years ago. During
those many years, I have seen NASA at its very best and at its
worst. The hard-working dedication of NASA personnel is
phenomenal, and their talent and creativity are second to none.
However, their endeavors have frequently been stymied due to
the inherent bureaucratic inefficiencies of government work and
the frequent shifts in priorities and funding that whipsaw
space initiatives.
My last NASA assignment was to define the management
philosophy for the new Commercial Crew Program. After leaving
NASA, my work has continued as a consultant. My company,
Special Aerospace Services, advises entities involved in the
commercial crew and commercial space cargo enterprises, and I
have volunteered my time to work with the Commercial
Spaceflight Federation to establish industry standards for this
fledgling community. So the Committee can see that I am hardly
a disinterested party.
In space today, the most singularly vexing problem is the
high cost of getting to low-Earth orbit. As Robert Heinlein
once observed, ``When you are in Earth orbit, you are halfway
to anywhere in the universe,'' which accurately reflects the
physics of the situation. Today, getting that first step to the
universe is very costly.
Hundreds of potential business opportunities and the
limitless resources of the solar system have floundered on the
high cost of transportation to low-Earth orbit. Asteroid
mining, energy production, and zero-gravity manufacturing are
all within our grasp technologically but will not be profitable
businesses until reliable and reasonably affordable
transportation systems are in place.
However, these new transportation systems to low-Earth
orbit have very high development costs. So we are in a chicken-
or-the-egg paradox. Space business needs low-cost
transportation to become profitable, while potential private
transportation services need established businesses to justify
the cost of their construction.
This is not the first time America has been in this
situation. Both the early railroads and the fledgling air
transportation industries found themselves becalmed in similar
straits. The Federal taxpayer stepped in to provide critical
resources to help those industries develop. These Federal
investments paid back myriadfold in tax revenues when the new
industries caught fire.
The history of spaceflight has been marked with the goal of
decreasing the cost of transportation to low earth orbit. In
the last decade, the United States has embarked on a bold new
experiment to turn over the creative reins of spacecraft
development to nimble, flexible, creative private commercial
firms. Bolstered with a modicum of taxpayer resources, these
businesses have leveraged private investment to develop new,
much cheaper transportation systems.
We see the first fruits of success today with the cargo-
carrying craft SpaceX's Falcon and Dragon and Orbital Science's
Antares and Cygnus. These cargo-carrying, privately developed
vehicles are starting to supply our government outpost, the
International Space Station. In future years, the Boeing CST-
100 and Sierra Nevada Dream Chaser, both flying on the proven
ULA Atlas V rocket, will be added to the fleet to carry human
beings, as well as cargo.
Poised on the cusp of these new systems, America runs the
risk of being penny wise and pound foolish as we make the same
mistake that doomed the Space Shuttle to much higher cost
operations, starving spacecraft development programs in the
name of saving a few pennies for today's budget bottom line,
resulting in compromised systems that, if they fly at all, will
not be cheap enough to enable business in space.
Regarding NASA's deep space exploration plans, the
commercial systems will enable deep space exploration
initiatives in substantial ways. First, the International Space
Station is our test laboratory for the critical technologies
and systems that deep space exploration will need. Commercial
transportation of cargo and crews to the ISS directly support
deep space systems development.
As deep space exploration proceeds, commercial crew and
cargo vehicles will likely be called on to aid with assembly
and fuel delivery to low earth orbit. Cost-effective commercial
transportation to low earth orbit can make a vital difference
in equipping the space fleet. The two efforts go hand-in-hand.
Funding equity between the two programs is necessary to ensure
the timely success of both.
I urge Congress to fully fund both of these vital
activities. They will allow America and American industries to
lead in the exploration and development of human activity in
our solar system. Paraphrasing John F. Kennedy, there is no
project that is so important for the long-term success of
humankind, and I hope that those historians of the future will
record that at this crossroads of history, a creative,
enterprising, farsighted nation called America led that way.
I look forward to your questions.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Hale follows:]
Prepared Statement of N. Wayne Hale, Jr., Director of Human
Spaceflight, Special Aerospace Services, NASA Flight Director and
Program Manager (Ret.)
I thank the Committee for inviting me to testify concerning the
growth of the space industry including the private sector space
transportation.
In the interest of full disclosure, I am hardly a disinterested
party in this topic. I am and have always been a passionate believer
that space exploration and the industries that may derive from it will
benefit humanity in ways beyond our imagining. I have spent most of my
professional life working in the large government space programs of the
Space Shuttle and the International Space Station. During those years I
have seen NASA at its very best and at its worst. The hard working
dedication of my colleagues at NASA personnel is nothing short of
phenomenal, and their talent and creativity is second to none. However,
their endeavors have frequently been stymied due to the inherent
bureaucratic inefficiencies of government work and the frequent shifts
in priorities and funding that whipsaw most space initiatives. This has
led me to believe there must be a better way to develop and operate
space systems.
In my last assignment before retirement from government service, I
worked with Frank Bauer, the Chief Engineer of the Exploration Systems
Directorate, to define the management philosophy, protocols, and
processes for the then new Commercial Crew Program within NASA. After
my retirement, my work has continued as a consultant. My company,
Special Aerospace Services, and I are paid advisors to a number of
entities involved in the commercial crew and commercial space cargo
enterprises. And I have volunteered my time to work with the Commercial
Spaceflight Federation to establish safety, management, and engineering
standards for all the members of this fledgling industry. So the
Committee can see that I am hardly a disinterested party and should
weigh my testimony as such.
Establishing good, effective safety, engineering, and management
standards in a voluntary industry association is the hallmark of any
reputable and mature industry. I am pleased to report that the CSF is
making good progress in setting up voluntary processes which will
ensure public safety and promote general success in this difficult
business. Industry group standards can alleviate the need for
government regulations by allowing the members of a trade association
to tailor best practices specifically for their industry. Evolution of
these industry standards inevitably proceeds more rapidly than the
development of government regulations and can therefore take rapid
advantage of best practices as they emerge.
The most singularly vexing problem with space flight is the high
cost of getting to low-Earth orbit. As the noted science fiction writer
Robert Heinlein once observed, ``when you are in earth orbit you are
half way to anywhere in the universe'' which accurately reflects the
physics of the situation.
The lack of low cost transportation to that point located just
above the earth's atmosphere and moving at 17,500 mph forward velocity
has prevented potential space entrepreneurs more than any other factor.
Hundreds of potential business opportunities in the limitless resources
of the solar system have floundered on the high cost of transportation
to low-Earth orbit. Asteroid mining, energy production, zero gravity
manufacturing are all within our grasp technologically but will not be
profitable until reliable and reasonably affordable transportation
systems are in place.
New systems for transportation to low-Earth orbit have enormously
high development costs. Private investors, with a few exceptions, are
loath to provide the capital needed to develop low-Earth orbit
transportation without clear and immediate business ready to purchase
tickets.
So we are in a ``chicken or the egg'' paradox. Space business needs
low cost transportation to become profitable, while potential private
transportation services need established business to justify the cost
of construction. This is not the first time that America has been in
this situation. Both the early railroads and fledgling air
transportation industries found themselves becalmed in similar straits.
In both these cases, and others, the Federal taxpayers stepped in to
provide critical resources to help new industries develop. Those
investments have been paid back myriad-fold in tax revenues when the
new industries caught fire and provided transportation systems that
were the envy of the world.
NASA and its predecessor agency the NACA provided needed
aeronautical research to make air transportation as inexpensive and
safe as we find it today. The Federal investment in aeronautics
development has paid off handsomely in the development of a multi-
billion dollar industry. Indeed, one of the largest sectors of net
exports in the American economy is aerospace with billion dollar sales
a common occurrence.
The history of space flight--after the first early steps to
demonstrate that space flight was even possible--has been marked with
the goal of decreasing the cost of transportation to low-Earth orbit.
In my home I have an entire shelf of books populated by volumes of
studies and proposals from a multitude of thinkers spread over decades
on that subject: how to provide reliable safe space transportation on
the cheap.
The space system that consumed much of my professional career, the
Space Shuttle, was established to achieve just such a low cost goal.
But the technologies of the 1970s, harnessed to a risk adverse
government apparatus resulted in a system that was only slightly less
expensive than those which went before.
In the last decade, the United States embarked on a bold new
experiment to turn over the creative reins of spacecraft development to
entrepreneurial, nimble, flexible, creative private commercial teams.
Bolstered with a modicum of taxpayer resources, these businesses have
leveraged private investment to create the critical mass to develop
new, much cheaper transportation systems. We see the first fruits of
success today with cargo carrying craft: the SpaceX Falcon and Dragon,
and the Orbital Antares and Cygnus. These cargo carrying privately
developed vehicles are starting to supply our government outpost, the
International Space Station. In future years others, the Boeing CST-100
and the Sierra Nevada Dream Chaser will be added to the fleet to carry
human beings as well as cargo.
Poised on the cusp of these new systems, we run the risk of being
penny wise and pound foolish as we make the same mistake that doomed
the Space Shuttle to much higher cost operations: starving a spacecraft
development program in the name of saving a few pennies for today's
budget bottom line resulting in the compromised systems that, if they
fly at all, will not be cheap enough to enable business in space.
This is not to devalue the development of truly deep space
exploration systems by the government. Those high risk, high cost
systems payback over such are long term that they would never be funded
by private investment. But, like the expenses incurred by Lewis and
Clark, Captain Zebulon Pike, and a host of other government expeditions
in our history, the payback from exploration will be enormous for both
the country and for all of humanity. Just at a more distant point in
the future than business spreadsheets normally run. The SLS and the
MPCV should be developed in conjunction with the commercial low-Earth
orbit transportation systems. Flying to cis-lunar space to inspect a
captured asteroid is an engineering and operations test worthy of a
first deep space mission. But that mission can only be a first step.
More should follow.
The commercial systems will enable the deep space exploration
initiative in substantial ways. First of all because the ISS is our
space test laboratory for the technologies and systems that deep space
exploration will need. Operation in space, aboard the ISS, is the most
effective means to wring out life support, communications, propulsion,
and other technologies. Commercial transportation of cargo and crews to
the ISS directly support deep space systems development. As deep space
exploration proceeds, commercial cargo and crew vehicles will likely be
called upon to aid with assembly and fuel delivery to low-Earth orbit
where we will finalize preparations to head into the vasty deep. Cost
effective commercial transportation to low-Earth orbit can make a vital
difference in equipping the deep space fleet.
So the two efforts go hand in hand. Funding equity between the two
programs is necessary to ensure the timely success of both. Currently,
the commercial space effort stands uncomfortably close to the brink of
financial starvation. Deep space transportation development is being
stretched out by similar restrictions. Business is looking to see if
the government is serious about providing the critical support or
whether this effort will be wasted as so many earlier government
programs which withered away on the very cusp of success: National
Launch System, Orbital Space Plane, and others.
I urge the Congress to fully fund these vital activities, both the
commercial crew program and the exploration systems. They will allow
America and American industry to lead in the exploration and
development of human activity in our solar system. When the historians
of the future look back on our era, they will recognize the movement of
humanity from planet earth into the solar system as the pivotal event
of our times. There is no project that is so important for the long
term success of humankind. I would hope that those historians record
that at this crossroad of history that a creative, enterprising,
farsighted nation called America led the way.
The prizes both economic and historic are too great to bypass. If
America does not lead in these enterprises, somebody else will. And the
leader will reap the greatest rewards both in the near term and in the
longer term.
For all our limitations, America is a very rich country. There are
many things which America needs to do for the present moment: provide
for a strong military to protect us in a dangerous world, educate our
children, care for our elderly and infirm, revitalize our
transportation infrastructure of roads, bridges, airports, and more.
All of these activities are of vital importance today. Space
exploration is about the future. Space exploration is possibly the only
line item in the Federal budget that is all about the future. Currently
we spend one half of one percent of our Nation's treasure on the
future. Isn't the future worth that investment?
Senator Nelson. Thank you, Mr. Hale.
Ms. Smith?
STATEMENT OF PATTI GRACE SMITH, PRINCIPAL,
PATTI GRACE SMITH CONSULTING, LLC
Ms. Smith. Mr. Chairman, Senator Cruz, and members of the
Subcommittee, thank you for inviting me to be a part of this
hearing. As a former Associate Administrator for Commercial
Space Transportation, and as a current participant in the
commercial space industry, I appreciate very much the
opportunity to comment on partnerships to advance the business
of space.
These are milestone times for commercial space
transportation. They are times that call for a balanced
approach, a balanced approach, to make sure we know how we got
here, where we are, where we are going, and how to best
integrate the strengths, accomplishments, and lessons of the
pioneers of American spaceflight and the pioneers of new space.
Longstanding promises of commercial spaceflight are turning
into visible results. SpaceX is servicing the International
Space Station. Boeing recently performed a successful test of
an integrated test article. Orbital Sciences has orbited a
payload. Virgin Galactic has test-dropped its space passenger
vehicle, all remarkable achievements that some did not expect.
Sierra Nevada recently successfully completed the integrated
system safety analysis review. And the list of new developers
goes on and on. XCOR, Masten, Blue Origin and Armadillo
Aerospace, each determined, each hopeful and relentless, each
focused on safety, and all making steady progress. The Atlas
rocket continues to deliver mission excellence and reliability
with unparalleled success.
For years, the commercial space industry contended with
skepticism. Now it must deal with the effects of enthusiasm.
Both can be equally daunting. There is a risk that new
enthusiasts with the best of intentions will try to change
industry aims just as commercial space reaches its target. I
hope that will not happen.
That is why this is a time for special discernment. When
Congress approved the Commercial Space Act of 1984, one of the
elements was the Office of Commercial Space Transportation, or
AST, that in 1996 found a home at the FAA. That decision made
it possible for early commercial space leadership to observe
and absorb lessons that helped AST guide an industry from the
nursery to emerging maturity.
In the 1984 Act, Congress passed legislation that created a
flexible, open venue that invited opportunity rather than
proscribing innovation, while permitting no compromise on
safety. Over the years, entrepreneurs and regulators have
worked hard to keep finding better, safer ways to conduct space
flight. Congress established what became a model for space
efforts in countries worldwide. The co-existence of both air
and space in the FAA has forced any and all issues of how
things might work out on the table.
My observation is that since before the relocation of space
in the FAA, as it was formerly located in the Office of the
Secretary, aviation never had to really consider it or any
other new entity in its airspace. AST's presence has forced the
conversation and a greater awareness of that thing we call the
NAS, the National Airspace System, which is a national asset
belonging to the nation, and we share it as we do all other
things national.
Therefore, for the near term, I strongly favor keeping the
Office of Commercial Space Transportation within the FAA as
more launch manifests develop. Once that happens and space
launch and space activities become a regular occurrence, a
regular user in the NAS, Congress should move with deliberate
speed to move AST to the Department of Transportation to take
its rightful, its logical place as another transportation mode,
as all other modes of transportation.
I firmly believe that this is what former Secretary
Elizabeth Dole had in mind when she proposed to President
Reagan that commercial space reside in the Department of
Transportation during its infancy, and what former FAA
Administrator David Henson had in mind when he announced to all
of the FAA management team the day commercial space arrived at
the FAA, and I quote, ``It will be a line of business,
different but equal, to all other lines of business. We, the
FAA, will enable this industry to develop to a level of
robustness and routine to fulfill the dream of space as
transportation.'' That is still the dream, and we are closer to
fulfilling it than ever before.
I believe AST should continue to supervise and solely
regulate suborbital commercial launch operations, including
those associated with rocket launches of either humans or
cargo. The FAA's Office of Commercial Space Transportation
licenses the launch system as a whole, but the FAA's Office of
Aviation Safety certifies the carrier aircraft when it is
flying alone, even when the aircraft is operating in support of
launch-related activities.
And my final point is that I strongly support extending
indemnification as a recommendation at a minimum of 10 years.
I'll be happy to answer questions at the appropriate time.
Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Smith follows:]
Prepared Statement of Patti Grace Smith, Principal,
Patti Grace Smith Consulting, LLC
Mr. Chairman, Senator Cruz, and members of the Subcommittee, thank
you for inviting me to participate in this morning's hearing. My name
is Patti Grace Smith and I am the Principal in Patti Grace Smith
Consulting. As a former Associate Administrator of the Office of
Commercial Space Transportation at the Federal Aviation Administration,
and as a currently active participant in the commercial space industry,
I welcome the opportunity to comment on the state of commercial space
flight.
The Emergence of Commercial Space Flight
These are milestone times for commercial space transportation.
These are times for a balanced approach that looks at where we have
been and why; where we are today and why; and where we would like to
go. I prefer an approach that considers all space capabilities, both
early and new; that values the long--standing contributors who have
consistently delivered unparalleled results for our nation; and
similarly values the significant accomplishments of new entrants. Plans
for SLS and commercial crew and cargo, it seems to me, reflect that
sort of balanced approach. As an Alabamian, I am proud to say that
commercial launch vehicles built in Decatur are a reality, with new
ones built every year.
Today long-standing promises are turning into visible results.
SpaceX, launching from Florida, has serviced the International Space
Station. Orbital Sciences' Antares rocket has successfully orbited a
payload from its launch site at Wallop's Island, Virginia. Virgin
Galactic has test-dropped its space passenger vehicle over California
as it moves closer to regular operations from New Mexico. And the Atlas
V rocket is still the most reliable launch vehicle, delivering mission
success one launch at a time.
These are remarkable achievements by the private sector. Yet some
observers believe they are overdue when compared to America's earlier
space performance. For example, President Kennedy in 1961 pledged to
land a man on the moon and return him safely to Earth by the end of the
decade. It took roughly 2,800 days for NASA by the time they did it in
1969. To accomplish the moon landing within this aggressive timeframe,
NASA leveraged the contemporaneous capabilities of the private sector,
working with industry to execute NASA's mission. NASA was the
unquestioned leader, bringing the will, technical expertise,
integration, and resources to the task.
Still, the commercial sector has delivered convincingly, as well.
Today, the commercial sector is demonstrating not just technical
accomplishments, but vision and the willingness to take financial risks
to move our relationship with space forward. On the independent
initiative of private enterprise, it was also roughly 2,800 days
between October of 2004 when SpaceShipOne captured the Ansari X-Prize
and May of 2012 when the SpaceX Falcon 9 docked with the International
Space Station, the first for a commercial launch vehicle in the history
of the Nation. Many said it couldn't be done. But SpaceX delivered, a
remarkable accomplishment fully consistent with the proud tradition of
American space flight.
Commercial space flight has advanced at its own measured pace
during some of the darkest economic times in memory. The private sector
has moved forward in large part by fully embracing the precepts of
safety. To that end, after the headlines and spotlights of the X-Prize
success came more science, more engineering, more self-examination and
a preference for caution and methodical process. ``Test and develop,
test and develop, and do not fly until you are ready to fly'' became
the order of the day.
The time was well spent. As circumstances have changed and budgets
have tightened, NASA has returned to its core mission of research and
development, and technology demonstration. NASA is looking now to the
Commercial Spaceflight industry for vital services. And the industry is
delivering.
For years--for challenging years--the commercial space industry has
contended with skepticism. Now it must deal with the effects of
enthusiasm. Both of those can be equally daunting. Skeptics used to say
the industry couldn't do it. Now there's the risk of new enthusiasts
saying ``do it this way, do it that way, or the industry needs to
change its aim'' just as commercial space reaches its target.
That's why I believe this is a key moment for special discernment
when we must see clearly how commercial space flight got to where it is
and how those responsible for it need to proceed and be supported.
The Office of Commercial Space Transportation (AST)
Congress took a major leap of faith with passage of the Commercial
Space Act of 1984, legislating a framework when, practically speaking,
there was so little real data on which to base choices. Fortunately,
Congress produced a flexible, open venue that invited opportunity
rather than proscribing innovation. This open venue will yield
unparalleled benefits in due time and it all began with an Act of
Congress.
A visionary product of the 1984 legislation was the Office of
Commercial Space Transportation (AST). It began life in the Office of
the Secretary of Transportation. It migrated successfully to a new
status as one of the FAA's major lines of business. It was a fortunate
turn of events. It enabled the early AST leadership to observe and
absorb established safety practices and to build on them as it has
helped guide an industry from the nursery to emerging maturity.
The industry and the office continue to evolve. An increasing
number of tests and accelerating data collection will provide a clearer
picture of what future regulatory steps may be in order. Scientist and
regulator alike will learn more as manifests for operational flights
become more robust and trips to suborbital space become regularly
scheduled flights. Commercial spaceports operating as national assets
will connect other launch sites as part of a transport and national
security resource. Commercial space transportation will take its
rightful place as a respected, recognized and, indeed, required part of
our national transport grid. We are in an enriching learning
environment where the growth in information will help us do better what
we have already done well.
AST has proven itself a balanced advocate but firm regulator. I am
not suggesting that the way things are, is entirely comfortable or
ideal for either the regulator or the entrepreneur. Yet healthy tension
and constructive disagreement are valuable commodities in a risk-
persistent environment like rocket flight. And all parties have managed
well.
Neither entrepreneur nor regulator has a monopoly on knowing what's
best in every case. So they have worked hard--together--to keep finding
out what's best. And that's proven to be the genius of the commercial
space flight regime Congress established. In fact, the legislative/
regulatory model now in place has worked to the credit of the industry,
to the credit of the regulators and to the envy of space efforts in
countries around the world.
Therefore, on any list of policy proposals:
I would unreservedly favor keeping the Office of Commercial Space
Transportation within the FAA, for the near term, while a more robust
launch manifest emerges. Although the Commercial Space Launch Act was
approved at a time when hard data was scarce, the Act allowed the
industry to establish itself. In 1984, despite limited data, we had
little choice. Now we do.
Since we are still moving toward regularly scheduled launches in
private human spaceflight, I believe we should take advantage of the
pending opportunity to allow performance data to guide our way and
inform our judgment. The Office of Commercial Space Transportation
(AST) located with the Federal Aviation Administration is, I believe,
in the best position to gather essential data on which Congress can
base future choices.
At the same time, I believe Congress may be the best place to
resolve jurisdictional questions surrounding hybrid space vehicles,
those vehicles that have both space and aviation--like elements. These
vehicles are designed for placing payloads or humans on either
suborbital or orbital trajectories. They are built by a few companies
in low volumes. Vehicle type and production certification is
prohibitive in terms of cost and performance. Congress could address
the issue, and then assign responsibilities to a supervising regulatory
agency, the FAA.
Sub-orbital Launch Operations
I would propose that AST continue to supervise and solely regulate
sub-orbital commercial launch operations. That would extend to any and
all activities associated with rocket launches of either humans or
cargo. This is especially important for launch operators like Virgin
Galactic and other similar air-launched systems. The FAA's Office of
Commercial Space Transportation licenses the launch system as a whole,
but the FAA's Office of Aviation Safety (AVS) certificates the carrier
aircraft when the aircraft is flying alone--even when that aircraft is
operating in support of launch-related activities. This inefficient
``dual license'' requirement should be reconsidered. Managing two
regulatory regimes for nearly similar operations risks introducing
inconsistencies and gaps between regulation which could affect safety.
A related issue is the automatic revocation of an experimental
permit upon issuance of a license. This ``permit invalidation''
inhibits smooth, rapid improvements in safety and capability. The CSLA
should allow experimental permits to be valid for a particular design
of a reusable suborbital rocket after a launch license has been issued
for launch or reentry of a rocket of that design. Failure to resolve
this issue produces cost, time lost, and uncertainty. Resolving this
issue is a specific step Congress can take to assist the industry's
growth and development.
Strengthen ``informed consent''
While the Commercial Space Launch Act requires the licensees obtain
informed consent from their spaceflight participant customers, it is
silent on the issue of potential claims from participants in the event
of a flight incident or accident. I recommend that the statue should
allow for agreements not to sue, to include participants. These would
be agreements under which all parties agree not to sue each other for
any harm they may suffer, known as reciprocal waivers of claim.
Launch Site Safety
Safety governs the future of space operations. It is at the
core of both the work AST does, and the success of the
commercial space flight industry. To that end, in September of
2007, the Air Force and the FAA entered into a Memorandum of
Agreement on Safety for Space Transportation and Range
Activities. It took years to work it out. But it has proven
itself a useful, necessary and key instrument for enhancing
safety on the ranges and understanding among the parties. It
has made operations easier for new launch entrants at Federal
launch sites. It has produced common standards for launch
operations among the Federal and non-federal/commercial launch
sites.
Memorandum of Understanding
Among other Memoranda of Agreement, there is also a Memorandum
of Understanding among the National Transportation Safety
Board, the Air Force and the Federal Aviation Administration
regarding space launch accidents. Although fortunately there
has been no occasion to call it into operation, it is, as I see
it, the kind of guiding document that will make it possible for
all the overseeing parties to work effectively together if the
need arises. At this point, I believe no adjustments are in
order.
Indemnification
On another subject, I strongly favor extending indemnification
provisions for a minimum of ten years. The current one-year
extension breeds uncertainty in the same way that a series of
one-year contracts in the sports world undermines confidence
that a long-term contract inspires. The indemnification
provision is a recommendation that Congress is not obliged to
follow. But it sends a powerful message that says to the rest
of the world: ``The United States supports our commercial space
industry and is willing to share the risk.'' Indemnification
provides our domestic commercial space industry much-needed
leverage in competing for business with state-sponsored launch
efforts in other countries. The absence of the risk-sharing
approach--or lack of assurance about its future--would create
doubt and instability in the launch industry.
Creative approaches to acquisition
Space Act Agreements (SAAs) are an important public-private firm-
fixed price approach to space system development. NASA's use of Space
Act Agreements (SAAs) demonstrates NASA's willingness to proactively
engage the private sector to identify potential opportunities for
commercial space companies to meet NASA's needs and requirements. They
dramatically reduce NASA's exposure to risk and incentivize commercial
providers to keep development costs as low as possible while
maintaining the highest standards for safety. Space Act Agreements
often are not funded--rather, they result in monies flowing to the USG
from partners using (and paying for the use of) NASA facilities and
services. SAAs allow the USG to write any requirements that may be
desired into the agreement.
The work products are already demonstrating contributions to NASA's
beyond LEO human exploration missions in ways that will reduce costs
while enhancing capabilities. For example, Bigelow Aerospace's SAA will
help commercial space achieve escape velocity from low-Earth Orbit. In
fact, on next Thursday, May 23, NASA Associate Administrator Bill
Gerstenmaier and Robert Bigelow will participate in a kick-off briefing
on Capitol Hill to describe the SAA and answer any questions that
Members or Hill staff may have.
Nationally Integrated Space Capabilities
There are now eight FAA-licensed launch sites in the United States,
with others under discussion. I believe we should explore ways to
facilitate NASA's use of these sites as a matter of economy,
convenience and safety. NASA currently makes available services to
orbital and suborbital companies and it seems reasonable to return the
courtesy.
The integration of assets and capabilities also helps address the
matter of what commercial launch sites are up to when they are not
launching rockets, their intended core business. I believe it would be
extremely worthwhile for Congress to require that the Federal Aviation
Administration, NASA and the Air Force explore the value of involving
privately operated commercial spaceports as part of a national network
to meet overall American space flight needs.
On-Orbit Authority
I agree with the DOT/FAA Commercial Space Transportation
Advisory Committee (COMSTAC) that on-orbit authority needs to
be discussed. Currently, uncertainty surrounds jurisdiction and
regulatory questions of on--orbit operations involving space
transportation. A thorough look should address questions like:
Specifically, what are the safety hazards and needs posed by
spacecraft while operating in the National Airspace System
(NAS)? How should the U.S. Government handle on-orbit
authority? What is the need for on--orbit authority and does
the FAA play a role in satisfying that need? FAA/AST should
examine ``space traffic coordination'' and create scenarios and
analysis exploring the issue. AST should simulate and model
with the FAA's Next Generation Airspace effort how the
integration of regularly scheduled space traffic would look in
the NAS. FAA/AST should begin infrastructure studies to
identify monitoring requirements for on-orbit activities to the
extent required for space traffic coordination.
NASA's Educational Programs
Finally, I am very concerned about the cuts to NASA's
educational program at a time when NASA is on a different
trajectory and with a vision different from any before. Like
every other sector of the space industry, commercial space is
dependent on America's ability to produce and equip with a
specific set of technical skills and capabilities the next
generation of space professionals. It is vital work that needs
to begin early in a student's educational journey. These skills
and capabilities derive from the STEM disciplines that can
support space operations today, and those that young minds can
dream and create for the future. No one teaches what NASA does
like NASA. I recommend that Congress take another look at the
benefits of STEM education and reconsider the enormous
investment value of NASA's education program.
Going Forward
The FAA's Office of Commercial Space Transportation has performed
pioneering service in a comparatively new and still evolving industry.
It has worked effectively with the Air Force and with NASA and with the
industry itself. And while forging a regulatory framework, it has been
an active, open and attentive companion to seasoned talent in its own
environment. I'm talking about NASA. Its work in human exploration and
crew and cargo transport is unparalleled. Those of us in the space
industry understand that NASA remains a living legend, changing,
improving, adapting to new science and exploration.
In fact, the United States' diverse spaceflight talent is a major
asset that we are fortunate to maintain. Other nations have put objects
into space. Other nations have put humans into space. Some have
conducted commercial space launches. But no other nation has done all
these things using the resources and genius of both the public treasury
and private investment. With safety as its imperative, the United
States has shown to the world the ability to integrate space
initiatives.
No other nation has done that. No other nation has performed space
flight as well as we have. And I'm proud to say, we're getting even
better at it. We are stronger than ever. We have only just begun.
Thank you.
Senator Nelson. Thank you, Ms. Smith.
Captain?
STATEMENT OF CAPTAIN MICHAEL LOPEZ-ALEGRIA, USN (RET.),
PRESIDENT, COMMERCIAL SPACEFLIGHT FEDERATION
Captain Lopez-Alegria. Chairman Nelson and Ranking Member
Cruz, good morning again. I want to say it's an honor to be
seated at this table with my colleagues, and thanks for the
opportunity to share some thoughts on partnerships to advance
the business of space with you.
About a year ago, after 20 years and over 4,000 orbits of
the Earth, I decided to leave what was arguably a pretty good
job as a NASA astronaut to come here, and I did that because
this is really important. I truly believe that commercial space
flight is important to the future of our human exploration of
space in this country. We're about to restore an imperative
national capability, to democratize access to space, and to
build an industry that I'm convinced will lead the world, and
frankly, I can't think of a more honorable calling than to be
part of it.
The Commercial Spaceflight Federation represents over 40
companies across the country that are working to make
commercial spaceflight a reality. Their spheres of influence
range from near space with science and technology payloads on
high-tech and very high-altitude balloons, to suborbit, low-
Earth orbit and beyond.
The era of commercial human spaceflight began with the
fantastic achievements of the SpaceShipOne team that won the
Ansari X Prize back in 2004 by sending a piloted, reusable
vehicle to an altitude of over 100 kilometers twice in the span
of 5 days.
In recent weeks, there have been even more exciting
accomplishments that point to the beginning of commercial
suborbital operations within the next year. One was a testing
by XCOR of a piston pump-powered rocket motor. This technology
represents a giant leap in the quest for a propulsion system
whose reusability approaches that of a commercial jet.
And another milestone that was mentioned before is a test
flight by Scaled Composites of SpaceShipTwo, a larger version
of its predecessor, for Virgin Galactic. Its rocket motor,
developed by the Sierra Nevada Corporation, was ignited for the
first time in flight after being released from its mother ship
at almost 50,000 feet altitude.
But as impressive as these vehicles are, there is a big
difference between suborbital vehicles and orbital vehicles. In
space, getting there is all about speed, and to get to 100
kilometers altitude, you need to go about Mach 3. To get to
orbit, you need to go about Mach 25, and you can appreciate
that there is a pretty big difference there, and that's the
reason that until recently orbit has been the domain of nation-
states and their agencies.
