Space industry and Congress blast FAA for its so-called “streamlined” regulations
At hearings yesterday before the House Science committee numerous space companies as well as elected officials heaped numerous complaints about the FAA’s regulartory framework, called Part 450, that it adopted in March 2021 supposedly to “streamline” and “speed up” the licensing required to launch.
The result has been the exact opposite, as predicted by many in the industry when the agency was writing these regulations.
Many in the launch industry have warned since the regulations went into force in March 2021 that it was difficult for companies to obtain licenses under Part 450. Industry officials raised concerns about Part 450 at an October 2023 hearing of the Senate Commerce Committee’s space subcommittee, with one witness, Bill Gerstenmaier of SpaceX, warning the “entire regulatory system is at risk of collapse” because of the difficulties getting licenses under the new regulations.
Witnesses at the House hearing made clear those concerns have not abated. “The way it is being implemented today has caused severe licensing delays, confusion and is jeopardizing our long-held leadership position,” said Dave Cavossa, president of the Commercial Spaceflight Federation, an industry group whose members include several launch companies.
He cited specific concerns such as a long “pre-application” process with the FAA where companies, he said, “get stuck in an endless back-and-forth process” with the agency to determine how they can meet the performance-based requirements of Part 450 with limited guidance. “This process is taking years,” he argued.
It first must be noted that this hearing was not called in connection with the FAA’s stonewalling of SpaceX Starship/Superheavy test program. It was called because since 2021 the entire new rocket industry in the U.S. has ground to a halt, with launches from new rocket companies practically ending because of the red tape imposed on them by Part 450. If something is not done to fix this, new companies in Europe and India will quickly grab market share, choking off profits for the new American companies.
Readers!
Please consider supporting my work here at Behind the Black. Your support allows me the freedom and ability to analyze objectively the ongoing renaissance in space, as well as the cultural changes -- for good or ill -- that are happening across America. Fourteen years ago I wrote that SLS and Orion were a bad ideas, a waste of money, would be years behind schedule, and better replaced by commercial private enterprise. Only now does it appear that Washington might finally recognize this reality.
In 2020 when the world panicked over COVID I wrote that the panic was unnecessary, that the virus was apparently simply a variation of the flu, that masks were not simply pointless but if worn incorrectly were a health threat, that the lockdowns were a disaster and did nothing to stop the spread of COVID. Only in the past year have some of our so-called experts in the health field have begun to recognize these facts.
Your help allows me to do this kind of intelligent analysis. I take no advertising or sponsors, so my reporting isn't influenced by donations by established space or drug companies. Instead, I rely entirely on donations and subscriptions from my readers, which gives me the freedom to write what I think, unencumbered by outside influences.
You can support me either by giving a one-time contribution or a regular subscription. There are four ways of doing so:
1. Zelle: This is the only internet method that charges no fees. All you have to do is use the Zelle link at your internet bank and give my name and email address (zimmerman at nasw dot org). What you donate is what I get.
2. Patreon: Go to my website there and pick one of five monthly subscription amounts, or by making a one-time donation.
3. A Paypal Donation or subscription:
4. Donate by check, payable to Robert Zimmerman and mailed to
Behind The Black
c/o Robert Zimmerman
P.O.Box 1262
Cortaro, AZ 85652
You can also support me by buying one of my books, as noted in the boxes interspersed throughout the webpage or shown in the menu above.
At hearings yesterday before the House Science committee numerous space companies as well as elected officials heaped numerous complaints about the FAA’s regulartory framework, called Part 450, that it adopted in March 2021 supposedly to “streamline” and “speed up” the licensing required to launch.
The result has been the exact opposite, as predicted by many in the industry when the agency was writing these regulations.
Many in the launch industry have warned since the regulations went into force in March 2021 that it was difficult for companies to obtain licenses under Part 450. Industry officials raised concerns about Part 450 at an October 2023 hearing of the Senate Commerce Committee’s space subcommittee, with one witness, Bill Gerstenmaier of SpaceX, warning the “entire regulatory system is at risk of collapse” because of the difficulties getting licenses under the new regulations.
Witnesses at the House hearing made clear those concerns have not abated. “The way it is being implemented today has caused severe licensing delays, confusion and is jeopardizing our long-held leadership position,” said Dave Cavossa, president of the Commercial Spaceflight Federation, an industry group whose members include several launch companies.
He cited specific concerns such as a long “pre-application” process with the FAA where companies, he said, “get stuck in an endless back-and-forth process” with the agency to determine how they can meet the performance-based requirements of Part 450 with limited guidance. “This process is taking years,” he argued.
It first must be noted that this hearing was not called in connection with the FAA’s stonewalling of SpaceX Starship/Superheavy test program. It was called because since 2021 the entire new rocket industry in the U.S. has ground to a halt, with launches from new rocket companies practically ending because of the red tape imposed on them by Part 450. If something is not done to fix this, new companies in Europe and India will quickly grab market share, choking off profits for the new American companies.
