News : The FAA's top space official outlines progress — Lawmakers unhappy with Commerce space debris efforts — NASA has some big ideas for powering moon base

Friday, July 23, 2021

The FAA's top space official outlines progress — Lawmakers unhappy with Commerce space debris efforts — NASA has some big ideas for powering moon base

Jul 23, 2021

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By Bryan Bender

Quick Fix

— The FAA's plans to "lean forward" in regulating the expansion of commercial spaceflight.

— Why the Commerce Department still hasn't tackled its mission to manage space debris.

— NASA does a deep dive on potential power sources for a moon base, including "cold fusion."

WELCOME TO POLITICO SPACE, our must-read briefing on the policies and personalities shaping the new space age in Washington and beyond. Email us at bbender@politico.com with tips, pitches and feedback, and find us on Twitter at @bryandbender. And don't forget to check out POLITICO's astropolitics page for articles, Q&As and more.

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Space Spotlight

'LEANING FORWARD': The FAA's Office of Space Transportation is steadily beefing up its capacity to regulate the commercial space industry, including reevaluating the types of skill sets and technologies it needs to keep pace with the exponential growth in launches, Wayne Monteith, the FAA's associate administrator for commercial space transportation, tells us.

"A decade ago we licensed one launch all year out of my office," says Monteith, a retired Air Force brigadier general who last ran the 45th Space Wing in Florida. "Five years ago, just 11. Right now, we are averaging an FAA-licensed launch about once every five days." That's a "minimum of a 400 percent increase in cadence."

Some leading industry voices and members of Congress say the FAA needs more money and people to keep up with launch licenses and other growing demands for regulatory oversight; the space office is now at about 100 people and its budget request for fiscal 2022 is roughly $32.5 million for operations and an additional $5.7 million for research and development.

But Monteith reports that since taking over in 2019 he has "completely reorganized" the office for "accountability, efficiency and effectiveness." That includes "a complete skill-set analysis of our entire workforce to take a look at what we have, what we might need, and anticipate those because as you can well imagine it takes a year or two to hire folks," he explained.

More staff: The current workforce is already significantly bigger than just a few years ago. "Between 2016 and now my staff has increased 15 percent," according to Monteith. "Some folks would go, 'wow, that's just government bureaucracy.'" But he stressed that "our workload has increased 400 percent and our staff has only increased 15 percent."

Playing traffic cop: A major focus is tackling the challenge of coordinating more space launches with the commercial air traffic side of the house. Right now space traffic is not very disruptive to airline traffic; Monteith cited FAA stats that show that in 2018 space launches represented "approximately .07 percent of the delays." That is "not a whole lot," he said. "But if you do get 60, 600, 1,000 [space] flights per year, that impact becomes much bigger."

The FAA's answer is the Space Data Integrator program. "We've seen tremendous progress," Monteith said. "We did our first operational test of this with a SpaceX launch. And then again with a SpaceX reentry. It allows the air traffic organization to much more effectively manage the air space around space launches."

"This is an example of the FAA leaning forward," Monteith added, and "looking to the future and seeing where we can do better and anticipating the needs."

But what about the UFOs? We couldn't help but ask him if the FAA is tracking what so many suspect could also be spaceships: those unidentified aerial phenomena, or UAPs, reported by military pilots in recent years.

It's not an issue that has crossed his desk, Monteith said. But he did say this: "The FAA operates the most complex, safest airspace system in the world. If that were something that we needed to do, the FAA would take it on and we'd do it better than anyone else."

More overage: Is Washington ready for space tourism to take off, via POLITICO.

Plus: FAA revises criteria for commercial astronaut wings, via Space News.

On the Hill

PICK UP THE PACE: It's been three years since a presidential directive required the Commerce Department's Office of Space Commerce to develop a clearinghouse to ensure that the growing number of satellites and orbital debris don't literally take down the growing commercial space industry.

And on Thursday there were some pointed questions about the delay during a hearing convened by the Senate Commerce Space and Science Subcommittee.

What's "holding up the process and what needs to be done to pick up the pace?" asked Sen. Cythia Lummis, a Wyoming Republican.

"This really was a resource question," Kevin O'Connell, the former head of the office, responded. He noted that "when I arrived at the office in 2018 no one had led the office in 10 years" and it had a "very very small staff." He added: "We had a very very small budget in the office. It needs to be resourced now."

Tom Stroup, president of the Satellite Industry Association, agreed,telling lawmakers that ""action and funding are needed now."

The National Academy of Public Administration took a look last year at what the office needs in terms of budget and personnel.

"This is absolutely the most important mission at this point in time," O'Connell testified, "given what is at stake and given the need to make very rapid progress in this area."