However, in addition to ULA--United Launch Alliance's--
incredible record of successful launches recently, Space
Exploration Technologies and Orbital Science Corporation, in
the context of NASA's COTS program, have demonstrated the
ability to achieve orbital space flight. And, in fact, SpaceX
has now twice delivered cargo and returned it under NASA's CRS
contract from the International Space Station.
This space station represents not only an investment of
tens of billions of dollars but is also an unparalleled
research facility where scientists and other researchers from
around the world can conduct experiments in an environment that
is not duplicable anywhere, on or off the planet. We strongly
encourage the Congress to extend the utilization of ISS to its
design life limit of 2028.
I went to the ISS for the third time back in 2006, but
unlike the first two times, I wasn't on the Space Shuttle. I,
in fact, rode a Soviet-designed rocket and capsule called
Soyuz. Since the retirement of the Shuttle, it's been the only
mode of transport available to U.S. astronauts. But building on
the success of the commercial cargo programs, NASA is engaged
in development of commercial crew system that has already
created thousands of high-tech jobs across America.
At the same time, using innovative Space Act agreement
transaction authorities, it has achieved progress far in excess
of that likely to have been accomplished in a traditional
development contract, yet while saving the taxpayer
considerable money.
But funding levels below those proposed by NASA have
resulted in a delay in operational capability and, as we know,
every year that we can't launch American astronauts into space
on American rockets is another year of sending over $450
million to Russia. It's imperative that we execute this program
vigorously, which implies, among other things, full funding or
funding at the highest possible levels.
History is littered with examples of empires that failed to
adapt to changing times and were thus dethroned by others who
did. Our world is very different from the heyday of NASA
budgets that commanded 4.5 percent of Federal spending. But by
intelligently partnering with the private sector, our space
agency and, indeed, our Nation can continue to lead the world
in mankind's greatest endeavor.
I look forward to discussing with you some of the policy
details that are addressed in my written testimony, and I hope
that my comments today will help materially contribute to your
formulation and ultimate passage of legislation. Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Captain Lopez-Alegria follows:]
Prepared Statement of Captain Michael Lopez-Alegria, USN (Ret.),
President, Commercial Spaceflight Federation
Chairman Nelson, Ranking Member Cruz, and Members of the
Subcommittee, thank you for holding this hearing and for the
opportunity to testify as President of the Commercial Spaceflight
Federation.
The Federal Government has worked with the American space industry
in innumerable capacities since the dawn of the space program.
Companies like Boeing, Aerojet and the David Clark Company have worked
with the Department of Defense (DOD), NASA and NASA's predecessor NACA
since the 1940s to develop many of the spaceflight systems that took
our astronauts to orbit and then to the Moon. In the 1980s, the first
wave of space privatization occurred, giving birth to a number of new
companies and a fast-growing commercial satellite industry that reached
almost $180 billion in revenue by 2011. The Commercial Space
Transportation office, now at the Federal Aviation Administration, was
also established in the 1980s, to regulate and promote the commercial
space launch industry. Many of the advancements that followed
privatization have been in turn deployed for government purposes,
proving the value of enlisting industry as an active partner in
government space endeavors.
In the last few years, the industry has undergone significant
growth in revenue, employees and capability. Much of its success has
been based on the tremendous support that NASA has provided in
developing and providing technologies, supporting development of space
systems and buying services from commercial providers. This partnership
between the private sector and NASA has helped create an industry that
can provide services to both NASA and private customers, while creating
jobs all over America.
Under the old paradigm for public-private partnership, NASA
engineers would design space systems and then offer portions under
cost-plus contracts for competitive bidding. This has been a successful
method for building one-of-a-kind systems at the cutting edge of
technology that can accomplish missions never before attempted.
However, as our presence in space has expanded, it has become clear
that there are wide variety of necessary systems and services that do
not fit that template.
The new paradigm, which has emerged to complement but not replace
the old, has been referred to as commercial procurement. It changes the
role of government, so that it is a customer and involved participant
in developing space systems, but not the designer, builder, operator or
sole customer. This approach has proven highly successful in reducing
the cost of maintaining critical space infrastructure in the pioneering
Commercial Orbital Transportation System (COTS) and Commercial Resupply
Services (CRS) programs, while promoting the development of systems
that can also be used for commercial purposes. The model is a
refinement of one that NASA and the DOD used in the 1990s to develop
launch vehicles still in use today.
Meanwhile, completely commercial space activities are thriving as
well. American orbital launch providers have become more competitive on
the world market, bringing high-tech jobs back to America. Suborbital
providers are building and testing vehicles that will tap a worldwide
market for space tourism and fulfill scientists' need for more frequent
and inexpensive access to space. Other companies are developing
technologies to mine asteroids for valuable resources, visit the Moon,
and disaggregate large satellites into small satellite constellations.
Orbital
A year ago, SpaceX launched its first mission to the International
Space Station (ISS). Coming less than a year after the retirement of
the Space Shuttle, the launch captured the imagination of the American
people, strengthened the ISS program, and ushered in a new era of
spaceflight cooperation. Of course, one competitor is not enough for a
competitive marketplace, and just last month, Orbital Sciences
Corporation completed a test flight that took the company one step
closer to ISS. These companies are replacing some of the capabilities
lost with the retirement of the Space Shuttle and ensuring that the
investment and jobs involved in resupplying the ISS are staying in
America.
Unlike most other government programs, which tend to increase in
cost over time, NASA's Commercial Cargo Program (CCP) has the potential
for cost reductions. The vehicles and rockets providing cargo services
can also be available for commercial satellite launches, NASA crew
launches and other commercial markets. In this way the fixed costs of
development and manufacturing infrastructure will be spread over
multiple customers, lowering the cost of the flights for NASA.
Meanwhile, NASA has been working with the companies competing to
fly astronauts to the ISS. The Boeing Corporation recently performed
force and moment wind tunnel testing of an integrated test article
including both the CST-100 capsule and the launch vehicle adapter.
Sierra Nevada Corporation has recently completed its integrated system
safety analysis review, demonstrating the safety and reliability plans
for the major components of its Dream Chaser crew transportation
system. SpaceX conducted its Ground and Ascent Preliminary Design
Review and continues to do qualification testing of its Falcon 9
``version 1.1'' launch vehicle.
Other companies are also working with NASA to develop orbital
launch systems, including Blue Origin, who, under the Commercial Crew
Development program, performed a successful pad abort test and tested
components of a new 100,000-pound American rocket engine at NASA's
Stennis Space Center. That engine is now undergoing evaluation at Blue
Origin's West Texas facility.
Suborbital
While many companies are developing and flying orbital launch
vehicles, we have seen a steady stream of progress in the suborbital
arena, where reusable vehicles offer the possibility of high flight
volume. Companies such as Armadillo Aerospace, Blue Origin, Masten
Space Systems, Virgin Galactic and XCOR Aerospace are competing to
offer flights for private individuals, researchers and experimental
equipment to altitudes above 100 kilometers.
Virgin Galactic has performed many glide tests over the last year,
and in April accomplished the first powered flight of its SpaceShipTwo
vehicle, breaking the sound barrier and kicking off a busy year of
flight-testing. XCOR is building a liquid rocket-powered vehicle that
will be capable of aircraft-like operations. In March, the company
performed a 67 second test firing of an engine mated to the vehicle
fuselage, the first firing of a fully piston-pump-powered rocket
engine. Also in March, Masten Space Systems completed the latest in a
series of unmanned vertical-takeoff vertical-landing flights for Draper
Labs to test autonomous control systems for use on vehicles that will
land on the Moon or Mars. Finally, late last year, Armadillo Aerospace
conducted a series of flights, including the first FAA-licensed flight
from Spaceport America in New Mexico by an unmanned liquid propellant
sounding rocket with a steerable parachute recovery system.
Each month brings new accomplishments among a set of companies
competing for a robust market for research, space tourism and other
applications. A recent study by analysts at the Tauri Group showed a
demand for hundreds of suborbital flights a year for a broad array of
purposes. In fact, because of the operational benefits of reusable
vehicles, suborbital reusable capabilities could be a disruptive
technology that creates entirely new markets. The personal computer,
although less powerful than a room-sized mainframe, was infinitely more
useful simply because of its easier operation and came to dominate the
market not by replacing supercomputers, but rather by demonstrating the
market was much larger than anyone had anticipated.
The development of reusable suborbital vehicles is a truly American
phenomenon, and one that is creating high-tech jobs in Florida, Texas,
California, New Mexico, Colorado, Washington and many other states
across the country. Many states and local communities are modifying
existing airports to accommodate horizontal and vertical launch
suborbital vehicles or building new spaceports to bring home the
benefits of the suborbital revolution.
NASA has been admirably forward-looking in creating the Flight
Opportunities Program to purchase commercial reusable suborbital
flights for technology demonstration and development and for other
purposes. By being an anchor customer for services, the program
provides significant incentives for private investment while only
paying for services rendered. The program issues calls for proposals to
fly technology payloads and has seen impressive interest from the
research and technology development communities, indicating a pent-up
demand for inexpensive, regular access to the space environment.
Other Commercial Space Activities
Over the last few years, as the suborbital and orbital arenas have
become competitive industries in search of near-term markets, new
businesses have arisen to support and take advantage of new
developments and push the envelope of space economic activity farther.
A web of suppliers and service providers, some traditional aerospace
firms and some from other sectors that have only recently become
involved in space activities, support each of the companies developing
orbital or suborbital vehicles.
Many states have developed or are developing commercial spaceports,
including New Mexico, Florida, Texas, Oklahoma, Virginia, Alaska,
Colorado and California. Testing and training facilities are providing
venues to test equipment and train crew and spaceflight participants in
the types of environments they will experience. Companies around the
country are supplying spacecraft parts and subsystems, ranging from
screws and fasteners to environmental control systems, engines and
spacesuits.
Meanwhile, new companies have arisen that are pursuing business
plans using new ways to access space to build novel businesses. Several
companies are building and launching small communications and remote
sensing satellites that promise to make existing and new satellite
applications more available and more robust. Other companies are
building platforms that can host scientists and individuals in orbit.
Finally, commercial space has targeted asteroids and the Moon through
the efforts of companies like Planetary Resources, Moon Express and
Golden Spike. All in all, it is an exciting time for commercial space
as early investments bear fruit and a second generation of companies
builds on the accomplishments of the first.
NASA Programs
While purely commercial activities are a vital and rapidly growing
part of the demand for launch services, NASA has expanded that demand
to include delivery of cargo and crew to the ISS. The success of NASA's
commercial cargo and crew programs has been encouraging. Unfortunately,
use of the term ``commercial'' has become the subject of some
disagreement. All programs have some commercial aspects; the companies
that built vehicles in the Apollo and Space Shuttle programs were
selling goods or services, and were therefore commercial enterprises.
Rather than being ``commercial'' or not, all programs fall somewhere on
a continuum of development and procurement practices. It is our view
that those that display the following characteristics are closer to the
``commercial'' end of the spectrum:
Full and open competition. Fair and open competition is a
fundamental principle that has driven the economic engines of
the free world that now dominate the global economy. This
concept is eminently applicable to the acquisition of space
systems and services to limit cost, incentivize efficiency, and
promote innovation. Too often in the past, NASA programs have
ended the competition with a prime contract award near the
beginning of the program. Maintaining competition through all
major procurements in a program is essential, and the DOD has
thusly used competition in many of its major aircraft
procurements. So far, NASA's commercial cargo and crew programs
have used multi-stage competition to preserve the competition
throughout the life of the program, while still providing
enough business to the industry partners to justify their
investment. It is clear from independent analyses that the COTS
program saved money as compared to the traditional development
cost of a single system, even though NASA's investment was
split between two companies. In addition to desired cost
containment effects, competition provides critical redundancy-
both technical and programmatic-that allows the program to
remain robust much later in the programmatic cycle than is
afforded by an early down-select to one provider. In planning
any program, we suggest that the Congress and NASA put a high
premium on preserving competition.
Milestone-based fixed-price payments. The COTS program has
shown how much NASA can accomplish when using its Other
Transaction Authority to put in place milestone-based Space Act
Agreements. In the absence of a firm-fixed-price contract or
agreement, the objectives of the contractor and agency can be
misaligned. Without performance incentives, the contractor has
little motivation to create efficiencies and lower the project
cost, and absent fixed-price milestones, the agency is free to
add requirements or change its mind midway through the program,
raising the price of the program for the taxpayer. While not
all systems can be developed on fixed-price contracts or
agreements, in general, the more freedom to change the price,
the more expensive the product will be in the end. Selecting
the right firm, fixed-price instrument is also critical to
achieving cost effectiveness. Where NASA is actually acquiring
goods or services, a Federal Acquisition Regulations (FAR)
contract should likely be used. However, FAR contracts, even
firm, fixed-price, limit flexibility and are subject to cost
increases when the government directs changes. NASA has been
very innovative in using funded Space Act Agreements in the
crew and cargo programs to take advantage of their low overhead
and flexibility to achieve cost effectiveness. Since NASA is
only ``buying'' the certification of these transportation
systems, using a FAR contract only for the certification data
keep costs to a minimum while ensuring NASA oversight and
verification of performance and safety.
Well-defined and well-communicated requirements and standards.
Proper program design is required to keep any program on
schedule and on budget. The Government Accountability Office
(GAO) has analyzed failing programs and provided appropriate
guidelines to many agencies to help them manage programs more
effectively. Unfortunately, one of the most damaging forms of
mismanagement-requirements creep-is still a problem. In one
example discussed by the GAO, the addition of new requirements
late in the development cycle helped double the cost of a GPS-
related DOD program.
The degree to which a customer can be specific about its
requirements, and that it can define those requirements sooner
rather than later, is of great benefit to the cost
effectiveness of a program. Defining program requirements,
standards and milestones early is difficult, and some
flexibility is always required as engineering developments may
necessitate a modified or alternative requirement or standard.
In its Commercial Crew Program, NASA is seeking to strike the
right balance through an iterative process with industry
partners in the first phase of the Certification Products
Contracts. This process must continue apace to avoid costly,
late changes to requirements. By facing these issues early,
NASA is following the best practices outlined by the GAO and
other experts. The processes pioneered by the commercial crew
and cargo programs show great promise and should be practiced
more widely at NASA.
Anticipation of other customers. The nation's recent economic
difficulties mean NASA's budget has been smaller than the
funding profile laid out in the NASA Authorization Act of 2010.
Meanwhile, NASA's missions have stayed fixed or grown. In order
for NASA to accomplish the remarkable things we all expect of
it, the agency must be able to reduce the fixed costs
associated with maintaining the Nation's current space
capabilities. Unfortunately, some capabilities required for
NASA's mission are unique, and for those NASA bears all the
fixed costs of development and maintenance. Whenever possible,
NASA should avoid this situation by developing and using
services that also have other customers, allowing NASA to
insist that commercial partners invest their own funds as well.
In the case of crew and cargo transportation to ISS, the
capabilities developed by industry in partnership with NASA will also
provide services to a diverse set of markets, including commercial
satellite launch, space tourism, sovereign space exploration and
utilization, future NASA missions and others.
By implementing lessons learned from past and ongoing commercial
programs, NASA can ensure that its investment is used in the most
efficient way possible. NASA's Commercial Crew Program is currently the
most high-profile commercial space program in development. Its success
is important to the commercial space industry, but even more important
to our Nation. In difficult economic times, extending the period that
American jobs are taken by Russian rocket companies is a mistake. The
success of the Commercial Crew Program will mean that we are no longer
dependent on Russian vehicles to transport our astronauts to the ISS.
Meanwhile, it has already helped create thousands of jobs in the
American space industry and will create many more as it comes to
maturity.
The success of the program to date is due to the highly innovative
teams at the competing companies, the skilled technical team at NASA
and the commitment by NASA to commercial agreements and a minimum of
unnecessary overhead. In the current phase of development, the
Commercial Crew Integrated Capacity (CCiCap) program, NASA has
undertaken an inventive two-pronged approach that reflects the two
related, but different, goals of the program: Help industry create a
competitive marketplace for crew delivery services to low-Earth orbit,
and secure crew delivery services for NASA that satisfy its demanding
requirements. Under this approach, the development of the systems is
primarily performed under milestone-based Space Act Agreements that
keep costs to a minimum while still providing NASA the insight needed
to ensure the vehicles are safe for crew transport. Meanwhile, NASA is
pursuing a parallel certification process under a traditional, fixed-
price Federal Acquisition Regulation-based contract that will make
certain that any other information NASA needs to ensure the safety of
its astronauts is provided. In this way, the two transaction
authorities are used for precisely the reasons they were created: Space
Act Agreements to partner with industry to develop new capabilities
that are relevant to both the government's needs and existing and
emerging commercial markets, and FAR-based contracts to secure a
service for NASA to use.
