NASA, Other

Will COMSTAC take a stand on commercial crew?

Today is the semiannual meeting of the Commercial Space Transportation Advisory Committee (COMSTAC), an industry group that provides advice to the FAA’s Office of Commercial Space Transportation. The meeting, in Washington and open to the public, features NASA administrator Charles Bolden as the keynote speaker, likely discussing the role the commercial sector will play in NASA’s new plans. There will also be presentations on commercial launch forecasts and working group reports.

The most interesting part of the meeting, though, may come when the COMSTAC membership is asked to consider a pair of statements supporting NASA’s commercial crew plan. The first states that COMSTAC “strongly supports” the commercial crew program in the NASA FY11 budget request as a means of both meeting NASA’s needs as well as providing “economic and other benefits” to the country. The second states that COMSTAC supports FAA retaining its role of licensing commercial human spaceflight activities, while acknowledging that NASA, like any other customer, can levy its own contractual requirements on top of that licensing process.

The statements were discussed and refined during a meeting Tuesday morning of COMSTAC’s RLV Working Group, chaired by Brett Alexander of the Commercial Spaceflight Federation. One challenge facing the adoption of the statements is that, by COMSTAC’s nature, the statements require unanimous approval. That could be a challenge given COMSTAC’s diverse membership, which includes not just representatives of established and entrepreneurial space companies but also spaceports, industry organizations, consultants, and insurers.

COMSTAC’s chairman, Will Trafton, attended the working group meeting and expressed support for the statements. “It’s time for COMSTAC to stand up and play a significant role in the development of commercial space transportation in this country,” he said. “It’s absolutely appropriate that we support this initiative.”

This may be the only chance for COMSTAC to take a stand on this issue, as the next full meeting of the committee will not be until October, at which time the debate regarding commercial crew may have wound down, one way or another—with the added concern that this may be “our last opportunity in a long time” to build up the American commercial space transportation industry, in the words of Patti Grace Smith, a consultant and former associate administrator for commercial space transportation at the FAA. “If we don’t get it done tomorrow,” Alexander said yesterday, “we’re going to miss the boat. Six months from now doesn’t matter.”

Update 6:15pm: As it turns out, a unanimous vote was not required for COMSTAC to approve the statements; Trafton said at the beginning of the meeting that only a simple majority was required. As noted in the comments, both statements did pass after some tweaking of the language, with (I believe) one no vote for each – not from the same person.

[Full disclosure: my employer does work for the FAA Office of Commercial Space Transportation, but does not serve on COMSTAC.]

26 comments to Will COMSTAC take a stand on commercial crew?

  • “It’s time for COMSTAC to stand up and play a significant role in the development of commercial space transportation in this country,” he said. “It’s absolutely appropriate that we support this initiative.”

    Well, umm, duh? You needed a meeting for this? We all just figured that the Commercial Space Transportation Advisory Committee would support the Commercial Space initiative.

  • amightywind

    NASA has no new plans for Bolden to discuss. Obamaspace has been rejected by a democrat congress. There won’t be new plan until the next congress, which God willing, will be controlled by a NASA friendly GOP.

  • Eric Sterner

    Given the controversy surrounding the subject, this seems like a risky role for COMSTAC. The Advisory Committee is very good at identifying areas where there are common interests, helping build consensus, and advocating win-win solutions that otherwise get lost in the political and bureaucratic system. This role would mean picking sides in a programmatic debate, which could undermine COMSTAC’s other contributions vis-a-vis the side that felt COMSTAC had politicized itself. It’d also set a precedent for future administration’s to seek to use the committee to support administration initiatives as the price of remaining relevant as an advisory committee.

    That said, it will be interesting to see what the committee decides to do. Personally, I think the argument that FAA needs to retain its role in commercial licensing is good public policy. FAA is a regulatory agency. We shouldn’t want NASA to become one, lest: a) it lose its focus on developing and operating programs; b) industry gets stuck with two different regulatory regimes–sure to kill any hope of successful commercialization one might have; and, c) we lose time in building a stable regulatory regime while NASA and the FAA fight out their roles. NASA will absolutely be needed to help FAA develop an inititial set of regs, since it has the expertise that FAA lacks, but OCST has been pretty good about trying to support entrepreneurial and commercial space while protecting the public.

  • Mark

    It is sure nice that Futron let’s you charge your time to attend all of these space events and pays your travel expenses so that you can report on these events.

  • Robert G. Oler

    The second states that COMSTAC supports FAA retaining its role of licensing commercial human spaceflight activities, while acknowledging that NASA, like any other customer, can levy its own contractual requirements on top of that licensing process.

    of the two statements this is by far the most important.

    It is very important that the FAA take over this function, for many many reasons.

    Not the least of which is:

    1. NASA does not have the technical expertise to regulate private industry.
    2. NASA does not have the management expertise to regulate private industry.
    3. NASA does not have the market expertise to regulate private industry.

    Ares is a poster child for these three failings (there are others, Columbia for instance). The phrase “cost effective” or “safe enough” have no real meaning at NASA. Their managers (I am thinking about Hanley and Shannon here but there are others) simply have no concept of the tools needed to allow private enterprise to flourish, but to keep it regulated enough to make it safe.

    The FAA does.

    The FAA is a tad weak in the technical expertise, but they can find this and it is out there.

    Robert G. Oler

  • Jeff Foust

    Mark: I do go to many events on my own time and out of my own pocket. Thanks for reading.

  • Vladislaw

    “NASA will absolutely be needed to help FAA develop an inititial set of regs, since it has the expertise that FAA lacks”

    No NASA won’t be absolutely needed, the FAA can just hire people with the expertise. Get a couple head hunters on it and they can hire away from NASA the experts they need. Better for the FAA to keep it in house. NASA can torpedo it from the get go if they are so inclined.

