Space Politics

Because sometimes the most important orbit is the Beltway…

From FAA to AIA

August 22, 2007 at 9:25 pm · Filed under Lobbying, Other

The Aerospace Industries Association (AIA) announced yesterday that outgoing FAA administrator Marion Blakey will become the president and CEO of the AIA in November, two months after Blakey leaves the FAA. The AIA announced earlier this year that its current president and CEO, John W. Douglass, would retire at the end of the year; he will remain at the AIA through the end of the year to help ensure a smooth transition. Her role at the FAA didn’t give her an opportunity to talk much on military and civil space issues, although presumably her views are in accordance with the AIA’s board); she did frequent attend and speak at FAA Commercial Space Transportation Advisory Committee (COMSTAC) meetings and attended one of the SpaceShipOne X Prize flights in Mojave in 2004, speaking of her interest in and support of the commercial space transportation industry.

(The Washington Post article about her hiring takes a bit of an unfair swipe at her with this passage: “Blakey is the latest of several top administration officials to depart as President Bush’s term winds to a close. Last week, Deputy White House Chief of Staff Karl Rove announced that he would leave at the end of the month.” Unlike Rove, Blakey is not resigning; her five-year term as administrator expires next month.)

Speaking of AIA, an AP article this week noted that the organization disclosed it had spent $280,000 on lobbying in the first half of this year. That information comes from a lobbying report the AIA filed earlier this month. Among the items the AIA disclosed it was lobbying for on the civil side were “NASA Subcontractor/Fund” (?), “Funding for NASA”, “Sustainability of the Vision for Space Exploration”, “US/China Space Exploration”, and “Shuttle Launch”. On the military space side, topics included “National Security Space Issues”, “Space Acquisitions”, “Operationally Responsive Space”, and “Military Space Budget”.

[Full disclosure: my employer does work for the FAA Office of Commercial Space Transportation, but doesn't work with the office of the FAA administrator.]

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5 Comments »

Keith Cowing wrote @ August 22nd, 2007 at 9:52 pm

“[Full disclosure: my employer does work for the FAA Office of Commercial Space Transportation, but doesn’t work with the office of the FAA administrator.]“

But the FAA Office of Commercial Space Transportation works for the FAA administrator ….

Rand Simberg wrote @ August 23rd, 2007 at 5:59 am

There is no FAA OCST, and never was, Keith. You mean FAA-AST.

And OCST no longer exists. When it did, it reported directly to the SecTran, not FAA. In fact, it would be good to reverse the mistaken decision of the Clinton administration, reestablish it, and get it out of the FAA.

Keith Cowing wrote @ August 23rd, 2007 at 8:21 am

Rand says “There is no FAA OCST, and never was, Keith. You mean FAA-AST.

Rand, read just a *little* more carefully. I took Jeff’s words i.e. “[Full disclosure: my employer does work for the FAA Office of Commercial Space Transportation, but doesn’t work with the office of the FAA administrator.]” and simply reversed the order.

Your issue should be with Jeff, not with me, since Jeff made the initial claim WRT FAA entities and who his company works for.

faahope wrote @ August 23rd, 2007 at 8:42 pm

God Bless You All at the AIA. She did a great job of messing up the FAA! Becareful she will cut corners no matter who’s life is at steak as long as it isn’t hers.

Rand Simberg wrote @ August 26th, 2007 at 1:44 pm

Sorry, Keith, you’re right. My bad. Also, apparently FAA does call AST OCST, so Jeff is right, too. I thought that they’d changed the name when FAA absorbed it.

But I still think that it should be taken out of the FAA. In fact, I hope that’s one of the recommendations of the new study to be performed this fall.