Despite seeking and receiving proposals--called optional milestones
under CCiCap-from the participating companies that would allow them to
proceed all the way to first crewed flight, NASA has indicated that it
is planning to move the entire program to FAR-based contracts at the
end of the current phase, just over a year from now. The transition
away from the two-pronged approach may impose an increase in complexity
and red tape on industry partners, which could result in growth in cost
and schedule. Another approach would be to exercise the optional
milestones under existing or revised Space Act Agreements while
modifying the current FAR-based certification contracts. In this way,
NASA maintains oversight, controls risk, verifies safety and will get
the safe, reliable and cost-effective ISS crew transport it needs in a
timely and affordable manner.
The ISS is the crown jewel of our human space enterprise. To quote
Astronaut Chris Hadfield, who just returned from commanding ISS, ``We
are leaving Earth permanently. It is a huge historic step and we are
trying to do it right and it takes time, it takes patience and it takes
tenacity--and we're going to do it.'' ISS touches all aspects of why we
go into space--exploration, science, inspiration and commerce. NASA
will soon have astronauts flying on ISS for over a year, providing
critical information about the long-term effects of weightlessness for
astronauts going to Mars. Science experiments like the Alpha Magnetic
Spectrometer are peering into the mysteries of dark matter. And,
equally exciting, ISS is creating a marketplace of space users--whether
it's small scale projects, like NanoRack's MixStix, a small test-tube
experiment platform, or very large projects like Bigelow Aerospace's
BEAM module, ISS is the proving ground for orbital space commerce.
These activities will drive the demand for space access and perhaps new
installations in Earth orbit. We strongly urge the Congress to extend
utilization of the ISS to its design-life limit of 2028.
As NASA plans for exploration beyond earth orbit, we should also
keep the lessons of the commercial programs in mind. Where NASA's
purposes overlap with those of commercial entities, non-profits, other
government agencies, and other governments, it should pursue approaches
that take maximum advantage of those resources by engaging early and on
multiple levels. NASA should include the private sector in planning
exercises to ensure that overlapping purposes are recognized and
pursued. As partners, NASA and industry can ensure a sustained American
human presence beyond low-Earth orbit, and expand commercial,
scientific and exploration opportunities throughout the Solar System.
The commercial spaceflight industry has competencies that can
augment and complement NASA's for spaceflight beyond low-Earth orbit.
For example, commercial spaceflight companies are working to identify,
track, analyze, and eventually interact with near-Earth asteroids,
complementing NASA's own efforts. Congress has an opportunity to
leverage this innovative private-sector activity; the same skills and
technology that enable asteroid mining, for example, enable defense
from potentially hazardous asteroids and a NASA asteroid retrieval
mission. The same technologies that allow Google Lunar X PRIZE
companies to develop robotic spacecraft on the Moon will help NASA to
accomplish its goals for lunar exploration. Congress should consider
inexpensive ways to promote commercial activity in deep space, so that
these companies and their investors can help accomplish national
objectives and maintain U.S. leadership in a new industry. In the
meantime, Congress should make it clear to the State Department that
international negotiations about space resources must take U.S.
private-sector activities into account.
Other companies like those that have been involved in NASA's
commercial crew and cargo programs could modify their vehicles to
provide cargo supply to a mission beyond low-Earth orbit. We urge NASA
to adopt the highly successful COTS/CRS model, particularly the use of
Space Act Agreements, wherever possible in the development of
exploration capabilities that could have synergy with commercial
activities, thereby reducing the cost and enhancing the safety of these
systems. In other parts of NASA's mission, such as the dedicated or
secondary launch of small satellites, commercial terms should also be
the rule. We welcome further conversation on how the commercial space
industry can enable NASA to reach farther and do more.
Federal Regulations
With the Commercial Space Launch Act of 1984, Congress established
an office within the Department of Transportation to license and
promote commercial launch activities. In the 1990s, the Office of
Commercial Space Transportation was moved into the Federal Aviation
Administration and was also given the authority to license reentry
operations. From the beginning, the office's mandate was to ensure the
safety of the uninvolved public (often called third parties), and since
1988 part of that task has been to ensure that an appropriate level of
financial responsibility was established for licensed companies so that
there would be funds available to pay any claims in the event of damage
to the uninvolved public or the Federal Government.
Since it has been several years since the last full reauthorization
of this agency, there are a number of course corrections that we feel
are warranted to streamline the regulatory process and ensure the safe
and beneficial development of the industry.
In 1988 Congress set up a ``risk sharing regime'' to deal with
potential harm to uninvolved third parties. This regime requires that
license applicants meet a stringent financial responsibility
requirement by compelling them to purchase insurance or demonstrate
sufficient financial resources to cover third-party damage claims up to
the amount that could be caused by a 1-in-10 million probability launch
accident. Importantly, the Federal Government is in fact protected from
claims up to this Maximum Probable Loss (MPL) by the company's
insurance or assets. In the extremely unlikely event of an accident
that caused damage above the MPL, the Federal Government agreed to seek
an expedited appropriation to cover damage above the insured amount.
In fact, because of the tiny chance of an accident costing more
than the MPL, the risk-sharing regime is scored as having no
significant cost by the Congressional Budget Office and has been
renewed many times by Congress since 1988. According to our
calculations, the regime has an actuarial cost of less than $10 per
launch. The insurance policy that a launch company purchases to protect
the public and the government typically costs many orders of magnitude
more.
Last year, Congress only renewed the regime for one year at the end
of the previous Congress, and it will expire again at the end of 2013.
In view of the powerful protection that the risk-sharing regime
provides to the Federal Government as well as industry, we strongly
urge Congress to extend it indefinitely.
While the chance of damage to uninvolved people on the ground is
small, spaceflight is an inherently dangerous business for those of us
who fly. No one should board a launch vehicle believing that it is
perfectly safe. In 2004, as commercial human spaceflight moved from the
drawing board to the skies above Mojave, Congress passed a law
declaring that customers of commercial human spaceflight launches were
not passengers, but rather active ``spaceflight participants.'' Along
with this declaration came a requirement that any company launching a
participant into space must fully inform them that the Federal
Government does not certify spaceflight vehicles to be safe, of the
risks of spaceflight in general, and of the specific safety record of
their vehicle type. I am pleased to report that the Commercial
Spaceflight Federation is currently developing an industry consensus
standard practice for informing participants of these risks so that
they are fully aware of the hazards.
Because of the risks of spaceflight, Congress understood that
litigation could arise in the event of an accident, and because of the
many different companies and individuals involved in any spaceflight,
that litigation could be extended and complicated, imposing large costs
on all parties involved. In order to avoid this situation, the
Commercial Space Launch Act includes a requirement that the parties
involved in a spaceflight (including customers) sign reciprocal waivers
of claims with each other. All parties were included in this
requirement except spaceflight participants, which raises the specter
of protracted and complicated litigation. We therefore ask that
Congress include spaceflight participants in the waiver of claims
structure, knowing that the waivers do not excuse gross negligence or
intentional action. We also ask that Congress clarify that Federal law
controls any space launch activity, including the enforceability of
waivers granted by spaceflight participants, and that these questions
be under the sole jurisdiction of the Federal Courts, to avoid having
conflicting law in different jurisdictions on matters that are
fundamentally Federal in nature.
In the Commercial Space Launch Amendments Act of 2004 Congress
recognized that human commercial spaceflight was a new and innovative
business and that improvident regulation could easily stifle it. In
that act, Congress established the principle that the Office of
Commercial Space Transportation could continue to issue regulations to
protect the uninvolved public without restriction, but should initially
only issue regulations aimed at the safety of crew and spaceflight
participants based on specific flight incidents that led or could have
led to injury or death. This regime has provided regulatory stability,
while enabling the industry to find inventive solutions to challenging
technical problems. Though a sunset date was inserted in the 2004 bill,
that date was extended in 2012 to the end of 2015. We ask that this
extension be continued, as the general principle of flight-data-based
regulation is important to allow the types of innovation that will
improve safety in the long run.
Another correction would ensure that vehicles could continue to be
tested after they are licensed, in appropriate circumstances. Current
law forbids issuing an experimental permit for an individual reusable
spacecraft after a launch license has been issued for a launch or
reentry of a rocket of that design, meaning that further testing of the
vehicle class could be limited. A technical fix would allow companies
more flexibility to improve safety and increase performance. It would
also enable flight-testing of new vehicles as they enter service,
something required as the industry matures into operating fleets of
vehicles.
Finally, air-launched or hybrid vehicles are currently regulated by
two branches of the FAA depending on the particular activity taking
place, a situation that the Commercial Space Launch Act tried very hard
to prevent. FAA's Office of Commercial Space Transportation regulates
an entire hybrid system on launch day, but FAA's Office of Aviation
Safety regulates the launch platform and spaceship separately if other
activities, such as repositioning and testing are pursued. Having two
separate regulators thwarts congressional intent, adds to the cost and
time burden of compliance, and creates the potential for regulatory
gaps and conflicts that could potentially have a negative impact on
safety. We are currently pursuing a solution within the FAA, but a
legislative solution may be necessary.
Conclusion
It is said that some of the greatest companies in American history
were formed during recessions. Adversity can sometimes bring the best
out of government programs as well as people, breeding innovation that
seeds the next great round of exploration. I hope that as you consider
legislation later this year, you think of the commercial space industry
as a resource that can help NASA achieve its ever-more-difficult
missions and bring a new energy to the scientists, engineers, dreamers
and policy-makers who see space as a vital component of our next
economic boom. Please let me know of any way in which the Commercial
Spaceflight Federation can help.
Senator Nelson. Thank you, Captain.
Dr. Collicott?
STATEMENT OF DR. STEVEN H. COLLICOTT, PROFESSOR,
PURDUE UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF AERONAUTICS
AND ASTRONAUTICS
Mr. Collicott. Thank you, Chairman Nelson and Ranking
Member Cruz, and the Committee. I'm pleased to be here and to
address this committee.
I'm going to speak on the role of the private suborbital
space industry, on research and education. A little bit first,
I'm a Professor in the School of Aeronautics and Astronautics
at Purdue University in the College of Engineering. Purdue is
the home of 23 astronauts. In my position, I have been teaching
and researching topics in fluid dynamics for 23 years. My
research explores the basic fluid physics for improving things
like pulmonary health, fuel efficiency in transportation,
communication satellite lifetime, jet engine cooling and
lubrication, and similar. It's a nice job.
I am active in spaceflight research. In this sense, I am a
member of the Suborbital Applications Researchers Group,
working with Commercial Spaceflight Federation. We're a group
of volunteer researchers to promote research uses in this new
industry. I serve on the Scientific Advisory Board of CASIS,
the Center for the Advancement of Science in Space. I am
principal investigator of the Fluids Education Experiment,
scheduled to be launched to Space Station in 2014.
I am building payloads to fly with suborbital companies:
Armadillo and Blue Origin, Masten and XCOR and Virgin Galactic,
plus a high-altitude balloon company, Near Space. I have worked
through experiment design, payload integration, and launch
operations even with some of these companies, and I've seen
firsthand how this privately financed, uniquely American
industry is poised to deliver remarkable new scientific
research capabilities.
Researchers need to begin now to have experiments ready to
exploit these new capabilities for science that can impact our
lives here on Earth. Already, my student-built payloads have
flown with an expensive German payload on Armadillo test
flights.
Now, three minutes of high-quality micro-gravity test time
is ideal for a number of physical sciences, and others, which
to look up or down from these vehicles with telescopes and
other instruments for unique observations. Various biological,
life sciences and physiological researchers have well-justified
plans for studies from the small-scale, like cellular signaling
mechanisms, to the large, that is up to many dozens of human
subjects.
Our own atmosphere is so poorly studied in the mesosphere
and lower thermosphere that little is known. It's even
difficult to find an expert in this part of the atmosphere. Yet
this region, which is above all the balloon flights and below
all the orbits, is where these new rockets will fly and coast
on every mission, thus enabling many novel studies of this
region, which is already felt to be important to carbon
transport in our atmosphere.
All these and other fields of science can benefit from
launching quickly, repeatedly, and affordably on the new
vehicles.
Already, this industry is impacting education. I teach a
zero-gravity flight experiment class at Purdue every semester,
building experiments for launches with several of these
companies, and also now a payload for a NASA Flight
Opportunities Program launch. Thus universities are beginning
to be involved, too.
For high schools, an automated student payload is easily
affordable and would be just the next step in high school
robotics. Thus, we can couple right into a phenomenal and
popular hands-on, project-based, STEM education program that
already exists nationwide in our high schools.
I see every semester how Purdue students are pulled into
the experiment program, become inspired by the reality of
science and engineering, and make early career decisions or
choices to pursue excellence in STEM topics.
People, perhaps you, often ask me for one good reason why
these new rockets will be important, just one good reason.
Let's try this one: these rockets will provide new research
capabilities of value to numerous fields of science, and this
will produce advances not otherwise possible.
Why not a second good reason? These rockets will fly from
numerous locations and on short notice, so transient and one-
time events in astronomy, planetary science, Earth observation
and atmospheric research can be captured.
I can continue. These rockets will fly a research payload
for a small fraction of the cost of traditional rockets. They
will fly a research payload to space more gently than
traditional rockets, thus more sensitive instruments can be
flown, and also cheaper off-the-shelf instruments can be used.
Some of these rockets will fly the researcher with the
experiment, which is really very common in most experimental
sciences.
These rockets will be reusable, thus driving down the cost.
These rockets are developed with private financing, so
research agencies pay only for the flights they need.
The great accessibility of these rockets will enable a
great number of spaceflight technologies to be tested and
advanced inexpensively in space, accelerating NASA's
exploration mission and strengthening the American companies
that produce spaceflight systems for NASA.
These new rockets will enable a great mass of small robotic
student experiments from all ages of students.
High school space experiments? You bet. That's exactly what
we're talking about with these rockets.
Undergraduate and graduate students in engineering and
sciences can design, build and perform original space
experiments within a year, within a school year.
It's interesting to note that numerous science leaders
today began their careers as graduate students in balloon and
traditional sounding rocket experiments.
So that's 10 good reasons I see for using these vehicles.
They're good science reasons, they're good education reasons,
and I think they're good value-for-dollar reasons, too.
We should use traditional rockets when their capabilities
are required, but most research and education, or much research
and education will make tremendous gains on the new vehicles.
I urge you, Senators, to help us jump into using this
emerging United States industry broadly for science and STEM
education.
This does require some money, and it needs continuity and
leadership. A multi-agency, multi-year program would be ideal.
Now is the time to begin to create the impacts we desire
from this industry.
I thank you for your attention and will do my best to
answer questions for you.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Collicott follows:]
Prepared Statement of Dr. Steven H. Collicott, Professor, Purdue
University School of Aeronautics and Astronautics
Introduction
Chairman Nelson, Ranking Member Cruz, and Members of the
Subcommittee: Thank you for the opportunity to provide testimony to
this subcommittee on the important role that commercial space,
particularly commercial reusable suborbital vehicles, are beginning to
play in my research, the research of my colleagues across the country
in numerous fields, and the development of new technologies at NASA and
elsewhere.
