[House Hearing, 118 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]


                       CONTINUING U.S. LEADERSHIP
                 IN COMMERCIAL SPACE AT HOME AND ABROAD
=====================================================================
                                
                                HEARING

                               BEFORE THE

                      COMMITTEE ON SCIENCE, SPACE,
                             AND TECHNOLOGY

                                 OF THE

                        HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

                    ONE HUNDRED EIGHTEENTH CONGRESS

                             FIRST SESSION

                               __________

                             JULY 13, 2023

                               __________

                           Serial No. 118-20

                               __________

 Printed for the use of the Committee on Science, Space, and Technology
 
[GRAPHIC NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT] 

 
       Available via the World Wide Web: http://science.house.gov
       
                              __________

                   U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE                    
52-767PDF                  WASHINGTON : 2024                    
          
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              COMMITTEE ON SCIENCE, SPACE, AND TECHNOLOGY

                  HON. FRANK LUCAS, Oklahoma, Chairman
BILL POSEY, Florida                  ZOE LOFGREN, California, Ranking 
RANDY WEBER, Texas                       Member
BRIAN BABIN, Texas                   SUZANNE BONAMICI, Oregon
JIM BAIRD, Indiana                   HALEY STEVENS, Michigan
DANIEL WEBSTER, Florida              JAMAAL BOWMAN, New York
MIKE GARCIA, California              DEBORAH ROSS, North Carolina
STEPHANIE BICE, Oklahoma             ERIC SORENSEN, Illinois
JAY OBERNOLTE, California            ANDREA SALINAS, Oregon
CHUCK FLEISCHMANN, Tennessee         VALERIE FOUSHEE, North Carolina
DARRELL ISSA, California             KEVIN MULLIN, California
RICK CRAWFORD, Arkansas              JEFF JACKSON, North Carolina
CLAUDIA TENNEY, New York             EMILIA SYKES, Ohio
RYAN ZINKE, Montana                  MAXWELL FROST, Florida
SCOTT FRANKLIN, Florida              YADIRA CARAVEO, Colorado
DALE STRONG, Alabama                 SUMMER LEE, Pennsylvania
MAX MILLER, Ohio                     JENNIFER McCLELLAN, Virginia
RICH McCORMICK, Georgia              TED LIEU, California
MIKE COLLINS, Georgia                SEAN CASTEN, Illinois,
BRANDON WILLIAMS, New York             Vice Ranking Member
TOM KEAN, New Jersey                 PAUL TONKO, New York
VACANCY
                         C  O  N  T  E  N  T  S

                             July 13, 2023

                                                                   Page

Hearing Charter..................................................     2

                           Opening Statements

Statement by Representative Frank Lucas, Chairman, Committee on 
  Science, Space, and Technology, U.S. House of Representatives..    11
    Written Statement............................................    12

Statement by Representative Eric Sorensen, Ranking Member, 
  Subcommittee on Space and Aeronautics, Committee on Science, 
  Space, and Technology, U.S. House of Representatives...........    13
    Written Statement............................................    14

Written statement by Representative Zoe Lofgren, Ranking Member, 
  Committee on Science, Space, and Technology, U.S. House of 
  Representatives................................................    15

                               Witnesses:

Ms. Karina Drees, President, Commercial Spaceflight Federation
    Oral Statement...............................................    17
    Written Statement............................................    19

Mr. Jim Dunstan, General Counsel, TechFreedom
    Oral Statement...............................................    37
    Written Statement............................................    39

Dr. Josef S. Koller, Systems Director, Center for Space Policy 
  and Strategy, The Aerospace Corporation
    Oral Statement...............................................    44
    Written Statement............................................    46

Ms. Caryn Schenewerk, President, CS Consulting, LLC
    Oral Statement...............................................    52
    Written Statement............................................    54

