GAO Looks At Moving FAA CST To DOT
FAA: Stakeholders’ Perspectives on Potentially Moving the Office of Commercial Space Transportation, GAO
“Representatives from commercial space launch companies and spaceports GAO interviewed described advantages and disadvantages of moving the Office of Commercial Space Transportation to the Office of the Secretary of Transportation, but most of them favored moving the office. Conversely, most Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) officials GAO interviewed did not favor the idea. A senior official in the Office of Commercial Space Transportation said that there are advantages and disadvantages to moving the office and that whether such an action would be beneficial depends on the implementation details and the administration’s preferences. Officials from the Office of the Secretary of Transportation said they currently do not have plans to move the office.”
Given the increasing importance and expansion of space commerce activities and the very different nature of these activities from traditional aviation, this would be a very good move. Although some of the old 1990’s legacy designs, Lynx & SpaceshipTwo, are aircraft base the real future seems to be with the VTVL designs in terms of launch and landing. Even more important will be when the AST is given the authority for licensing deep space missions, commercial space stations, habitats, etc., whose connection to avaition is tenuous at best.
That is why I see the creation of a Federal Space Commerce Administration (FSCA) in the DOT independent of the FAA as a key legislative step to expanding the American economy into space. The Federal Space Commerce Administration Act that creates it could also give the FSCA the authority needed to regulate all aspects of space commerce including space resource activities and the buliding/operation of commercial facilities on planets, moons, asteroids or open space.
See, this is the kind of lumping I wouldn’t want to see.
It would make sense to put US’s oversight of non-government utilisation of space resources under Commerce, while launches and flights are kept under FAA/DoT.
But at what point does a flight become an orbit? Is a spacecraft flying in formation with a NEO to recover its resources flying (FAA AST) or mining it (DOC?).
And since a space station in LEO might need a boost to stay in orbit, would that be licensed by the FAA AST since its “flying” or DOC since its in orbit. And would every boost be a separate “launch”?
No, the last thing space needs is two independent regulators fighting over turf boundaries. Remember, the FAA AST was originally created because the first private space launch in 1982 required permits from dozens of government agencies. President Reagan created it to be a “one stop” shop for commercial space entrepreneurs. This proposal is in the spirit of that vision.
And why put space resource utilization under the Department of Commerce when its the Department of the Interior that hosts the Bureau of Mines. Wouldn’t they have more experience regulating mining?
And then by the same argument would you put space stations under the Department of Housing and Urban Development since they are basically space houses? No your way leads to regulatory chaos, not the type of rational regulation needed for space activities.
This kind of thing is routinely handled within the departments. For example, off-shore oil exploration under the Dept. Interior (BOEM), while the rigs and ships are under the Dept. Transport (Maritime Administration).
Lumping every “space” activity under one heading because it’s “space” is what will lead to stupid overreach. If you want space activities to become part of the normal economic sphere, then you treat the different aspects the same as we treat their Earthly counterparts.
If we’re going to do that, why not move CST/mining/etc oversight under NASA?
NASA is not a regulatory agency and wouldn’t have a clue what to do. It would be a joke to give them any regulatority powers. Also you are viewing it from the wrong perspective looking at the tasks, not the laws.
Each of those Earth activities emerged under its own set of laws, first common laws, than more specific ones as the industries matured. Also in all those cases the United States has territorial soverginty over the land involved for those activities.
Space by contrast is governed by four closely related treaties and the U.S. has no territorial sovergnity, only sovergnity over the American entities involved in space commerce. And the U.S. has absolute legal liability for their activities. Again, unlike those activities on Earth. So yes, space is different legally, very different. That is why you need one regulator not twenty or even two. One regulator fulfilling the legal requirements the United States has under the four closely related space treaties. Then simply have different departments.
It is not regulatory over reach, which incidently is when an agency micromanages an industry as the old ICC did railroads, it’s creating a unified and predictable system built around the nation’s legal obligations.
And since the regulation is based on the treaty obligations of the U.S. you could even make an argument the single regulator should be in the State Department since any issues involving those treaties will need to be addressed through them to foreign entities.
I have seen presentations by several people from the FAA CST and been quite impressed. They seem to know what they are doing and be pretty efficient, not always the forte of the FAA in general. The most critical and complex regulatory portion of spaceflight, lauch licensing, is closely related to aviation. Gwen Shotwell in her address to the Space Council seems to feel SX needs an even more streamlined licensing procedure, maybe that’s behind this discussion, but I have trouble seeing it being much of an improvement.
Let’s see.
Airplanes fly in the atmosphere.
Rockets, too, although ‘traverse’ is more accurate.
So why wouldn’t a single agency handle these activities?
