expansion of privat space fleets
A human spaceflight policy that emphasizes commercial space could support the gradual transition of the International Space Station to commercial stations in LEO. (credit: Bigelow Aerospace)
America is on the verge of a revolution in opening the space frontier, led by the entrepreneurial genius of the American people. There is reason to believe that a much greater NASA emphasis on supporting commercial space development will substantially increase American activity in space without increased government expenditure. We call on the next President to partner with America’s entrepreneurs to lead humanity’s ongoing development of space.
Budgetary limits have kept a lid on the NASA human spaceflight program for over 40 years. NASA’s budget was drastically reduced after Apollo, but it has been fairly stable since then. The portion allocated to human spaceflight has also been held stable at about half of NASA’s total budget. The remaining half is divided among science, space technology, and aeronautics.
During the post-Apollo period, NASA’s human spaceflight budget has been able to afford one or two modestly-sized programs at a time. NASA was able to develop the Space Shuttle, then develop the International Space Station while operating the shuttle. NASA had to stop operating the shuttle in order to free enough money to begin a deep space exploration program now comprised of the Space Launch System (SLS) and Orion projects. The continuation of this approach to human spaceflight can only result in snail-like progress while eliminating the stepping-stones created by previous efforts.
There is no reason to believe that a massive increase in NASA funding will occur in the foreseeable future. It makes no sense to plan for NASA programs that assume such an increase. Fortunately, an alternative approach is already underway: commercial development of space.
Public-private partnerships have already made a significant contribution to breaking budget limits by massively reducing costs. Commercial enterprises are already delivering cargo to the ISS and will soon be transporting its crew, all without a massive budget increase. One of the rockets performing these services was developed commercially at about one-tenth the cost of a typical government program and is being operated at about one third the cost. These reductions are in line with the initial cost reductions seen in other industries that have gone from customized government development to commercial manufacturing practices.
Cutting costs by factors of three to ten clearly allows a fixed budget to buy much more, but the breakthroughs do not end there. Growing commercial enterprises generate increased volumes of business that reduce costs and increase resilience, reliability, and responsiveness. Beyond that, enterprises that grow commercial markets are sustained without total dependence on tax revenues and can grow far beyond any level that government funds could support. This in turn can support technology development and industrial capabilities that go beyond immediate government requirements and can accelerate future government programs.
For all of these reasons, the growth of commercial space enterprises is key to accelerating human spaceflight. A government program to explore space that is seen as expensive and does not result in production of new wealth cannot be sustained. NASA needs a clear mandate to support commercial development of space in order to increase national revenue and lower costs. Supporting the commercial use of space is, therefore, the most important thing NASA can do right now to assure its own future and the nation’s future in space.
Recommendations
1. Actively support the transition from government to commercial stations in low Earth orbit (LEO). Current NASA plans call for ending all NASA activities in LEO when the ISS is decommissioned in 2024. The next administration must provide an assured path for ISS users to continue their work on future commercial LEO stations. Regardless of the exact end date of ISS operations, such assurances are a requirement to allow scientific and commercial usage of the ISS to develop. One possible plan is for NASA to use Space Act Agreements (SAA) to develop a “commercial wing” of the ISS with multiple competing LEO station providers. Eventually the “commercial wing” would separate and become the cores of future LEO space stations. The next administration should also ensure that the US National Lab on the ISS transitions to rented space in future commercial LEO stations after the ISS is decommissioned.
2. Maximize usage of commercial partnerships while avoiding government competition with the private sector. NASA must continue to build upon the significant successes of the commercial cargo and commercial crew programs in accelerating space capability development, reducing costs, and growing the domestic industrial base. By establishing firm, fixed-price, milestone-based partnership arrangements and acting as an anchor customer, NASA incentivized significant private investment in space transportation, a market otherwise dominated by government spending. As a direct result, the United States now has redundant domestic cargo transportation to space and, soon, redundant crew access to space for the first time, all coming at a fraction of the cost and time of traditional government-led development efforts.
The tangential benefits of this development are equally important. After years of being absent in the global commercial satellite launch market, the nation now dominates this market, infusing billions of dollars of private capital into the domestic space economy. Reduced launch costs are also driving a revolution in low-cost satellite technologies, with myriad companies developing new constellations for communications, remote sensing, and more. With broad, strong customer bases buttressed by NASA as an anchor customer, commercial firms are now investing in new capabilities to go beyond Earth orbit, to the Moon, and to Mars. Just as it has dramatically benefited from its partnerships with industry for access to the space station, NASA should continue to leverage these capabilities to the maximum extent possible as it structures its interplanetary human exploration efforts.
3. Expand the portion of NASA’s human spaceflight program directed toward support of US commercial spaceflight. A model for this already exists in NASA’s aeronautics program, a continuation of the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA) programs that enabled and supported the beginning of the US aviation industry from 1916 on. This commercial industry provided the industrial base for US military aviation in World War II and subsequent American commercial aviation and national security capabilities. A key to this effort will be for NASA to provide some services that industry needs even when those needs go in directions not relevant to NASA’s immediate missions.
