Technological innovations are rapidly enabling humanity to explore the celestial frontier, and space companies are looking at commercial ventures ranging from space tourism to mineral mining. The only thing that stands to hinder progress, observers say, is government regulation.
“Right now, American companies that want to be involved in space have to jump through hoops for three federal agencies and their armies of lawyers and bureaucrats,” Florida Republican Rep. Bill Posey told the Washington Examiner. Those agencies include the Federal Aviation Administration, the Department of Defense and NASA.
The issue hits close to home for Posey, whose coastal district includes Cape Kennedy (formerly known as Cape Canaveral), home to the Kennedy Space Center and a NASA launch site. Posey also worked as an inspector for McDonnell Douglas on the 1969 Apollo Moon program, and before that, his father, Walt, worked for the company on the Delta rocket.
Posey pointed out that a number of companies are interested in pursuing commercial ventures in space. Companies like SpaceX and Virgin Galactic are among those planning to take tourists in coming years, while others, like Blue Origin and Planetary Resources, are seeking to mine celestial bodies for rare minerals.
After years of trying to pass legislation that would enable those companies to work independently of the Pentagon or other federal agencies, Posey succeeded in November, when the president signed the Commercial Space Launch Competitive Act into law. The legislation carried with bipartisan support, including both members of Florida’s split Senate delegation, Democratic Sen. Bill Nelson and Republican Sen. Marco Rubio.
“What we’ve worked on is trying to streamline the process,” Posey said. “It’s important we encourage the growth of commercial space, and that’s what the bill does.”
He added that it freed companies from the prospect of the federal government laying claim to resources that private actors bring back to Earth, or impose a burdensome tax scheme.
“It’s a stepping stone for companies that would like to mine these asteroids. There’s been the fear that when they bring their product back to Earth, the government would want to claim a tax or tariff or some portion of it. This bill basically says, what you bring back from space is yours,” Posey stated.
While some of the work being conducted to bring tangible value back from space may seem abstract to the public, experts point out that the issue is more pressing. Russia and China are innovating rapidly, while Japan and India have plans for a lunar base within the next two decades.
Posey said another competitor is the European Space Agency, an organization supported by 22 European governments. “I went to French Guiana to inspect the European Space Center, and expected it to be a little bit primitive, circa 1960s Cape Canaveral. But it’s not. They’re very far advanced and customer-friendly.”
That’s why we’ve lost so much ground to them. In the 1980s, we had 100 percent of the commercial satellite market. Through regulations and red tape, we’ve parlayed that to about 5 percent,” he added.
Losing a competitive advantage in space would have ramifications beyond economic cost, Posey said. “When I talk to groups, I ask how many think they benefit from space once a year. The average response of the group is 8 percent … Then I say, apparently none of you use cell phones. You don’t have weather reports. You don’t use banking services or credit cards, which are all through satellites.
“The public is just unaware how much they interact with space every day. We have, probably, 30 something really critical satellites that allow this communication to take place. You take a few out of space, and you could really stop that,” Posey said.
“We don’t know know what the consequences would be, except for trillions of dollars. When I talk about space being important to national security and the technological advancement of our society, it’s ultimately important to the survival of our species.”