"Wreak havoc': Democrat John Hickenlooper of Colorado, the subcommittee's chair, made the "loose" analogy to highway traffic. "Traffic increases up to a certain point and then there is a point where things stop," he said. "Accidents increase, traffic rates slow dramatically, the system begins to fall apart. We are rapidly approaching that point where the dramatic increases in traffic are going to wreak havoc if we don't address them now.

But Stroup advised against too many mandates on how to mitigate space debris. "Specific technologies to meet requirements should not be dictated," he said. "Space companies are renowned for ingenuity."

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In Orbit

PUSHING THE ENVELOPE: NASA's Langley Research Center has published a new study unpacking the possibilities — including some sci-fi-sounding ideas — for powering a long-term presence on the moon.

"Long stays on the Moon suggest a level of infrastructure more substantial than the Apollo era assets delivered during the last time astronauts set foot on the Moon," according to the scientific assessment titled "Frontiers of Space Power and Energy."

It assesses a series of potential alternatives, including nuclear reactors and batteries, low energy nuclear reactions from "cold fusion," "high energy density" chemicals, and space solar power.

HLS PROTEST WATCH: The protests by Blue Origin and Dynetics of NASA's April decision to award only a single contract to SpaceX for the Human Landing System is supposed to get a ruling by the Government Accountability Office no later than Aug. 4. "We will definitely be making that deadline," GAO's office that oversees procurement practices and procedures, told us Thursday.

Plus: The nonpartisan Congressional Research Service is out with a new primer on NASA appropriations that unpacks the state of play on the space agency's fiscal 2022 budget request.

WHAT'S IN A NAME? The Space Force Journal, the "independent voice of Space Force Guardians," is out with its second issue, with contributions on topics ranging from space logistics to private space stations, "massive multi-satellite constellations," and the growing pains of the Space Force.

In one article, a pair of military officers argue that the new branch's parent organization, the Department of the Air Force, should "rename and rebrand as the Department of the Air and Space Forces to complement the reorganization of the Department of the Air Force for space and the fundamental shift in the [Department of the Air Force's] structure, mission, and identity."

Independent views: The journal issue also includes a letter to the editorial board from Space Force Lt. Gen. John Shaw, deputy commander of U.S. Space Command, urging the scholarly forum to maintain "full independence from any political groups' and professional associations' influences" and "treat all equally and play favorites to none."

Related: Space Force seeking alliances in Europe to guard orbit, via POLITICO Europe.

Industry Intel

BREAKING THROUGH: Former HASC Chair Mac Thornberry is trying to convince resistant national security agencies to open up the aperture on commercial space technologies, particularly for the small radio frequency satellites of Hawkeye 360, where he is now an adviser.

"It's still a challenge to break through the mindset" and convince them that "there is a product you can use, already paid for, already available," he tells us. What exactly is that mindset? "If we didn't invent it, we don't want it."

But Thornberry says the Pentagon and intelligence agencies need more budget flexibility to acquire such rapidly changing technologies, short of a bureaucratic program of record. "There is a push to make available limited pools of money," he said.

FOR YOUR RADAR

READY FOR LAUNCH: Boeing is finally set to launch its Starliner space capsule from Florida's Kennedy Space Center to the International Space Station next Friday, in a much-anticipated — and delayed — mission to deliver cargo and demonstrate the vehicle is ready to carry people.

The flight "will demonstrate the end-to-end capabilities of the Starliner spacecraft and Atlas V rocket from launch to docking to a return to Earth in the desert of the western United States," says NASA. "The uncrewed mission will provide valuable data toward NASA certifying Boeing's crew transportation system for regular flights with astronauts to and from the space station."

The spacecraft was developed under the public-private Commercial Crew Program, along with SpaceX's Crew Dragon.

Tune in: A pre-launch news conference is scheduled for Tuesday. And NASA leaders will brief the media on Thursday.

Trivia

So apparently we opened up a black hole of worms with our trivia question about the number of moons in our solar system. There seems to be a difference of opinion deriving from varied definitions. Go figure. So we have decided to hit the hyperspace button on this one.

This week's question: Where did our moon get its name?

The first person to email bbender@politico.com with the correct answers gets bragging rights and a shoutout in the next newsletter!

Reading Room

— Rocket launches are shockingly bad for the environment: Futurism

— The cost of the billionaire space race will be paid for in carbon emissions: Popular Science

— The case for more billionaires in space: POLITICO Magazine

— 'A much grander human destiny': For Jeff Bezos, space travel is about more than tourism: POLITICO

— The case for more billionaires in space: POLITICO Magazine.

— The billionaires' space efforts may seem tone-deaf, but they're important: The Washington Post

— Russia launches new scientific module to ISS: Aviation Week

— China's space program is more military than you might think: Defense One

Event Horizon