Readers!
Please consider supporting my work here at Behind the Black. Your support allows me the freedom and ability to analyze objectively the ongoing renaissance in space, as well as the cultural changes -- for good or ill -- that are happening across America. Fourteen years ago I wrote that SLS and Orion were a bad ideas, a waste of money, would be years behind schedule, and better replaced by commercial private enterprise. Only now does it appear that Washington might finally recognize this reality.
In 2020 when the world panicked over COVID I wrote that the panic was unnecessary, that the virus was apparently simply a variation of the flu, that masks were not simply pointless but if worn incorrectly were a health threat, that the lockdowns were a disaster and did nothing to stop the spread of COVID. Only in the past year have some of our so-called experts in the health field have begun to recognize these facts.
Your help allows me to do this kind of intelligent analysis. I take no advertising or sponsors, so my reporting isn't influenced by donations by established space or drug companies. Instead, I rely entirely on donations and subscriptions from my readers, which gives me the freedom to write what I think, unencumbered by outside influences.
You can support me either by giving a one-time contribution or a regular subscription. There are four ways of doing so:
1. Zelle: This is the only internet method that charges no fees. All you have to do is use the Zelle link at your internet bank and give my name and email address (zimmerman at nasw dot org). What you donate is what I get.
2. Patreon: Go to my website there and pick one of five monthly subscription amounts, or by making a one-time donation.
3. A Paypal Donation or subscription:
4. Donate by check, payable to Robert Zimmerman and mailed to
Behind The Black
c/o Robert Zimmerman
P.O.Box 1262
Cortaro, AZ 85652
You can also support me by buying one of my books, as noted in the boxes interspersed throughout the webpage or shown in the menu above.
<sarcasm>
Part 450 is working admirably. It is doing what it was intended to do by the Leftist Junta and all of the Leftist in the Bureaucratic State and that is to DESTROY this evil Nation.
</sacasm>
America has lead the world for far too long.
Its time we let the rest of the world catch up.
The left forgets that America is the way it is because of its geography, psychology, religion, and law.
Sundance at the Conservative Treehouse blog wrote this article yesterday describing the swamp’s transfer of wealth from the west (yellow area on his map) to the rest of the world (grey area). His main point:
“Fading Industry in the West as Energy Policy Consequences Surface – The Grey Zone Surge Begins”
September 10, 2024 | Sundance
“The West spreads the wealth to the Grey zone, then the 3rd world (non west) starts to replace the economic strength of the West because they are not restrained by the insufferable policies of the climate control/energy policy group.”
https://theconservativetreehouse.com/blog/2024/09/10/fading-industry-in-the-west-as-energy-policy-consequences-surface-the-grey-zone-surge-begins/
Personally I’ve seen the collapse of tech job salaries from the mass importation of foreign labor into the U.S.
My company went with a new health care provider this year and all the doctors in the network accepting new patients are women ESL immigrants from China and India. Looks like the medical field is the next industry to be destroyed.
Salaries being cratered is what corporate America wanted–that alone demands an NLRB with teeth.
Remember:
Business friendly=worker hostile
pzatchok wrote: “The left forgets that America is the way it is because of its geography, psychology, religion, and law.”
America is the way it is because of freedom and liberty in the general population and in the general commerce and innovation performed by We the People.
Private manned spaceflight since Dragon became operational in 2020 is just one sign of the advancements possible with freedom and liberty. Had we had similar freedoms decades ago, in the space industry, commercial space would be a serious powerhouse by now. The ISS would have been obsolete on the drawing board, with commercial space stations performing far more than the monstrous ISS does.
Unmanned use of space has likewise boomed due to the freedoms experienced by commercial companies. This all started in the very late 1990s, when the government finally allowed Earth observation satellites. Cubesats were another factor, especially because they encouraged manufacturers to develop hardware for small satellites. The smallsat industry is booming much faster than the small launch vehicles can launch.
Which brings us back to the fiasco that is the FAA. As Robert has noted in other postings, the FAA (and regulators in other nations) stifles the new launch companies. How are we to have competition and free markets when governments are picking winners and losers?
Even historically, the FAA was not the great help that it was intended to be. It was intended to prevent airplane accidents, but its methods were to incrementally correct problems as they arose. Somewhere around 1980 (yes, after deregulation), the U.S. airline industry realized that at the rate of increase in the number of flights, there would soon be weekly airline accidents in the headlines, scaring passengers away from what was even then the safest form of transportation. So it was the airlines themselves (not the FAA) that got serious about safety and developed many methods to improve safety and prevent passenger deaths. It has worked amazingly well.
My point? The FAA is not the cure that government thinks it is, and it never was. Once again, we are discovering that government is not the solution; it is the problem.