SpaceX, Blue Origin, and Virgin Galactic may get to space differently, but they agree on one thing: The industry needs more time in the so-called learning period on commercial spaceflight that is set to expire January 1.
State of play
The House held a hearing in July on extending the FAA’s “learning period” for commercial spaceflight and Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) introduced a bill in September that would extend the rulemaking moratorium for another eight years.
The Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee held its own hearing this week on the topic with representatives from the three companies flying private citizens to space.
Here are some of our biggest takeaways:
Fund the FAA
Multiple officials said the FAA will need more money and staff to establish and enforce regulations on the commercial spaceflight industry. Congress needs to double the funding for the FAA’s Office of Commercial Space Transportation licensing division, and give the agency more power to hire quickly, said William Gernstenmaier, VP of build and flight reliability at SpaceX and a former NASA official.
Slow, but steady
Officials stressed that any change must happen slowly to give the FAA plenty of time to collaborate with industry, a process that would likely take multiple years. Sirisha Bandla, VP of government affairs and research at Virgin Galactic, said her company supports an eight-year extension that would serve as a sort of transition period to a stricter regulatory environment.
While we’re here
Gerstenmaier fielded questions from Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) about how reviews and certifications from FAA and FWS are delaying the timeline for Starship’s next flight.
“It’s a shame when our hardware is ready to fly and we’re not able to go fly because of regulations,” he said. “The pace of our test flight should not be governed by the regulation.”
This story originally appeared on Payload and is republished here with permission.
Autentifică-te pentru a adăuga comentarii
Alte posturi din acest grup
Since ChatGPT sparked the generative AI revolution in November 2022, interacting with AI has felt like using a digital confession booth—private, intimate, and shielded from public view (unless you
Live and on-demand video constituted an estimated 66% of global internet t
My worst workday habit is that I’m a compulsive web page checker.
Throughout the day, I’m constantly refreshing the same handful of sites for updates. I’ll check the me
Recent breakthroughs in generative AI have centered largely on language and imagery—from chatbots that compose sonnets and analyze text to voice models that mimic human speech and tools that tra
Cloud storage services conveniently let you store and access documents, photos, videos, and more from any device. The best part? Many top providers offer free plans that are surprisingly capable.