  • Robert G. Oler

    Vladislaw wrote @ May 19th, 2010 at 12:53 pm

    No NASA won’t be absolutely needed, the FAA can just hire people with the expertise. Get a couple head hunters on it and they can hire away from NASA the experts they need.

    minor nit…how the FAA will do this is go to industry. But the main point is correct, they will find the people…they are there.

    They dont need NASA.

    Robert G. Oler

  • Ferris Valyn

    COMSTAC passed 2 recommendations at the meeting, related to Commercial Crew – they endorsed the idea, and endorsed having a regulatory system like COTS and CRS.

    No doubt somepoint soon someone will post the full text

  • Mark2

    But Jeff I and others from my office constantly see you at events wearing a badge that says Futron. If Futron is not paying your way then how do you manage to take all this time off and pay for travel? We all know that you are on Futron business . That is why a number of us are nervous about talking to you. We do not know what you will do with the information.

  • Gary Church

    Jeff, It is also pretty obvious to anyone who has tried to post on your blog that if an opinion does not agree with your….benefactors, that opinion is banned by you in short order.

  • Jeff Foust

    Mark: if you have particular concerns don’t hesitate to contact me offline (as this is off topic for the subject of this post.) I’d reach out to you directly, but you posted using an invalid email address and an IP number that didn’t match the domain of said email address.

    Gary: I don’t ban commenters who disagree with me or my “benefactors”. If you have a particular concern about that, again, contact me by email, as it’s off topic for this post. Thanks.

  • Gary Church

    Watch out Mark, Jeff has my info and conveniently uses them to firewall me.

  • Gary Church

    When are you going to let me back into the Space review Jeff?

  • Vladislaw

    OT:

    Nasa put out an RFI for the flagship technology demonstration

  • Eric Sterner

    Why the heck are folks beating up on Jeff? FWIW, I’ve never seen any real bias in the opportunities to post and he sure as heck lets a lot of folks post some obnoxious things on the site.

    Good points on NASA vs. FAA expertise for carrying crew. It would be preferable for FAA to have the necessary in-house talent.

  • DCSCA

    “1. NASA does not have the technical expertise to regulate private industry.
    2. NASA does not have the management expertise to regulate private industry.
    3. NASA does not have the market expertise to regulate private industry.”

    The push by the Reagan Administration in the 80’s to make shuttle operations @ NASA, a R&D organization, into a profit center demostrated these points all too well with Challenger.

    That’s why the future of the manned space program should not be left solely in the hands of private industry.

  • Mark3

    Jeff I don’t understand why you do not admit that you do a lot of your reporting while being paid by Futron. I would think that Futron would be pleased to inform people that they support this rather useful service that you provide. What is a little odd is how NASA let’s you participate as a reporter. I doubt that they would allow a Boeing employee to participate in that way.

  • Robert G. Oler

    DCSCA wrote @ May 19th, 2010 at 9:00 pm

    solely no, but the arrangement that works in aviation will work in space.

    Robert G. Oler

  • Bennett

    Mark3 wrote @ May 19th, 2010 at 9:11 pm

    Whatever point you’re trying to make, this isn’t the place for it, and I doubt anyone cares anyway. I sure don’t. If you have something to contribute to the conversation, please do!

  • Bennett

    Gary Church wrote @ May 19th, 2010 at 6:17 pm

    :-]

  • Eric Sterner

    @DCSCA

    … Challenger forced a reexamnitation of the whole idea of USG vehicles launching commercial payloads, which folks recognized was a bad idea after 1986. Not surprisingly, the “free marketers” in the administration allied with the “let’s not risk people for fun and profit” folks in NASA and the “not all our eggs in one basket” crowd at DOD and got the USG out of a business it had no business being in.

  • Al Fansome

    @DCSCA

    … The decision to put commercial satellites (as well as USAF satellites and all NASA satellites) on the Shuttle was made well before the Reagan administration. It was made by the Nixon administration when the Shuttle decision was first made.

    FWIW,

    – Al

  • Bennett, I care, and I’d prefer he made a specific accusation. All this dancing around is very debonair but it doesn’t seem to be going anywhere. As for The Space Review, I wish some more people would be banned from there, particularly the guy who calls himself “Spacer” and posts about flying saucers on every article.

  • DCSCA

    @EricSteiner-“… Challenger forced a reexamnitation of the whole idea of USG vehicles launching commercial payloads, which folks recognized was a bad idea after 1986. Not surprisingly, the “free marketers” in the administration allied with the “let’s not risk people for fun and profit” folks in NASA and the “not all our eggs in one basket” crowd at DOD and got the USG out of a business it had no business being in.”

    To a degree, but Challenger forced a revision of using USG manned spacecraft to release commercial payloads — but mostly was a painful lesson to the ‘free marketer’ crowd that they could not make a R&D run by engineers into a commercially viable enterprise whose mission was to turn a profit, not basic fundamental space research. Folks ‘recognized’ this was a ‘bad idea’ from Day One of shuttle. Revisit the original concepts– it was a compromise vehicle from the get-go. And the DoD was never in love with having to depend on shuttle over expendible LVs. Even the construction of the never used shuttle launch complex at Vandenberg AFB was sloppy.

    @AlFansome- Yes, I know. But the final design was dictated by DoD payload requirements/specifications. Shuttle is a fine machine for what it can do. How it was managed from Reagan on is a separate issue.

  • DCSCA

    @RobertGOler- re Ares. It’s a lousy rocket upon which to ‘launch’ the Constellation program. If memory serves, Von Braun worked with both and prefered liquids over solid LVs. (Of course, stockholders in Thiokol may disagree. :-) )

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