I believe that we are beginning an era of low-cost, routine space
access that will offer incredible new opportunities for the research
community. Reusable commercial suborbital vehicles will allow
researchers to fly payloads often, conduct more experiments and collect
more data, for the price of one traditional launch vehicle. Payloads
will have a gentler ride to space, resulting in reduced payload
development cost and the opportunity to fly experiments that were
prohibitively difficult to fly before. With short lead times, there
will be opportunities to launch coincident with terrestrial and
astronomical phenomena, providing astronomers and earth scientists
telescope observation prospects from the edge of space. Some of the
platforms will also fly researchers alongside their payloads, an
exciting new addition to space-based research that will provide
flexibility that can only come from having an investigator in the loop,
and reduce the need for expensive and error-prone automation. Like
researchers on ocean-going vessels, in Antarctica, and on research
aircraft, space-based researchers will be able to more effectively
conduct their experiments when they fly with them to adapt to discovery
and to acquire in situ data.
The availability of reusable suborbital vehicles with other
existing platforms, like parabolic flights and the International Space
Station (ISS), will allow researchers to benefit from a full suite of
micro-gravity and space environments. I am tremendously excited about
these upcoming opportunities for my own research. I have performed
microgravity fluids experiments at drop towers, led my students on more
than thirty parabolic aircraft experiments, and designed two of the six
tests performed in the successful Capillary Flow Experiment onboard the
International Space Station. I have also flown research on several test
flights of new suborbital vehicles, serve as a member of the Suborbital
Applications Researcher's Group, and am now a member of the Scientific
Advisory Board for the Center for the Advancement of Science in Space
(CASIS). The full ladder of microgravity platforms is important for a
broad swath of researchers, as it allows us to test equipment, improve
experimental design, and gather data at one rung before moving up to
the next rung in microgravity duration and expense.
Industry Progress
The suborbital industry has reached many milestones recently, and I
expect multiple providers will be flying participants and payloads
within the next few years. In the last eight months alone:
Blue Origin successfully tested their suborbital crew capsule
escape system, which in the event of a pad abort will rocket
the crew away from the launch pad, demonstrating one of the key
safety systems being developed for their vehicle.
Armadillo Aerospace launched two flight tests of their liquid-
engine reusable sounding rocket, STIG-B, marking the first FAA
licensed launch out of Spaceport America's vertical launch
facility. Both of these flights carried payloads developed by
my students at Purdue University.
XCOR Aerospace performed the first firing of a full piston-
pump-powered rocket engine, which will allow their vehicle to
fly inexpensively multiple times a day, with aircraft-like
operations.
Masten Space Systems achieved a record altitude with Xombie,
their precision vertical take-off, vertical landing vehicle. In
March, Xombie reached an altitude of nearly 500 meters, testing
guidance, navigation, and control systems that could be used on
future missions to Mars or other destinations.
Virgin Galactic and Scaled Composites completed the 24th glide
test of SpaceShipTwo and a week thereafter conducted the first
powered flight test. After being released at an altitude of
47,000 ft by WhiteKnightTwo, SpaceShipTwo ignited its hybrid
rocket motor to achieve an altitude of 55,000 ft and a velocity
of Mach 1.2 before gliding to a landing at the Mojave Air &
Space Port.
With this kind of progress by suborbital companies, the first wave
of licensed flights carrying participants and payloads are expected to
begin soon. In addition, research payload development takes several
years, and to fully exploit the new capabilities that these vehicles
will provide, we must put in place programs now to create a pipeline of
science and research payloads. NASA has taken steps to begin to benefit
from commercial, reusable suborbital vehicles, but there is still much
more that can be done in and out of NASA to take full advantage of all
the opportunities these vehicles create.
NASA Programs--Flight Opportunities, and Payload Development
In 2011, NASA created the Flight Opportunities Program (FOP) within
its Space Technology Mission Directorate to use commercial suborbital
rockets, balloons, and parabolic aircraft for technology development.
By serving as an anchor customer for research flights to space, FOP is
enabling companies to raise private investment, fostering the
development of reusable suborbital vehicles, with the goal of creating
routine, cost-effective and enduring space flight research platforms.
The program only pays for flights flown, placing development expenses
on the vehicle providers and their investors. Through FOP
solicitations, researchers are able to fly technology payloads to
space, raising the Technology Readiness Level (TRL) of technology
needed by NASA, demonstrating an application in a relevant environment,
or testing instruments and experiments in microgravity before they take
a costly trip to orbit.
Earlier this year, Near Space Corporation, a company that provides
high-altitude balloon systems, flew a payload for the New Mexico
Institute of Mining and Technology (NMT) through the Flight
Opportunities Program. NMT was testing a monitoring system to determine
structural integrity for space vehicles, which is important for
reusable spacecraft re-entering the atmosphere. NASA will be able to
use tested technologies like these in future orbital and suborbital
missions. Next month, Near Space is scheduled to fly the first upper-
stratospheric low-gravity aircraft flights with their balloon-launched
glider in a flight test program that I am involved in through NASA's
FOP.
By flying payloads like these, FOP can rapidly refresh NASA's
technology base and promote investment by the private sector by
supporting the early adopters of new technology. We researchers who fly
early will provide the proofs of concept that pave the way for those
who fly later. However, currently the pool of researchers that can get
NASA funding for reusable suborbital flights is limited, as FOP
solicits only technology payloads. For researchers such as myself, and
many of my colleagues creating science payloads, the solicitations
through NASA to fund our payload development and fly on these vehicles
are few and far between. I encourage the use of broader science-
oriented solicitations for suborbital vehicles, so that NASA will reap
the full benefits from both the science and technology areas, and to
encourage early adopters from a broader range of disciplines.
Additionally, along with drop towers and parabolic flights, these
vehicles allow researchers to gather the data necessary at a lower rung
before moving up the ladder to experiments on orbit. Gathering initial
data on readily available platforms will allow more researchers to
confidently send their experiments to an extended micro-gravity
environment, reducing risk and increasing utilization of valuable on-
orbit tools such as the International Space Station.
The Principal Investigator for the very successful German Capillary
Channel Flow experiment in ISS tells me that drop tower experiments and
traditional ESA sounding-rocket flights were critical steps for his
team to be able to design the experiment to operate so well in orbit.
My Purdue colleague who is Principal Investigator for the Critical Heat
Flux Experiment being built for the ISS tells me that his parabolic
aircraft flight research history in flow boiling is why he was able to
conceive and design the experiment, propose it in a NASA competition,
and win.
Furthermore, the new era of affordable and frequent access to space
is accessible to any Federal agency with research, technology, or
testing needs. Spaceflight research need not be a NASA-only endeavor
when this uniquely American industry hits its stride.
Scientific Applications of Suborbital Flights
Though there are limited funding opportunities for suborbital
scientists, exciting research is already in development. In many cases,
payloads are funded by a patchwork of internal funds and small grants,
so the current research is just skimming the surface of the pool of
interested researchers. If more science payloads are funded, scientists
will be able to dive deeper into their respective subjects, and produce
results that are broadly applicable on Earth and in space.
I specialize in two-phase fluid dynamics research, and micro-
gravity is a powerful tool for exploring Earth-bound applications and
is obviously vital for spaceflight topics. My research involves the
observation of fluid behavior free of gravity-induced effects such as
sedimentation and buoyancy-induced convection. For example, in 2014 I
will be launching to ISS the ``Fluids Education Experiment'' on the
existence and stability of equilibrium capillary states. This research
grows from computational research I did with researchers at a Centers
for Disease Control laboratory a decade ago, where we investigated how
minute water droplets can obstruct lung passages. Some of my other
efforts seek to advance the ability of engineers to control and gauge
the liquid rocket fuel in commercial communication satellites. A Purdue
colleague's research into boiling and condensation processes, as used
in refrigeration, is important to both expanding our spaceflight
capabilities and to improving such systems on Earth.
Many other researchers with different areas of interest are excited
to use suborbital capabilities as well:
Aeronomy and Mesospheric Science: Suborbital vehicles will be
able to reach an area of the atmosphere that was only
previously attainable through non-reusable and costly sounding
rockets. This portion of the atmosphere, too high for balloons
and too low for orbiting satellites, is sometimes called the
``ignorosphere,'' and will now be accessible for in-situ high-
altitude atmospheric research and to observe radiation from
solar or astronomical sources that is blocked by the lower
atmosphere.
Human Physiology: The three to five minutes of microgravity
provided by suborbital vehicles, including transitions to and
from high-g's, could provide new insight for some kinds of
physiology research. In-situ monitoring may be available for
numerous parameters such as heart rate, cardiac stroke volume,
arterial blood pressure, oxygen saturation, regional blood
volume, brain activity, eye movements, and spacecraft reference
data. While enabling as much of the public as possible to have
a chance to fly to space, this research may also produce
insights on how to better research human conditions on the
ground.
Fundamental Molecular Biology: One basic read-out of an
organism's response to environmental stimulus is the changes in
gene expression that the stimulus evokes. This response can be
very rapid, and the signal transduction and initiation of gene
expression can occur within minutes of perception. This type of
response at the molecular level has been characterized in the
stable, sustained microgravity environment of the space station
and Space Shuttle, but the gene expression profiles associated
with the transition from an environment with gravity to one
without has yet to be examined. Thus, molecular biology
experiments (which can be configured for rapid fixation by crew
or citizen scientist) conducted on suborbital vehicles
represents true, unexplored territory that can provide insight
into the fundamental processes that underlie the initiation of
novel stress responses.
Fundamental Physics of Particle Interactions: Suborbital
flights offer sufficient time in microgravity to obtain
physically important results on the interactions of regolith,
dust and other small particles. The flexibility, re-flight
possibility and cost of reusable suborbital flights will allow
scientists to investigate the basic forces affecting a wide
array of granular materials in a host of environments with
applications to mining, pharmaceutical powders, food
processing, and the ceramics-bricks-cement industries.
Pharmaceuticals: Through the study of protein structure and
function in the human body, scientists can better develop drugs
to interact with them, and create effective treatments.
Typically longer term exposure to micro-gravity is ideal for
protein crystal growth, but results have been obtained in
sounding rockets with an exposure of just 30 seconds to micro-
gravity. Mitsubishi Heavy Industries is planning to use XCOR's
Lynx vehicle to perform drug discovery research on mice that
have already gone through multiple parabolic flights.
Large Population Medical Research: The large population of
spaceflight participants with varying medical histories offers
new avenues for research. They will help scientists build a
database to compare the response to spaceflight of people of
varying levels of fitness, including smoking, alcohol use,
stress & behavior, BMI, high cholesterol, low cholesterol, and
physical inactivity. The effect of various medicines in
microgravity can also be studied among the broad population and
in specific subgroups.
With the research that can be conducted on these platforms comes an
equally large potential for discoveries, products, and markets. For
example, I have worked with my University to organize funding that will
allow Indiana companies access to a suborbital flight for industrial
research.
Of course, as with any scientific technique, much of the value of
reusable suborbital flights may lie in areas that we do not anticipate.
By opening up a new regime of research, we set the stage for
discoveries that we cannot yet contemplate. Some scientists and policy-
makers portray reusable suborbital vehicles as less useful because they
offer flights that are shorter than orbital flights, more expensive
than parabolic aircraft, and that reach lower altitudes than
traditional expendable sounding rockets. These are similar to the
objections many had to the first desktop computers, which were slower
and less powerful than mainframes of that era. Yet, a new way of
operation allowed our desktop computers to become vital to everyday
life, even as they shrunk over time to become the mobile device you
carry today. Similarly, judging reusable suborbital by the standards of
the current orbital, sounding rocket and aircraft paradigm is beside
the point.
These vehicles will create routine, cost-effective space access, an
improvement over our current space transportation capabilities in a
unique direction. Research, after all, is not a linear path from
discovery to discovery, or about building an ideal high-precision
experimental setup and measuring the results once. It is rather about
exploring ideas, some likely to be fruitful and some improbable, and
learning about and testing a wide array of phenomena. History teaches
us of numerous accidental discoveries that led to great things. By
accelerating the design, build, test, fly cycle that is at the center
of space research, we allow researchers to explore far more
intellectual space than they could otherwise approach.
STEM Opportunities
Reusable suborbital vehicles offer exciting new opportunities for
Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) education and
public outreach. The American space program has been an inspiration to
the generations that are building these vehicles and conducting
research. Suborbital reusable vehicles have the capability to do the
same for a new generation, by allowing orders of magnitude more
students access to space. These vehicles, and the research and
technology that will be conducted on them, will inspire the next-
generation of scientists and engineers and provide hands-on experience
in the entire design-build-test process.
At Purdue University, I created and teach today a hands-on team-
based project course for undergraduate students, ``Zero-Gravity Flight
Experiments.'' In this course, student-led teams design and propose an
experiment to fly on a parabolic aircraft flight campaign, run by NASA.
Students experience the entire process from proposal through building,
testing, and flying, to data analysis and reporting. In the past few
years, through a partnership with Armadillo Aerospace, I was able to
expand the scope of this class to reusable suborbital vehicles, and
more recently, the International Space Station. Student teams are now
learning to design and build, and then work with suborbital vehicle
providers to integrate their payload. With new suborbital vehicles
arriving soon, I see endless possibilities for students to get the kind
of hands-on experience highly valued by employers and academics.
Currently, space research is often limited by the dilatory cycle of
launches--when one experiment finds a new phenomenon, the follow-up
might take years to fly. The period from idea generation through grant
application, experiment design, assembly and flight, can take more time
than a graduate student spends in school. Because of this, many
students only work on a small part of a larger project, a practice that
does not lead smoothly to creating the next generation of principal
investigators. Removing the wait to get on a space flight manifest
allows students to conduct entire research projects and complete theses
in space-based research within the time-frame of a degree. A
surprisingly large number of the leaders in planetary science,
astrophysics and other areas of NASA science, including the current
Science Mission Directorate Associate Administrator John Grunsfeld,
began their careers by leading small investigations on balloons and
sounding rockets. Suborbital reusable flights offer a way to accelerate
that process and give even more students the leadership experience that
can be vital for further scientific success.
However, university research and education is just the beginning--a
much younger generation will be able reap the benefits of these
vehicles as well. From flying class-built payloads to flying teachers
themselves, a new curriculum to inspire kids to pursue jobs in STEM
fields can be built around flights that take place during a semester or
a school year. In a study done by Change the Equation last year, the
number of STEM job openings outnumbered unemployed people by almost two
to one in certain STEM areas. Senior alums in the aerospace industry
speak to me of their aging work force. Last weekend Purdue graduated
108 students with aerospace engineering Bachelor of Science degrees,
and about 90 percent are already placed into jobs, graduate school, or
military service. Our graduates are in demand. We all must utilize
tools that can provide hands-on training and keep students interested
in STEM topics and research if we are to keep our workforce
competitive.
Conclusion
As I look around the country, I see a new and uniquely American
industry, featuring many of my best former students, making progress
toward routine flights of participants and payloads. The rocket science
they are doing does not always perform on schedule, for it is both
novel and challenging, but the trend is clear. New vehicles are
entering the market as operational research platforms soon and this
will mark a new chapter for U.S. innovation, science, and exploration.
I am honored to have had the opportunity to provide testimony for
this hearing, and I look forward to answering any questions you have.
The suborbital research community is excited about the possibilities
reusable suborbital capabilities will bring to the table, and we
believe that excitement will spread quickly to a broader community as
we embark on this journey of discovery.
Senator Nelson. Thank you all.
Senator Cruz?
Senator Cruz. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I thank each of
the witnesses who testified today for your expertise and your
illuminating comments.
I want to begin by talking about the U.S. share of
commercial launch right now. In 2012, as I understand it, there
was roughly $2.4 billion in commercial launch revenues, and
only about $108 million of that was attributed to the United
States, and I'd like to ask each of the members of the panel
why you believe that's the case and what can be done to
increase the U.S. share of that business.
Mr. Hale. Senator Cruz, I would offer for your
consideration much of the difficulty in marketing U.S. launch
systems abroad stems from the ITAR regulations which restrict
the use of U.S. technology, for good reasons, to prevent
missile technology from falling into the hands of foreign
states that could use it for bad purposes. But what we have
seen is that this caused other nations to develop their launch
systems and, in fact, take away much of the business.
I had an opportunity to travel to India for NASA in my last
year there, and we talked with the Indian space agency
officials, and they thanked us very profusely for ITAR because
that prodded them to build their own indigenous launch
vehicles, and they use them to launch satellites today, and
they are commercially available, and we see that around the
world.
