Senate Subcommittee Hearing on Commercial Human Spaceflight Set
Industry Representatives Including SpaceX, Blue Origin Scheduled to Testify
The Senate Subcommittee on Space and Science, chaired by U.S. Senator Kyrsten Sinema (I-AZ), will convene a subcommittee hearing titled “Promoting Safety, Innovation, and Competitiveness in U.S. Commercial Human Space Activities” on Wednesday, October 18, 2023, at 2:00 PM ET.
The hearing will consider human activities in the growing commercial space sector, focusing on safety, global competitiveness and the federal government’s role in regulating human activities in space, ranging from suborbital flights to lunar surface habitats.
Experts will testify about the importance of streamlined authorization processes, safety regulations for in-space operations and responsibilities of government agencies overseeing commercial human space activities.
The witnesses scheduled to testify at the hearing are:
Sirisha Bandla, Vice President of Government Affairs and Research, Virgin Galactic
William Gerstenmaier, Vice President of Build and Flight Reliability, SpaceX
Phil Joyce, Senior Vice President of the New Shepard Business Unit, Blue Origin
Caryn Schenewerk, President, CS Consulting
Wayne Monteith, President and General Manager, National Aerospace Solutions
Congress has limited the FAA's authority to regulate human spaceflight in specific ways. Under federal law, the FAA is prohibited from regulating the safety of individuals on board. This legislative "moratorium", originally established in 2004, and extended four times by Congress, will now expire January 1, 2024. Some at the hearing are expected to argue that the moratorium should not be allowed to expire.
Current federal law requires an informed consent framework so flight crew and space flight participants are fully aware of the risks and hazards involved in human space flight launch and reentry operations. Commercial space operators are required to notify flight crew and space flight participants in writing that the U.S. government has not certified the launch or reentry vehicle as safe for carrying humans. The operator also must provide:
information about the risks of the launch and reentry, including known hazards and the potential for unknown hazards;
the safety record of all launch and reentry vehicles that have carried humans on a suborbital or orbital space flight;
the safety record of the operator's vehicle; and
an opportunity for crew and space flight participants to ask questions.
In September, then-House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) introduced the STAR (Space Transformation And Reliability) act to extend the FAA's "learning period" for regulating commercial human space flight through 2031. Extending the learning period is necessary to provide sufficient time for the commercial space industry to conduct the launches needed to inform the FAA’s standards for safe human space flight. The STAR Act would extend the learning period by 8 years.
The hearing will stream live on the committee website, Twitter and YouTube, and the webcast will appear on the site the day of the hearing.