At least two of the Republican presidential candidates, Rubio and Cruz, are strong supporters. He is not generally known for crafting and passing legislation.
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On Monday night the House approved a final version of the U.S. Commercial Space Launch Competitive Act. NSS congratulates both the Senate and House leadership for their hard work in hammering out a compromise between the previously passed House and Senate versions. The Texas Senator serves as the chairman of the Senate Commerce Subcommittee on Science, Space, and Competitiveness, which oversees NASA.
The bill was sponsored by Rep. Kevin McCarthy, California Republican and House majority leader, who said it will usher in a “new era of innovation and adventure”.
There are plenty of commercial space companies already operating, but under a patchwork of laws and rules, a few outdated, and with a few gray areas unaddressed.
The SPACE Act of 2015 officially extends the worldwide Space Station to 2024.
The delayed safety deadline was the most controversial provision in the legislation. It continues a risk-sharing approach to liability. As for the Government, its responsibility to pay compensations for losses due the commercial, launches remains limited to Companies insurance again maximum probable loss.
“The companies won’t be on the hook at all, unless there’s findings of gross negligence or a similarly egregious lack of care”. One section even directs the US government to develop a plan to handle “orbital traffic management” for all of the space traffic that’s expected. “That could change as more privately owned rocket companies enter the marketplace”. The legislation has recognized and promoted the rights of USA companies to make them interested in the investigation and extraction of space resources belonging to asteroids and other celestial bodies.
The first commercial space bill was passed in the 1980s, during President Ronald Reagan’s administration, something that Cruz was careful to point out.
Johnson argued, “The bill that we are considering today is a missed opportunity to enact sensible policies, It is a bill that, if enacted, will do harm to American taxpayers and to the long-term interests of the commercial space industry itself”.
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Not coincidentally, the bill, once it is signed into law, will have considerable benefit for Texas, which is becoming a venue for commercial space operations just as it has been for NASA, with the Johnson Spaceflight Center south of Houston. It creates a framework for so-called “new space” companies such as Blue Origin, SpaceX and Sierra Nevada to pursue space ventures independently of NASA and the USA military.