Without corroboration I’m always leery of assigning motivation. But this particular administration has done some very very screwy things intended to gum up the works (I give you the Department of State, or the EPA, as exemplars). So why is this nutty idea even considered?
Because it makes sense since rockets are not airplanes and operate differently? And while planes require an atmosphere rockets do not? So who would license a private landing/launch from the Moon?
Or do you want rockets to be regulated by the FAA AST while in the atmosphere and then by someone else (DOC) when they leave it? And at what point do they change from one regulator to another? i.e. where does the atmosphere end in terms of regulatory limits.
IIRC the nation from which the private space vehicle is launched from. The space vehicle remains under the jurisdiction of that country while off Earth.
I think jurisdiction is a bit fuzzy. The space vehicle remains the _responsibility_ of the nation it was launched from. Specifically, that nation is responsible for making sure it doesn’t do anything which violates international laws or treaties (assuming that nation ratified the treaty in question.) Jurisdiction would mean the launching nation could enact additional laws about what the vehicle or the people on it do. Are communications satellites launched from French Guiana subject to French laws about broadcast content and defamation? Or the laws of whatever nation the operator is in? Or both? That isn’t exactly crystal clear.
AIUI The launch vehicle is regulated by the laws of the country of the launch provider and the payload spacecraft is regulated by the laws of the country of the payload operator.
We have oddity of the Rocketlab Electron rocket being build and launched in New Zealand being regulated by the FAA in the US. Because the Rocketlab company is register & headquarters in the US.
Yes, that is because Rocketlab Electron is seen as a National of the U.S. and the U.S. government has absolute liability for any damages resulting from it.
Again this is different than in avaition or maritime law. Under those laws the U.S. government is not liable if a Boeing airliner owned by Air New Zealand crashes. The private firms would be responsible under New Zealand laws or the laws of the nation where the crash occurred.
This still seems a bit ambiguous. Here and in other comments, you imply that the spacecraft’s manufacturer, owner and operator are the same. What about the SES-11 launch, scheduled for October 11? That’s a US company launching a satellite build by a German company (which is a wholly-owned subsidiary of a French company) for a satellite owner and operator registered in Luxembourg.
Just to make it more fun, what if the German company operates the satellite during the trip to geostationary orbit and during commissioning, and then hands the keys over to the owner? And what would happen if, at some later date, the owner sells the spacecraft to a company based in yet another country? I suspect there isn’t a whole lot of case law on the subject, and that’s the usual way to clear up ambiguities.
The Registration Convention clarified that by stating the nation that registered the satellite has legal responsibility for it. It is considered the “launching state” in place of the physical location because it is the state that contracted for the launch.
For example, the two Bigelow station prototypes that are still in orbit are registered as American satellites even though they were launched by Russian rockets.
Yes, Article VI of the OST.
But I was referring to which agency in the U.S. government. Current authority for the FAA CST is limited to launch and landing on Earth, not the Moon or other Celestial Bodies.
Unless the spacecraft is manufacture off-Earth. The FAA CST gets to regulated it with the current legal framework IMO.
Actually even then it would fall under the FAA CST if it’s Americans that build it. Article VI covers the actions of nationals anywhere they are, even space.
That is why the ISS Conventions were necessary, to define which government is responsible for who and what in the different segments of the ISS.
Fair points. I’m thinking about coordination, since rockets are in an atmosphere that contains thousands of planes at any single time. Rocket launches are rare events in this context I suppose
True, but it’s just not planes, you also need to keep boats and shipping out the launch and recovery zones which the U.S. Coast Guard handles.
“Within” not “To”. FAA is already part of DoT.
The GAO is just looking at whether to spin off CST as its own administration within DoT; ie, next to, rather than under, the FAA.
There’s no need for conspiracy theory about motivations; this is a discussion that’s gone on long before the current President, or even since before SpaceX was a company. OCST was NOT originally part of FAA, by statute it is distinct, it has different authorizing legislation and is overseen by a different Congressional committee. The Clinton administration moved it within FAA for no particular reason other than that Al Gore wanted to reduce the number of boxes on the Federal organization chart to “Reinvent Government” and so by moving this box from under Secretary of Transportation to FAA, the org chart looked simpler. Ever since then, the discussion of “was that a good or a bad idea and should we change it back” has been evergreen. As discussed in the report, there are pros and cons, but it is in no sense “really about” this or that, other than the simple question of “does the current structure make sense given how the industry and regulatory regime have evolved”.
OCST is concerned primarily with regulation of commercial launch activity rather than R&D, so there is some overlap with aviation. The critical thing is that it”s part of DOT rather than being an unaffiliated agency like NASA, which seems to lead to congressional micromanagement. It’s not clear to me that there is anything of practical value to be gained by splitting it off from FAA at this point, buit either way it should certainly remain part of DOT.