So I am not an expert on how to solve this regulatory
problem, but I would offer for your consideration that that is
a major factor in making U.S. satellite launches non-
competitive worldwide.
Ms. Smith. Yes, Senator Cruz. Financing continues to be a
barrier, a difficulty for companies who intend to do space
launch, launch rockets. It has been and continues to be a
problem. I think what Mr. Hale just said with regard to ITAR is
a big one, although we are seeing some improvements in the
export control area. But other launching states have taken full
advantage of that by advertising a place to do ITAR-free
launches of satellites, which works to the disadvantage of the
U.S.
This has much to do with why I so strongly recommended the
continuation of indemnification. At a minimum of 10 years on a
permanent basis would be excellent. I think that it is
important for all of us to recognize that indemnification is
the one thing that the U.S. industry has as it enters into
negotiations for launch with other competing launching states,
that it can say its government stands behind it in risk-sharing
mode. It's not an automatic provision. It is a recommendation
to Congress for an emergency appropriation above what is
required by the company to purchase in terms of insurance, and
it's a protection for the government.
So I think that it will be really, really important for us
to give as full consideration as possible to that, and that
indemnification continue as a way of fostering the opportunity
to increase market share.
Captain Lopez-Alegria. Senator Cruz, I don't really have
much substantive to add to the argument, but the observation is
that this is a global marketplace, and to the extent that you
can compete, you're going to be better at market share. So the
things that Mr. Hale and Ms. Smith have identified, which are
ITAR regulation or ITAR reform and an extension of
indemnification to provide a more level playing field for our
providers vis-a-vis the foreign competitors, I think is key.
Mr. Collicott. Thank you, Senator Cruz. I don't work in
that end of the business. I shouldn't speak as an expert here.
I do speak to a lot of people and work with this in industry,
and I would say that that exposure leads me to give you more
confidence in what the other people have said.
Senator Cruz. Very good, and let me ask a follow-up
question, in particular Mr. Hale and Ms. Smith, which is what
do you all see as the most significant legal or regulatory
obstacles to the continued expansion of commercial launch
operations?
Mr. Hale. I would have to side with Ms. Smith that I think
one of the greatest things that would be of benefit to this
commercial enterprise is continued indemnification. The high
cost of insurance and, frankly, the uncertainties in the
American legal system are of great concern to investors, and as
we look forward to private industry providing lower-cost launch
systems that will be competitive in the world market, we must
find a way to ensure that they are reasonably protected in
these areas.
Ms. Smith. Let me speak first to the question from the
suborbital sector side. We have an oddity of sorts in the FAA
in that we have a line of business that has statutory authority
to license, regulate, and promote the U.S. commercial launch
industry, responsible as a one-stop shop to do that licensing,
regulating and promoting. We have hybrid launch vehicles,
vehicles that have aviation elements as well as space elements.
And the question is, as often arises in a regulatory agency
where you have differing industries, who has responsibility
when it is operating as anything other than a launch vehicle? I
think that that is an issue that only Congress can resolve
legislatively by amending the Act to make it clear that the
reasoning, the motivation behind allocating that responsibility
to the Office of Commercial Space Transportation still holds.
It is very important to those launch operators in that it
causes increased cost when they have to travel between two
regulatory authorities. It could also cause inconsistencies
when it comes to safety.
This clarification is extremely important in order to
further that industry and not delay its business plans and its
launch plans as companies move forward to become a part of a
full-fledged industry sector.
I think that to the extent that commercial space has
evolved over time, it's a cyclical industry. It has had several
fits and starts, but it has continued with the passion and the
intent to move forward to become 1 day a full-fledged line of
transportation, a form of transportation.
So I think to the extent that things like indemnification,
things like resolving any regulatory tangles, continuing the
opportunity through the flexibility that is allowed in the
statute for these vehicle operators to test and develop, do
more testing and development, collect sufficient data to move
forward, is extremely important and one that I would encourage.
Senator Cruz. Very good. Thank you, and thank you, Mr.
Chairman.
Senator Nelson. Thank you, Senator Cruz.
I certainly agree with you all on indemnification. I had to
get down on my knees and beg to finally get indemnification
extended for just 1 year, and this is no way to run a railroad.
Businesses can't plan on this. So we need a multi-year
education--and I agree with you, Ms. Smith, that we need to
have it much longer.
Now, on ITAR, basically we've got a political problem. You
need to do business in an ideal world, as you all say, in the
international arena, but those who would do ill to the ideals
and the policies of this country, you've just got to be
realists about it. So as we plan our commercial space ventures,
that's the reality of the world.
I hope we can solve the insurance problem of
indemnification with a multi-year extension, and do that in
this upcoming NASA authorization bill. On saying that we are
going to do business with somebody who is doing business with
one of the political enemies of the United States is going to
be a much harder task.
Captain, you are so right on in pointing out the huge
difference between Mach 3 and Mach 25. But right now, as you
pointed out, the space tourism market is with regard to Mach 3,
to get up to suborbit, have a few minutes of weightlessness,
and then come right back. What kind of revenues do you see
being generated from this space tourism kind of experience over
the next few years?
Captain Lopez-Alegria. Thanks, Chairman, for the question.
I should refer you to a study that was done by the Tauri group
that was released last year, commissioned by the FAA and by
Space Florida. I think it came out last summer. If memory
serves, there were some very, I would say, conservative
assumptions predicted that the market over the next decade
would be about $600 million. But that was, again, a pretty
suppressed view. They had a growth scenario where the revenue
was much, much higher than that.
Now, that is for the entire suborbital industry, of which
they determined that 80 percent or so was driven by tourism,
about 10 percent by research, and the remaining 10 percent was
divided into six different other, smaller markets.
Senator Nelson. And so right now the cost for a tourist to
go in one of these up to the edge of space where they can see
the curvature of the Earth, a couple of minutes of zero-G and
then return, the cost is what? A few hundred thousand dollars
per seat?
Captain Lopez-Alegria. I think the lowest price that I have
seen is a little less than $100,000, and the high end is around
$200,000.
Senator Nelson. And so realistically over time, will that
cost come down per seat?
Captain Lopez-Alegria. Absolutely. I mean, I think the
providers are counting on that, and this technology that I
mentioned that XCOR demonstrated will make their vehicle be a
lot like an airplane where you land it, the fuel is non-toxic,
it is basically jet fuel. You put the hose on the airplane, you
gas it up, and you go again. So they could fly several times a
day, and clearly the more times you fly, the more you amortize
your fixed costs, and the cost per seat will come down.
Senator Nelson. So then it is realistic to expect that it's
going to get to the point where universities could buy a seat
to send Dr. Collicott's students.
Captain Lopez-Alegria. I would point out that, in fact,
they already have. Universities and other research groups have
purchased some seats, and I would expect that only to increase
as the price comes down, as you say.
Senator Nelson. That's pretty exciting, isn't it, Dr.
Collicott, that you might send your class to space, to the edge
of space, go Mach 3, a couple of minutes of zero-G, and then
come back?
Mr. Collicott. Yes, it is, Chairman. It's no secret, Purdue
has a downpayment on a spot on a Virgin Galactic science
flight. I'm not going to fly. We are anticipating 200 pounds of
automated payload to advance a high-tech Indiana industry.
Certainly, when word got out, a large number of graduate
students came to my office interested in the opportunity, and
we even had good discussions with risk management at Purdue
about the feasibility. It seemed to me that to them it was just
a new technology to an old question. We need to go do research,
we need to go do activities, whether it is research in
Antarctica or wherever.
So to me it was really reassuring that it's not entirely
new news, and I do look forward to the day when a potential
Ph.D. student walks into my office and says, well, Professor, I
flew in space for my Master's degree; what do you have to
offer?
Senator Nelson. Well, maybe at that point we've got orbital
hotels or laboratories that would enable a student to go into
orbit by going Mach 25.
But tell me, Ms. Smith, do you think that the FAA and NASA
working together can handle all the regulations of this
exploding potential new business of space tourism?
Ms. Smith. That's a good question, Senator, Mr. Chairman,
and I would say that absolutely, yes, making the distinction
that the FAA is a regulatory agency. NASA is not. But
certainly, NASA's experience in human spaceflight is
tremendous. I don't think that the amount of experience, the
lessons learned, the varied experience that NASA has exists
anyplace else the way that it does in NASA.
So the FAA right now, the Commercial Space Transportation
Office, has had the majority of experience in dealing with
commercial operators. That's its business and that's what it
has been doing.
Partnering with NASA going forward to launch members of the
public to suborbital space and ultimately to space one day,
orbital space, I think it is a natural kind of partnership that
exists and will link itself together very, very closely as we
go forward to actually have operational flights that take
people to and from suborbit. So, yes, I do think so.
Senator Nelson. By the way, one of you mentioned that the
life of the International Space Station ought to be extended to
its expected design life in the late 2020s, and I certainly
agree. You remember when this thing started out, we had just
gotten it put together, and it was going to cease to exist
after 2016. We got that extended to 2020, and I'm hoping that
as the Station starts to show its value, particularly with some
of these promising new drugs that are being developed in their
initial research stages, something that the average person on
the street can identify with as to the value of what's
happening on board the Space Station, I'm hoping that
incentives like that will enable us, then, to go ahead in the
authorization, to get it extended in its life.
I want to ask Dr. Collicott, getting back to suborbital
space, to what degree has your suborbital research
opportunities encouraged your students to pursue careers in
aerospace?
Mr. Collicott. Thank you, Chairman. Certainly, they choose
to come to our Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics
because that is already in their mind. So what I think I see is
that just when they get involved in these long-term, team-
based, multidisciplinary, hands-on original projects, I think
they start to see how much good work they can do and their
interactions with the companies, be it FAA or Spaceports or
whomever, it really helps open their eyes to the industry, the
reality of the industry they are heading into, and I think it
gives them great encouragement that the great achievements in
aerospace are within their reach, that they can be part of the
teams that achieve these great things.
So I see it as a great strengthening of their perhaps
childhood dream or their childhood hope to get into aerospace.
Senator Nelson. Do your students come to you thinking that
the space program is over because of the mental image of the
shutdown of the Space Shuttle?
Mr. Collicott. I am very fortunate in my job at Purdue that
many of our students, most of our students come in pretty well-
informed and are aware that NASA is still in business, we still
fly Americans in space, the Space Station is still operational.
It's really more of the thoughts that you mentioned. I really
see it more as I'm going around town or around the country
talking to the general public.
Senator Nelson. Well, that is a fact, and what we are going
to see is that as the Mars program starts to kick in, and we
will start to see the first evidence of that next year as the
Orion capsule is flight tested, then that awareness of the
human space program will return. Then, of course, whenever we
can get Americans flying on American vehicles up to the Space
Station, combine that with what's happening on the surface of
Mars right now, and I think you are going to begin to get a
gradual re-recognition of America's role in space.
Senator Cruz?
Senator Cruz. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I'd like to address a question primarily to Ms. Smith and
Mr. Hale, but would welcome comments from any members of the
panel.
As you know, the FAA is currently under a moratorium on
issuing regulations regarding certain aspects of commercial
spaceflight. What I would like to ask you is if you can
elaborate on your views as to the importance of that moratorium
and whether it should be extended, and in what regards.
Ms. Smith. Since I was at the FAA when the 2004 Act was
first passed, we had a very, very clear sense then, and I think
now, that even while the moratorium was in place, if we had an
unfortunate circumstance, if we observed something that was not
safe, then we would be obligated to step up our oversight, to
begin regulating, to recommend to Congress that we take a
different approach if that were to happen.
In the interim, I think the reason for the moratorium was
to allow the time for vehicle developers to test and develop,
to continue to collect data, to try things to see if they work,
all operating under the broad rubric of safety, which is the
mantra in the commercial space launch industry.
I think that things have not materialized as quickly as
perhaps Congress contemplated at the time, and we have yet to
have those first flights, operational flights taking people to
and from suborbital space that would allow the collection of
data.
However, every one of the vehicle developers that are in
this market are testing, collecting data all the time, testing
and developing, and they continue to maintain a position that
says that they will fly when they are ready to fly, not before.
So I think to the extent that the moratorium would be extended,
I would say 8 years beyond the first operational flight with
humans on the vehicle.
Mr. Hale. Senator Cruz, I'm mindful of the fact that the
FAA does, in fact, provide regulations for suborbital flight
today, but they are regulations to protect the public. So the
FAA has an extensive licensing process to ensure that these
suborbital operators are protecting the non-involved public and
property, and that is a very important aspect of their work.
The other aspect of this is that everyone recognizes that
in these early days, that this is an experimental, high-risk
situation, and the spaceflight participants, the space tourists
if you will, that are going to participate in this need to be
fully informed of the risks that are involved when they take on
this high-risk endeavor.
People in America today can take on many high-risk
endeavors, backcountry skiing, scuba diving in certain places.
There are all kinds of high-risk endeavors that the Federal
Government does not regulate but to which we try to make sure
the participants are fully informed of the hazards, and that I
think is the basis for the current moratorium that these
participants coming from fields, not first necessarily in
aerospace, can be informed of what it is they are really
signing up for and have informed consent. That is a very
important part of the so-called moratorium.
And the other part of it I think also is that the Federal
Aviation Administration is struggling with exactly how to write
regulations for this new industry, and some experience in
watching how the industry performs would be very helpful to the
FAA as they consider what regulations might be required. To go
out and write regulations in advance of operations I think
would be a very onerous thing to the industry and probably not
efficient from the government standpoint.
Senator Cruz. Thank you.
Now I would like to ask a question of Captain Lopez-
Alegria, which is that many of the concerns that we hear about
commercial space have to do with the prospects of actual
markets that will be able to sustain private sector efforts
over and above the provision of services to the government. Can
you share your views regarding the potential commercial space
markets outside of the U.S. Government?
Captain Lopez-Alegria. Yes. May I just add on to what the--
--
Senator Cruz. Absolutely, please.
Captain Lopez-Alegria. First of all, I would agree with
both Wayne and Patti about what they said. First of all, the
FAA is certainly regulating third-party safety right now, and
also the reason that this learning period was put into place
was to allow industry to innovate so we wouldn't stifle things,
cutoff solutions to technical problems before their time.
But just from a philosophical standpoint, while I think
eight years is a good number, which is a number that they
picked in 2004, I wonder whether this industry needs to have
that learning period removed, ever. I know that sounds a little
drastic, but let me just walk you through that.
So, as Wayne mentioned, scuba diving, bungee jumping, there
are a lot of things that people do that most others would
consider high risk, and I would be happy to see regulation in
the commercial spaceflight industry when the commercial
spaceflight industry looks like the commercial aviation
industry. When it is that routine, when you can get on an
airplane just like it's a taxi or any other mode of
transportation, I think regulation is appropriate then. That,
to me, seems a long way off.
So I would just put out there as a stake in the ground that
this is something that, as long as people can operate under
informed consent and be well-informed of those risks, that we
ought to let that work in that sort of more free and
enterprising environment.
So on the question of orbital markets----
Senator Cruz. And can you elaborate for a bit more on the
deleterious impact that you think it would have if the
moratorium were to expire on a sooner timeframe?
Captain Lopez-Alegria. I think there are two things. First,
while the industry is still in development, the degree to which
companies can choose to use a hybrid rocket motor or a liquid
rocket motor or some other kind of rocket motor, they ought to
be able to choose that and not have the FAA or anybody else
say, ``You need to use a liquid rocket motor because that's
what NASA has been using on their vehicles,'' or something like
that. So one is the reduction of the set of options available
to solve technical problems.
And the second is that in the absence of regulation, people
can exercise their own judgment to inform themselves of what
the risks are, and I do want to mention that Mr. Hale is
chairing our committee within the commercial spaceflight
industry of developing standards, and one of the standards is
to define exactly what that piece of paper should say that the
customer spaceflight participant would have to read before he
gets on the rocket and signs his informed consent.
But to the extent that we have industries that have
commerce based on people that are willing to do those things as
long as they're informed, and that the government protect
people who are not second parties to that, then I think it is
more in keeping with our philosophy of free and open markets.