Discussion.......................................................    65

             Appendix I: Answers to Post-Hearing Questions

Ms. Karina Drees, President, Commercial Spaceflight Federation...   106

Mr. Jim Dunstan, General Counsel, TechFreedom....................   116

Dr. Josef S. Koller, Systems Director, Center for Space Policy 
  and Strategy, The Aerospace Corporation........................   126

Ms. Caryn Schenewerk, President, CS Consulting, LLC..............   132

            Appendix II: Additional Material for the Record

Paper submitted by Mr. Jim Dunstan, General Counsel, TechFreedom
    ``Regulating Outer Space: Of Gaps, Overlaps, and 
      Stovepipes,'' James E. Dunstan, The Center for Growth and 
      Opportunity at Utah State University.......................   140

 
                       CONTINUING U.S. LEADERSHIP
                          IN COMMERCIAL SPACE
                           AT HOME AND ABROAD

                              ----------                              


                        THURSDAY, JULY 13, 2023

                          House of Representatives,
               Committee on Science, Space, and Technology,
                                                   Washington, D.C.

    The Committee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:05 a.m., in 
room 2318 of the Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Frank 
Lucas [Chairman of the Committee] presiding.
[GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]

    Chairman Lucas. The Committee will come to order. Without 
objection, the Chair is authorized to declare recesses of the 
Committee at any time.
    I recognize myself for five minutes for an opening 
statement.
    Good morning, and welcome to today's hearing where we'll 
discuss future and current U.S. leadership in commercial space. 
From the dawn of the space age, the private sector has worked 
hand-in-hand with the U.S. Government, but it wasn't until the 
liftoff of the first privately funded space launch from United 
States' soil in 1982 that the Nation's commercial space 
industry truly took off.
    As industry has grown and evolved over time, Congress 
enacted several pieces of space legislation to promote 
commercial space activities, while upholding the international 
obligations of the United States. This legislation granted the 
executive branch regulatory authority over certain space 
activities, but also charged agencies with the dual mandate of 
both encouraging the private sector and protecting the public 
and the national interest of the United States.
    Today, the United States is a world leader in commercial 
space activities. The Nation hosts an active market for launch 
and reentry services that delivers both cutting-edge payloads 
and astronauts to space. Nongovernmental entities of all types 
and sizes have access to capacities that once were only 
available to governments and large corporations, sparking a 
renaissance in commercial space activity. The private sector is 
expanding into territories historically dominated by national 
space programs, proposing business concepts that envision 
commercially operated habitats in low-Earth orbit (LEO), on-
orbit servicing and manufacturing, and utilization of space 
resources. These are exciting developments. But new 
technologies present new issues for the government to consider 
when addressing space operations, and Congress must take a 
thoughtful approach on how to oversee these innovative 
activities without stifling progress.
    One such issue is the government's approach toward 
commercial human spaceflight activities. In the early 2000's, 
Congress authorized the Secretary of Transportation to regulate 
aspects of commercial human spaceflight, but not until after 
the expiration of a learning period that would allow industry 
time to grow and supply regulators with data to inform 
appropriate regulations. Congress has since extended this 
learning period twice after determining that industry was not 
sufficiently mature for additional regulation. The most recent 
extension granted in 2015 will expire at the end of September. 
Congress must determine whether the current state of commercial 
human spaceflight merits an additional learning period 
extension, or whether to let the learning period come to an 
end. Congress also must address other pressing issues for 
commercial space operators, including the appropriate 
governance structure for both new and existing space activities 
and how to advance space situational awareness (SSA) to 
maintain safe operations in orbit.
    As this Committee prepares to consider commercial space 
legislation, it's imperative that we keep U.S. international 
competitiveness at the top of our priorities. Ensuring a robust 
commercial space sector is key to maintaining U.S. leadership 
in space and technology, and other countries, friendly and 
otherwise, are actively engaging in space activities. Some seek 
to create a favorable environment for space companies, offering 
incentives for both investment and regulatory perspectives. Our 
legislation must be carefully written and executed to create a 
favorable environment here at home and prevent U.S. companies 
from turning to overseas destinations that promise speedy 
authorizations with minimal restrictions.
    Maintaining U.S. leadership in space is also critical to 
the future of international space policy, especially as more 
actors become involved in space worldwide, both private and 
governmental. The United States' status as a major spacefaring 
nation has historically secured us a key role in decisions of 
international norms and standards. That has allowed us to 
ensure that our off-world activities embody our values, 
transparency, fairness, and collaboration. I can assure you 
that those aren't the norms that our adversaries would 
establish if they were steering the development of 
international space policy.
    If we want to continue to set the rules of the road, 
Congress must work hand-in-hand with the executive branch and 
stakeholders to ensure that the United States maintains its 
status as a leader in space. Passing legislation that fosters 
the burgeoning commercial space industry is a key step toward 
this goal. As our Committee develops this legislation, we'll 
keep these major considerations in mind, a thoughtful 
regulatory environment that supports innovation, a competitive 
approach to grow our domestic industry, and a focus on 
maintaining U.S. leadership in international space policy.
    Our witnesses today represent a range of stakeholder 
perspectives, and I look forward to hearing their testimony and 
having a robust discussion on these important topics.
    [The prepared statement of Chairman Lucas follows:]