4. Accelerate America’s achievement of ultra-low-cost access to space (ULCATS). One of the most important government functions is developing technologies that industry is not yet able to develop on its own. America’s entrepreneurs, with government support, have taken important steps towards aircraft-like access to space. ULCATS will provide tremendous benefits to US national security, create tens of thousands of American jobs, and could create a trillion-dollar space industry. Using the proven tool of public-private partnerships, as demonstrated by NASA’s Commercial Orbital Transportation Services (COTS) program use of “other transactions authority,” it is technically feasible and economically affordable to accelerate the achievement of ULCATS in America in a partnership between the government and industry.
5. Ensure a favorable legal environment for the development of space businesses and resources. In 2015, Congress passed and the President signed the Commercial Space Launch Competitiveness Act (CSLCA). This bill provided for a favorable regulatory environment for space tourism while, for the first time, establishing the right of US companies to profit from the mining of resources found in outer space. The CSLCA was a watershed accomplishment, but tasks remain. Perhaps the most important is to establish a low-overhead, business friendly “supervising authority” that can license US companies to visit the Moon, Mars, and the asteroids and, while there, to obtain and process space resources for profit. An additional area that requires work is further reform of International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR) so that new space services, such as space habitats and orbital re-fueling stations, are not subject to the same tight regulations as weapons systems. Finally, the right of companies to own intellectual property created on the ISS or government-leased space station facilities without special government permission or regulation must be established.
6. Establish development and settlement of space as a goal of NASA human spaceflight. Legislation had previously been introduced in the House as HR 4752 to implement this goal. The goal of this bill, which does not call for new funding, is to modify how the NASA budget is spent so that it more rapidly creates a self-sustaining space economy beyond Earth orbit.
Proposals to develop commercial space stations in low Earth orbit that could serve as successors to the International Space Station face both an uncertain regulatory environment and questions about their economic viability, according to both those planning such stations and those who might regulate them.
At a panel discussion on commercial space stations held here Sept. 22 by the Secure World Foundation, government and industry officials noted that such facilities fall into a regulatory gray area, with no U.S. government agency having clear oversight of them as required by international treaty.
“I’m not a fan of regulation, but I do think this could create problems when you ask for a launch license or payload review,” said Mike Gold, director of Washington operations and business growth for Bigelow Aerospace, a North Las Vegas, Nevada-based company planning commercial stations.
Gold noted that Article 6 of the Outer Space Treaty of 1967 requires governments to perform “continuing supervision” of space activities of entities under its jurisdiction, like companies. That supervision is carried out for some other space activities, like licensing of commercial remote sensing satellites by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and of communications satellites by the Federal Communications Commission.
Some in industry have proposed that the Federal Aviation Administration, which licenses commercial launches and reentries, take on that oversight role for other commercial space activities. Gold said he envisioned a relatively simple system where companies registered their spacecraft with the FAA and informed them of any significant changes. “I think that would meet the Outer Space Treaty’s obligations and create the environment of certainty and predictability that industry and investors need,” he said.
The FAA is interested in taking on that responsibility. “We’re going to continue to work within government to put together the right oversight framework,” said Steph Earle of the FAA’s Office of Commercial Space Transportation (AST). That would, he noted, ultimately require congressional action to give the FAA that authority.
Earle added that he believed the FAA would be a better fit for regulating commercial space stations than other agencies, like the FCC and NOAA. “It doesn’t seem that the other agencies are well suited to this, and the FAA thinks that it is,” he said.
Not everyone in industry agrees, however. “I’m not convinced FAA/AST is the right long-term choice to be the orbital space regulating agency,” said Charles Miller, president of NexGen Space. “It’s more than transportation, and I’m not sure in the long term that transportation is the right place for all these functions.”
Miller said he thinks the Commerce Department might be a better fit for on-orbit regulation, since it is charged with broadly supporting commerce, not just transportation, and has some regulatory capability today with NOAA.
Regulatory uncertainty, though, may not be the biggest challenge facing commercial stations. “The barriers to the development of the low Earth orbit economy are economic barriers far more than they are regulatory barriers at the moment,” said Carissa Christensen, managing partner of the Tauri Group,an Alexandria, Virginia-based consultancy.
NASA, in its efforts to stimulate commercial use of the ISS, has played up the potential benefits of performing research in microgravity. However, panelists were skeptical that research could become a viable commercial market for the foreseeable future.
“You won’t find bigger believers in the revolutionary capabilities that microgravity R&D can bring,” Gold said. “However, that market is very immature right now, and it is going to take a long time to grow. I don’t think we’re going to see it in the next 10 years.”
Miller said microgravity research was one of four applications he identified for commercial stations. “To me, it’s kind of speculative,” he said, noting that more research on the ISS is needed to see what could be commercially viable. Markets he thought could be more feasible for commercial stations were serving as “transfer nodes” for spacecraft bound for other orbits, propellant depots, and on-orbit assembly of satellites.
“The immediate market is flying people,” Gold said, both for current ISS partners and other national space agencies. Miller added that tourism could also be a sizable market, particularly if training could be made less onerous than that currently required to fly to the ISS on Soyuz vehicles.
Both Gold and Miller suggested NASA should help support commercial space station development by agreeing to purchase capacity on such stations or supporting their development through a partnership similar to the one NASA used for commercial cargo and crew systems. “NASA needs to play some role as a catalyst,” Gold said.
That support, they said, could help avoid a hiatus in crewed missions when the ISS reaches the end of its life. “The number one issue is that we are at risk of another gap in human spaceflight,” Miller said. “We need a seamless, low-risk transition to private, commercial space stations.”
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