Senator Cruz. OK. And if you had some comments on the
additional----
Captain Lopez-Alegria. Right. So, back to the orbit. I wish
I could point to a study like the Tauri Group study on the
suborbital side, and I can't. I will just make the following
observation. I flew in 2006 with a so-called spaceflight
participant, a tourist that went up to the ISS on a Soyuz seat,
and I flew home in 2007 with another one that had flown up in
the meantime, and every single excess Soyuz seat has been sold,
with unsatisfied demand.
So clearly, there is a market out there. Now, are there as
many people that can pay that kind of price as can pay the
suborbital price? Clearly not. But the idea is that once you
start filling excess capacity with non-government, or at least
non-U.S. Government so they can be sovereign government clients
or they could be private research firms or they could be
universities, or they could be just private citizens that could
either take three of the seven seats that are on all of these
commercial crew vehicles to the ISS, use the national lab
facilities that are up there that are dedicated to private and
academic research to come up with some ``Aha'' moment, decide
that, hey, I'd like to be able to do this on a bigger scale, go
contract with Bigelow, get an inflatable habitat, have your own
transportation, that's how the market is going to start. I just
can't say when.
Senator Cruz. Very good. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Senator Nelson. Well, that was my question: When?
Captain Lopez-Alegria. It's hard to--I think even the folks
who did the suborbital market would say it's hard to predict
markets that don't exist yet. But all I can say, like the
famous movie quote, is I think the answer is build it and they
will come.
Mr. Hale. Senator Nelson, if I could just add on to that,
it is imperative that we provide low-cost--or have the
capability to have low-cost transportation to low-Earth orbit.
We see a plethora of business opportunities that are proposed
and discussed in serious matters in space, and they are all
currently coming up against this cost of transportation to low-
Earth orbit. And if, in fact, we build this industry that
provides much lower cost to low-Earth orbit, there are huge
numbers of businesses out there that would like to take
advantage of it.
I think it's very difficult to put that in an academic
study and qualify that in the ways that the folks like to see
these things footnoted. But just from the amount of literature
and the number of people that are proposing businesses in
space, there is a huge demand for transportation. The question
is how low can we make the cost for reliable and safe
transportation, and I think American private enterprise, that's
their mission, is to develop low-cost capabilities that make
money.
Senator Nelson. In your opening comments, you talked about
how you could blend commercial space opportunities with NASA's
plans for deep space exploration, and you stated you could get
components and fuel and so forth up cheaper through the
commercial space ventures, and that would supply, then, the
NASA deep space ventures. Do you want to expand on that, or
does anyone on the panel want to expand on that cooperation?
Mr. Hale. Thank you for that question, Senator Nelson. I
think it's very important to consider this opportunity. In the
first part of my statement of commercial space supporting the
deep space exploration initiatives that NASA has in their
future is with the International Space Station. I mean, there
are many people today that are anxious to go on long duration
deep space missions, and that is clearly the future of where
NASA is going to go because the government's role truly is to
push back the frontier where probably the return on investment
is a longer term than the business spreadsheets like for it to
be.
Those long duration missions require different kinds of
technology than we have previously seen, but they're being
tested and tried out today on the International Space Station.
It doesn't sound very glamorous, but every time I read in the
Space Station Report that the processor assembly has broken
down and the crew has to go fix it, that's another step on the
learning curve to building a good closed-loop environmental
control system that you're going to need to go on a month-long
mission to an asteroid or a three-year-long mission to Mars.
Those kinds of technologies, even though we try to test
them on the ground, they really aren't proven until they've
flown in space and you get to see what an actual operation in
space does to those engineering systems. That's vitally
important.
So keeping the International Space Station going as a test
bed, supplying it with cargo and crews, vitally important, and
that is exactly what the cargo resupply services contract is
all about, that's exactly what the commercial crew program
office is trying to provide.
Having said that, there are many ways to explore deep
space. The current plan that NASA is developing with the space
launch system and the multi-purpose crew vehicle, the Orion
capsule, I think are aimed toward those deep space
opportunities. But every mission study that I have seen to go
to the moon, to Mars, requires a huge amount of logistics. If
you want to go back to do anything other than flags and
footprints, you need logistics. I think it was General
Schwarzkopf that said that armchair generals study tactics, and
real Generals study logistics.
Getting mass to low-Earth orbit is halfway to anywhere in
the universe, and if we can supply equipment, fuel, even crews
cheaply to low-Earth orbit, that has got to be a vital link in
ensuring that whatever deep space capabilities we go from low-
Earth orbit in pursuit of, we have the material that we need to
make them successful. So low-cost transportation enables all of
that. That's what we're all about in the commercial space
enterprises.
Senator Nelson. I agree with you. Why do you think it's
been so hard to change the mentality in our American space
program to get to that point that eventually that's what will
happen? The commercial program will collaborate, supplement,
enhance the NASA deep space program. Why has it been so hard to
get there?
Mr. Hale. People in my generation grew up with Apollo,
Senator, and that has been our model for how space exploration
should be done. And the situation and the world geopolitics in
the 1960s, that was the only way to carry out such a model.
That could work today, but it would require a huge expenditure
of taxpayer money. I'm sure that given 4 or 5 percent of the
Federal budget, NASA could completely do that job.
But knowing that the United States consensus on how much of
their national treasure we are willing to devote to space
exploration is about one-half of 1 percent of the Federal
budget--that's the consensus; that's where it's been for more
than two decades--we need to see how we can leverage that to do
those great things, and it can't all be done by NASA. It's
going to take commercial advocacy, commercial efforts.
You know, most of the immigrants that came to the United
States did not come--some of them did for political or
religious reasons, but most people came here to make money, for
economic reasons. And having an economic reason to go into
space will become a self-igniting source of future development
and transportation. The United States Government buys airline
tickets to fly people around. It does not operate their own
airline, by and large, so on and so forth. That's the way space
exploration, space travel needs to evolve as well.
Senator Nelson. Anybody else want to comment on that? The
question is why has it been so hard for the American space
program to change to accept the fact that the commercial space
program can be complementary to deep space exploration?
Ms. Smith. I think that for many, many years, since the
Commercial Space Launch Act of 1984, space was seen by many
people who were not as passionate as we all are, we space
enthusiasts and committed people to the evolution of this
industry, many people simply did not think that it would
happen. They saw space as in the domain of the Government
exclusively and did not understand the role of private
enterprise in fostering the goals of space.
I think from that point, it often goes to where we sit is
what we know. So NASA, as the vanguard of space for the
country, the agency principally responsible for space
exploration, continued to feel that, and enjoy a reputation as
it does now, as the premiere agency for space. I can tell you
that even though the FAA was solely responsible for commercial
space transportation, any time a rocket launched, people
associated it with NASA.
That has changed over time. That is changing every day. And
I think that the kind of partnership that NASA has helped
foster with the commercial industry through Space Act
agreements, the CCIPT program, those things will continue to
represent to the American public what is possible through
commercial space transportation as the government helps enable
that.
So I think that is a part of the reason. I think another
part of the reason is that people just simply hadn't seen it.
Something changed in the landscape in 2004 with the launch of
SpaceShipOne. Standing there at the flight line, looking at
people who had traveled there from all over the country and the
world to see this historic flight, to witness it, to be a part
of it, as many of them had when the first Shuttle launch took
place, was an astounding thing to see, and people then saw that
as a real possibility, that we can do this commercially, that
we can contribute to the nation's space story in a viable way.
So I think as we go forward and as commercial space becomes
more a reality, meeting NASA requirements in terms of crew and
cargo to the ISS, spawning other destinations in space,
inflatables like Bigelow Aerospace; I think that what some
perceive as a ``space gap,'' that reason for not moving as
quickly as we could have will change.
Senator Nelson. Anybody else?
[No response.]
Senator Nelson. Well, of course, one of the questions that
Senator Cruz and I have to deal with as we get ready for this
NASA authorization bill is the continued amount of money that
will go into the commercial crew program. And, of course, I
think the atmosphere is getting better because of the successes
that we've seen, the successes that we've seen with regard to
the commercial rockets and the commercial cargo. But in the
past, it sure has been difficult to get people to recognize
what a lot of you all are talking about.
Any closing comments from any of you all?
[No response.]
Senator Nelson. Well, it's been most illuminating. Thank
you.
The meeting is adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 11:23 a.m., the hearing was adjourned.]
A P P E N D I X
Response to Written Questions Submitted by Hon. Bill Nelson to
N. Wayne Hale, Jr.
Question 1. Your written testimony implies that decreasing funding
for spacecraft development ultimately results in less reliable and more
expensive services in the future. Based on your experience with the
Shuttle program, how might budget cuts in the Commercial Crew Program
increase future costs?
Answer. A well run and effective development program starts with
requirements and promptly develops a resource loaded schedule which can
be optimized to ensure the design and development proceeds as
efficiently as possible and which ensures the vehicle meets all
requirements.
When annual budgets are lowered, frequently there is pressure to
decrease the emphasis to meet all requirements resulting in a final
design which is more or less deficient from the original intent.
More often, decreased annual budgets stretch out the design and
development phase meaning that the workforce stays assigned to the
project for a longer time than anticipated which drives up the overall
cost. Along with the schedule delay, the work must be replanned and
rephrased which can lead to inefficiencies, again increasing total
program cost. And there is always the risk during a replanning process
that significant items might be inadvertently dropped again ultimately
leading to a design which lacks some of the features desired in the
initial requirements.
In almost every case when annual budgets are decreased, there is
increased pressure to eliminate engineering tests and analysis in the
near term. Without those tests and analysis--or even if they are
delayed--design solutions which ultimately are found to be unworkable
are pursued in the interim, again resulting in overall waste and
increasing program cost.
In extreme cases, reduction in annual budgets cause reductions in
the safety workforce which means that less reliable or less safe design
solutions come to fruition and cannot be re-engineered to meet higher
reliability or safety goals. A principle example from the Space Shuttle
development was the decision early on--partially due to the development
budget cap--not to provide crew escape provisions. All efforts later in
the program (e.g., post-Challenger) provided mere band aide solutions
because the basic design was not amenable to a comprehensive crew
escape solution.
Continuing the Space Shuttle analogy, the budget development cap in
the 1970s required the early design to be more costly per launch to
stay within the cap. A more generous investment at the outset could
easily have paid for itself in a vehicle which was less costly per
launch: for example by providing for liquid fueled boosters--more
costly to develop but less costly per launch than the solid rocket
boosters which were selected.
Question 2. In your testimony, you mention having witnessed the
negative effects of bureaucratic inefficiency and of shifting
priorities on the Shuttle program. Based on this experience, what
lessons learned should be applied in developing both government and
private sector space transportation?
Answer. The Space Shuttle was developed as a government-led
activity; in actuality government civil servants made all the critical
decisions regarding design options, development testing, and operating
procedures. While the NASA civil service human spaceflight workforce
was very talented and highly motivated, it became increasingly
bureaucratic over time. Even minor decision required multiple board
presentations and could be tagged by technical authorities for further
review. This greatly impacted program schedules.
Additionally, technical authorities increasingly became more
conservative requiring extraordinary proof in many instances that
commonly accepted practices in the aerospace industry were adequate.
The technical authorities, at times, were only lightly motivated to
actually operate the vehicles and were highly motivated to ensure that
no untoward events occurred on their watch. There is always a balance
of risk and reward when operating a highly complex, high performance
vehicle, and in many cases the balance tilted strongly toward
additional safeguards. Much of this was of little added value. While
safety is always the primary consideration in any operation, addition
of analysis and testing which did not add value to the process
frequently caused delays and increased cost.
The Space Shuttle program was burdened with widely changing
requirements; initially built to replace virtually all expendable U.S.
launchers, flying secure payloads for the national security community,
etc., it was restricted from commercial launches and also from most
security payloads. Considerable expense to develop launch capability
for polar flights from West Coast launch sites was wasted. The
potential to recoup money from commercial launches was eliminated. It
should also be noted that moving from Space Station Freedom
construction in a low inclination orbit to the building of the ISS in a
high inclination orbit caused significant redesign and rework of the
shuttle elements to achieve that geopolitically motivated goal. All of
these decisions were made for good reasons but the result was increased
cost and inefficiency vs. the original design intent of the Space
Shuttle.
Commercial crew transportation is being developed with the intent
to be widely capable of various missions and the government needs to be
very careful not to restrict those capabilities by onerous and
restrictive requirements.
Question 3. In your estimation, what steps should NASA take to
minimize any long-term increases in the cost per seat of private sector
transportation to ISS?
Answer. The single most effective way to insure low cost
transportation of government crews to the International Space Station
is to allow for the development of a robust transportation industry to
low-Earth orbit. If commercial crew transportation business is limited
to merely supplying the International Space Station, the costs will be
high and probably escalate over time. If the government, through the
commercial crew program, provides the impetus for a vibrant new
industry then costs will be low and probably decrease over time.
Developing a vibrant commercial crew transportation industry
requires nuanced incentives from the government. Already the seed money
for the program is allowing development of new vehicles. A light hand
regarding early regulation is required for the developing industry to
grow. Over burdening requirements can stifle development. Currently the
NASA 1100 series of requirements for commercial crew is vastly more
restrictive than what was envisioned at the start of the program. Those
documents represent much of the old school of thinking in the NASA
civil service workforce and have already suppressed innovative design
solutions to some degree. Using the NASA requirements documents as a
basis for FAA regulations, for example, would prove fatal to the
fledgling industry and must be avoided.
Space transportation is a high risk activity and must be recognized
for what it is. No amount of government restriction, requirement, or
regulation will make it as safe as commercial air transportation in the
near term and that fact must be recognized. Over time, with increased
commercial success, increasing standards and gradual government
regulation can improve safety; but the important element to improve
safety and efficiency is to allow multiple commercial organizations to
build multiple innovative vehicles to mature the state of practice in
the engineering which will underlie the new industry.
Question 4. Given the technical differences between sub-orbital and
orbital spaceflight, what policy differentiations should Congress
consider when amending the Commercial Space Launch Act?
Answer. The suborbital market is nearer to commercial success in
terms of space tourism and short duration microgravity research. The
costs are much lower for suborbital spaceflight than for orbital
spaceflight. Ultimately, orbital spaceflight has much higher potential
for both tourism and research but the costs must be significantly
lowered which will be a long-term proposition.
The energies involved and the hazard potential of orbital
spaceflight are significantly greater than suborbital spaceflight.
Protection of the public requires much greater attention for orbital
vehicles than for suborbital ones.
Neither industry--commercial suborbital space or commercial orbital
space--has yet had commercial success. At the current time, the light
hand that is levied by the FAA on both types of commercial space access
is appropriate and should be continued until the industries reach a
level of commercial viability.
Given the relatively low cost of entry for suborbital spaceflight,
it is still of great concern for the success of the industry that the
government not act to increase those costs. When multiple vehicles are
flying with commercial success, it may be appropriate to increase
government oversight. At the current time, however, no increased
scrutiny is necessary.
Orbital spaceflight due to the potential for more hazard, will
require an increased level of government activity. However, given the
already significant costs of orbital spaceflight, the government can
achieve safety goals that only increase launch costs incrementally.
Again, current levels of FAA regulation appear appropriate.
Question 5. In your estimation, should sub-orbital space flight be
regulated as aviation or as a space endeavor? What technical and policy
considerations lead to this conclusion?
Answer. Suborbital spaceflight is much more technically challenging
than commercial aviation. Until a basis for the industry is
established, additional regulation will be counter productive.
During the early years of aviation, when safety was low by today's
standards, the greatest increase in safe practices and designs came
from the development of multiple vehicles and their operation. Learning
proceeded from practice. Government regulation followed.
Today's government safety regulations on commercial air travel are
entirely justified for a mature industry. That same level of regulation
cannot be appropriately developed for commercial suborbital space
travel because the body of practice has not developed to an equivalent
level. Establishing new government regulation for the suborbital
spaceflight enterprise would be speculative based on aircraft practices
which are not readily correlated. New regulations at this stage could
be counterproductive to safety. New regulations at this stage would
certainly inhibit the establishment of an industry.
In summary, the state of engineering practice for suborbital
spaceflight is not mature enough to delineate new government
regulations. It is only through the practice of developing new vehicles
and testing them through operations that such practices will develop.
