National Space Council to Craft Plan on Space Regulation Review
The federal National Space Council will put together a plan to present to the White House for a full review of the nation’s regulatory framework for commercial space operations, with the aim of streamlining and reducing regulatory burdens. That plan…
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should be done in 45 days, Vice President Mike Pence said Thursday at the reconstituted council’s first meeting. Representatives of SpaceX, Blue Origin and Sierra Nevada Corp., speaking before the council about needs of the commercial space industry, cited regulatory reform. SpaceX President Gwynne Shotwell said a council commitment to streamlining launch regulations, which need updating due to new technologies and the increased cadence of launches, would help foster U.S. space innovation. Shotwell said "it requires heroics" to get changes made to FAA-issued launch licenses. Blue Origin CEO Bob Smith said traditional rockets fit into existing regulatory categories, but reusable rocket capabilities lead to a duplicative overlap between the FAA and the Air Force. Sierra Nevada CEO Fatih Ozmen backed the equivalent of a free trade zone aboard U.S.-flagged space vehicles or the International Space Station, and said the U.S. should commit to operating the ISS through at least the end of the 2020s because of its potential role as a stepping stone to deep space.