After those practices develop, as they have in other mature industries,
appropriate regulation becomes possible.
______
Response to Written Questions Submitted by Hon. Bill Nelson to
Patti Grace Smith
Question 1. Given the technical differences between sub-orbital and
orbital spaceflight, what policy differentiations should Congress
consider when amending the Commercial Space Launch Act?
Answer. Certainly no one would argue that the challenge is not
greater when considering the operations of an orbital vehicle versus a
suborbital one. If the vehicle is designed to carry humans, for certain
additional safety requirements will need to be required. The
Experimental Permit provision of the CSLA of 2004 is a great benchmark
for the development of both suborbital and orbital vehicles that plan
to carry humans to and from space.
For both suborbital and orbital flights, I would recommend cross-
waivers among all parties be included in the license for the launch
activity. Congress should clearly assert that only Federal courts may
decide legal cases regarding an element of the Federal license,
including the legal validity of any waiver of claims signed by a
spaceflight participant, once the participant has acknowledged that he
or she is aware of the risks and decides to go anyway.
Requirements for orbital flight are known throughout NASA's 100
series of documents and SSP 50808. SSP 50808 was established as the
standard for any ISS mission. Further commercial crew development will
be at Critical Design Review level by the time of phase II of the
CCiCap program--and therefore key design requirements should already be
known and understood. For NASA crew flights, a legislative
clarification is necessary to ensure indemnification is applicable for
these flights, whether through NASA Authorization or an FAA-issued
license.
Question 2. In your estimation, should suborbital spaceflight be
regulated as aviation or as a space endeavor? What technical and policy
considerations lead to this conclusion?
Answer. Suborbital spaceflight should be regulated as a space
endeavor. There is no one-to-one comparison between air and space,
though similarities do exist. However, space flight is a unique
enterprise.
As legislation has evolved over time, it has acknowledged the
evolutionary nature of space. It has allowed for a regulatory approach
that has recognized its uniqueness, rather than risk the tendency to
over-regulate before it really gets off the ground. Clearly, this
approach has given commercial space the opportunity it has needed
without compromising the safety of the uninvolved public. It has never
had to call upon its risk-sharing regime, indemnification, given that
there have been no accidents that resulted in loss of life or
significant property damage.
The beginning days of aviation saw many accidents as it developed
into the mature industry it is today. Space is growing and evolving and
will one day join the ranks of mature transportation. But until that
time, Congress should continue to support the one-stop shop approach
the industry has enjoyed with the passage of the CSLA of 1984. FAA/AST
should be designated as that one stop within the FAA where commercial
space launches and launch related activities begin and end. The FAA is
well equipped with numerous other resources AST can collaborate with to
arrive at the right solution. That end solution should be the sole
responsibility of AST. To allow a ``dual license'' approach, e.g., AST
and AVS, places increased burdens on the limited resources of
entrepreneurial companies and is likely to result in unintended
consequences. Perhaps most importantly, managing to two regulatory
regimes for nearly similar operation risks introduces inconsistencies
and gaps between regulations which could impact safety.
Areas in need of specific CSLA language modifications:
Recommend CSLA language be modified to specifically include
spaceflight participants in third party indemnification.
Recommend a legislative clarification to ensure
indemnification is applicable to NASA crewed flights.
Recommend Congress adopt the definition of ``hybrid Launch
vehicle'' as a system designed for the purpose of placing
payloads or humans on suborbital or orbital space trajectories.
Vehicle type and production certification is prohibitive in
terms of cost and vehicle performance, as these hybrid launch
systems are designed to carry payloads into space.
Question 3. Currently, the FCC has limited authority to regulate
on-orbit activities while the FAA does not, which means that companies
must often work with multiple agencies to obtain the licenses they need
to launch and test spacecraft. How might the Federal government bring
these various functions together to ensure safe future operations while
making it easier for companies to fly?
Answer. Currently, I am not aware of the absence of ``on-orbit''
authority being an impediment to commercial space flight. The DOT/FAA's
Commercial Space Advisory Committee (COMSTAC) in responding to a
question as to whether there was a need for on-orbit authority, stated
the following: ``A need for on-orbit authority was identified in order
to facilitate space traffic coordination. No other justification was
identified for such on-orbit authority by this group at this time''. I
concur with their finding and believe that it is an area that should
continue to be studied and that COMSTAC is the appropriate entity to do
so.
As far as the FCC is concerned, I believe that their statutory
authority has to do with communications, not transportation.
Transportation issues and regulations are best left to the DOT, and in
this case, the FAA.
Question 4. The Commercial Space Launch Act tasks the Department of
Transportation with both regulating and promoting commercial space
transportation activity. The Federal Aviation Administration had
similar direction for the aviation industry. Is this dual role
appropriate for the FAA Office of Commercial Space Transportation?
Answer. Absolutely. The FAA/AST has done a superb job in keeping
the two roles de-conflicted. While the office does an admirable job in
promoting the commercial space industry, it does so without
compromising its safety related, regulatory, responsibilities.
Question 5. How, if at all, would you suggest that Congress alter
these responsibilities when considering new legislation?
Answer. I see no need to alter these responsibilities at this time.
______
Response to Written Questions Submitted by Hon. Bill Nelson to
Captain Michael Lopez-Alegria
Question 1. Your testimony states that the commercial industry's
success has been based on ``the tremendous support that NASA has
provided in developing and providing technologies.'' Congress has
supported NASA's Commercial Crew Program by increasing the budgetary
commitment from $50 million in 2009 to over $500 million today. What
are some specific achievements that have resulted from this
collaboration? How would you characterize the economic impact of the
private space transportation industry?
Answer. The Commercial Crew Program is now about halfway through
its development stage, with three companies finalizing their design and
building hardware for systems that can transport astronauts, NASA and
private, to the International Space Station and other destinations in
low-Earth orbit. Each of the companies has passed vital milestones,
including testing components and subsystems and passing design reviews.
In parallel with these development efforts, NASA and its industry
partner companies are certifying the vehicles to carry astronauts, a
safety process that has never before been undertaken.
The commercial spaceflight industry has over $2 billion in private
investment, and has created many thousands of high-tech jobs across the
country. It has energized our nation's space enterprise and inspired
the next generation of scientists, engineers, explorers and
entrepreneurs. It is providing new, more affordable opportunities for
scientific and industrial research, information technology innovation
and new space-related goods and services yet to be imagined. I believe
that commercial spaceflight will continue to grow in capability and
beneficial economic impact, and secure America's place as the world
leader in space.
Question 2. Given that any single private space transportation
catastrophe would negatively affect the whole industry, establishing
guidance for safety and mission assurance is critical. What are the
major areas requiring standards development? By what process will the
Commercial Spaceflight Federation seek to address them? What is the
Commercial Spaceflight Federation's timeline for reaching consensus on
voluntary safety standards for commercial human space flight?
Answer. The commercial spaceflight industry considers safety a
critical priority, knowing that our customers, both private and
government, expect and deserve the safest, most capable vehicles
possible. We are committed as an industry to achieving ever-increasing
levels of safety as we continue to innovate and grow.
Standards development is an important part of CSF's efforts to
improve safety. We have created a formal process for approving
standards and have five standards currently in various stages of that
process. Our full membership will be voting on approval of our first
official standard shortly. We are working not only with the FAA's
Office of Commercial Space Transportation, but also the National
Institute of Standards and Technology, as well as other established
standards bodies, to ensure that our process is effective and
appropriate.
The spaceflight environment is inherently dangerous, and different
vehicle developers may attempt to deal with those dangers in different
ways. Innovation in safety systems is also an important determinant of
future safety. Therefore, we are beginning with areas in which
standards can have broad applicability, including propellant handling,
test notification procedures and landing gear. As the Committee is
aware, we have actively consulted with the FAA on further high-priority
topics for standards development, based on their data and experience.
Going forward, we expect the typical standard to be developed over the
course of three to six months and for standards to be updated as
needed.
Many industries only develop standards once they have emerged fully
and have a track record of operations on which to base them. Because
our members' companies are in an inherently dangerous business and
because of the public nature of much of what they do, we have begun our
standards development process now, before the first flights for hire of
manned commercial space vehicles, and expect to continue it in parallel
as our industry evolves.
The reality is that due to the very nature of the business, and
despite our commitment to safety, there will be accidents. Our goal,
which I know is shared by the Committee, is to anticipate and avoid
problems as well as we can, learn from our mistakes (small as well as
large) that we do make, and continuously improve safety throughout the
industry, for all of our customers--private and government.
Question 3. Given the technical differences between sub-orbital and
orbital spaceflight, what policy differentiations should Congress
consider when amending the Commercial Space Launch Act?
Answer. Although there are clearly some policy issues that impact
suborbital and orbital spaceflight differently, we do not currently see
a need to treat vehicles differently under the Commercial Space Launch
Act.
Question 4. In your estimation, should sub-orbital space flight be
regulated as aviation or as a space endeavor? What technical and policy
considerations lead to this conclusion?
Answer. We believe that suborbital spaceflight should generally be
regulated as spaceflight, because to do otherwise would a detriment to
both aviation and spaceflight regulation. Suborbital spacecraft are
different in character and function from commercial or private aircraft
and will not initially be as safe as certified aircraft due to the
maturity of the technologies, the flight environment in which they
operate, and limited history of suborbital operations. The Commercial
Space Launch Act appropriately classifies suborbital launches as space
launches and the paying customers aboard as spaceflight participants,
not passengers. To do otherwise would improperly burden an emerging
industry with regulations designed for a mature one and could mislead
the public as to the overall safety of spaceflight.
However, there are certain aspects of spaceflight in which the
appropriate regulatory regime is very similar to aircraft. For example,
suborbital spacecraft will need access to airspace, much like aircraft,
and access to communications frequencies used by air traffic control to
operate safely in the airspace. These issues are currently resolved
effectively through local, regional and national authorities
responsible for their use, including the Federal Communications
Commission and appropriate portions of the FAA.
Question 5. In 1995, the Office of Commercial Space Transportation
was transferred from the Secretary of Transportation to the FAA. Do you
feel this is the proper location for this Office?
Answer. CSF does not currently have a position on this question. I
would note for the record that this transfer was taken by
administrative action and not an Act of Congress, and that the
Secretary still retains the statutory authority and responsibility to
regulate and promote our industry.
______
Response to Written Questions Submitted by Hon. Bill Nelson to
Dr. Steven H. Collicott
Question 1. Drawing on your extensive experience working with NASA,
how would you describe the role of the NASA Flight Opportunities
Program in promoting the suborbital research market? Would you suggest
any program changes to facilitate more research?
Answer. Thank you, Senator, for the question. There are two parts
to this question, and I'll address these parts in order.
I see the NASA Flight Opportunities Program as having several roles
in promoting the suborbital research market. In one sense, NASA FOP is
aiding the growth of the industry by serving as a dependable initial
customer of research flights. It is nice that they are not the only
customer, and it is great that they are the dominant multi-year
customer. This aids in bringing stability to the new privately-funded
industry and to the marketplace, which benefits all researchers and
American industry and jobs. Another role that NASA FOP is playing is
that of making researchers aware of the research opportunities in this
emerging U.S. industry. Through their Announcements of Flight
Opportunities, broadcast effectively through NSPIRES and e-mails, the
research community sees NASA FOP demonstrating leadership in research.
Thus, I see that NASA FOP is advancing space flight technology and is
aiding the sub-orbital industry in cost-effective ways.
To date, NASA FOP has concentrated on advancing space flight
technology by buying flights, which is a great start. Researchers hope
this initial program will rapidly grow into a broader mix of NASA-
funded technology and science missions to address NASA's unique needs
in both science and technology issues. Keep in mind that no other
agency is going to spend their money to address NASA's needs.
The second part of the question opens up the topic of the
continuation and future of FOP. I advocate for increased and broadened
funding for the use of these vehicles by many programs within NASA.
Why? Why should NASA spend money in this area? The answer is because
this emerging industry provides a product that is ideal for advancing
many scientific and technological programs important to NASA's mission
and there is no other cost effective option. It's a simple business
case; it's not scientists looking for a handout.
Programs throughout NASA can collaborate with FOP to advance
science and technology and drive NASA towards mission successes. For
example, expert researchers I talk to would see the following, in no
certain order:
Basic research experiments on granular mechanics in micro-
g--asteroid surface-related microgravity geology. This will
lead to understanding the geologic properties and processes of
the surfaces of small near-Earth asteroids. This will support
NASA's interests in robotic and human exploration of asteroids
and the development of techniques and technologies for
protecting Earth from the impact of hazardous near-Earth
asteroids. Coordinating science funding for hardware and
personnel with FOP flights will be a powerful step.
Many aspects of capillary fluid dynamics affect life on
Earth and space plus spaceflight technology. Partnering of the
Space Life and Physical Sciences Research and Applications
Division with Flight Opportunities Program would create a means
to fund the research and the early-technology development
required for success in future space exploration and with
beneficial spin-offs to Earth-bound topics like micro-devices,
fuel cells, and miniaturized medical instruments. Presently
funding for such experiments is exceedingly limited and neither
the research nor the experiment hardware is funded by FOP.
Rapid development of experiments much cheaper than ISS
experiments will be enabled by such collaborations and will
benefit both NASA and life on Earth.
As mentioned in earlier testimony, research into the
Mesosphere and lower Thermosphere of our own atmosphere can
benefit tremendously through the cost-effective use of these
new vehicles. These flights will be frequent and will be higher
than any balloon and lower than any satellite, and thus, the
obvious choice for lofting many different instruments
repeatedly into the mesosphere and lower thermosphere. Initial
efforts should include: measurements of the chemistry of the
mesopause region around 90km altitude to determine isotopic
composition and changes in gases such as CO2 and
hydrogen compounds, studies of the energetics of the mesopause
region, particularly radiative transfer involving
CO2, and investigations of winds and densities in
the mesosphere and thermosphere using both in-situ and remote
sensing methods. Experts at several NASA bases study various
parts of the atmosphere, so it is not clear to me, an outsider,
which people in NASA are best to lead this important effort.
A basic read-out of an organism's response to its
environment is the changes in gene expression that the stimulus
evokes. This response can be very rapid, and the signal
transduction and initiation of gene expression can occur within
minutes of perception. This type of response at the molecular
level has been characterized in the stable, sustained
microgravity environment of the space station and Space
Shuttle, but the gene expression profiles associated with the
transition from an environment with gravity to one without has
yet to be examined. Thus, molecular biology experiments
conducted on suborbital vehicles represents true, unexplored
territory that can provide insight into the fundamental
processes that underlie the initiation of novel stress
responses. The funding of fundamental science leads to the
development of new insights and technologies that drives
everything from pharmaceutical development to agricultural
advancements. This application of suborbital vehicles enhances
the success rate, and decreases the cost of deploying
experiments to the ISS, and is a hugely valuable tool for
enhanced science return in the space biology research
community. It is also a valuable tool in the support of
Florida's prominence in the spaceflight and space tourism
industry. Kennedy Space Center is expanding their services to
potentially include a suborbital provide and already caters to
researchers and tourists who wish to use high performance
aircraft to vet the hardware, science and people prior
suborbital vehicle deployment
I also want to emphasize that not just NASA but also NSF, FAA, DoD,
DoE, NIST, NOAA, DARPA, etc. should be looking now for how to exploit
this new U.S. flight capability to uniquely and powerfully advance our
Nation's science capabilities and their own programs. In the years
ahead, NASA will be one customer of the new industry, not because it is
in any way obligated to be a customer, but because the industry
provides a product that NASA needs to address science and technology in
a way to deliver on NASA's mission. The other agencies, plus other
industries and educational entities, will also be customers for the
same reason. This I see as the future of NASA involvement in the U.S.
commercial sub-orbital industry. Is it best for this to be achieved
through FOP, an evolved FOP, new programs, or standard purchasing
methods as for other products and services NASA needs? That's not
something I'm an expert in, so I can't say, but I will be pleased to
work with NASA in any of these ways.
I thank you for the opportunity to answer this important question
at length and I appreciate your interest in what a growing community of
researchers see as an important part of NANSA's future.