    Good morning and welcome to today's hearing, where we will 
discuss current and future U.S. leadership in commercial space.
    From the dawn of the space age, the private sector has 
worked hand-in-hand with the U.S. government, but it wasn't 
until the liftoff of the first privately-funded space launch 
from United States soil in 1982 that the nation's commercial 
space industry truly took off.
    As industry has grown and evolved over time, Congress 
enacted several pieces of space legislation to promote 
commercial space activities while upholding the international 
obligations of the United States.
    This legislation granted the executive branch regulatory 
authority for certain space activities, but also charged 
agencies with the dual mandate of both encouraging the private 
sector and protecting the public and the national interests of 
the United States.
    Today, the United States is a world-leader in commercial 
space activities.
    The nation hosts an active market for launch and reentry 
services that delivers both cutting-edge payloads and 
astronauts to space.
    Nongovernmental entities of all types and sizes now have 
access to capabilities that once were only available to 
governments and large corporations, sparking a renaissance in 
commercial space activity.
    The private sector is expanding into territories 
historically dominated by national space programs, proposing 
business concepts that envision commercially-operated habitats 
in low-Earth orbit, on-orbit servicing and manufacturing, and 
utilization of space resources.
    These are exciting developments. But new technologies 
present new issues for the government to consider when 
addressing space operations, and Congress must take a 
thoughtful approach on how to oversee these innovative 
activities without stifling progress.
    One such issue is the federal government's approach towards 
commercial human spaceflight activities.
    In the early 2000s, Congress authorized the Secretary of 
Transportation to regulate aspects of commercial human 
spaceflight, but not until after the expiration of a ``learning 
period'' that would allow industry time to grow and supply 
regulators with data to inform appropriate regulations.
    Congress has since extended this learning period twice 
after determining that industry was not sufficiently mature for 
additional regulation. The most recent extension, granted in 
2015, will expire at the end of September.
    Congress must determine whether the current state of 
commercial human spaceflight merits an additional learning 
period extension, or whether to let the learning period come to 
an end.
    Congress also must address other pressing issues for 
commercial space operators, including the appropriate 
governance structure for both new and existing space 
activities, and how to advance space situational awareness to 
maintain safe operations in orbit.
    As this Committee prepares to consider commercial space 
legislation, it's imperative that we keep U.S. international 
competitiveness at the top of our priorities.
    Ensuring a robust commercial space sector is key to 
maintaining U.S. leadership in science and technology.
    Other countries, friendly and otherwise, are actively 
engaged in space activities. Some seek to create a favorable 
environment for space companies, offering incentives from both 
investment and regulatory perspectives.
    Our legislation must be carefully written and executed to 
create a favorable environment here at home and prevent U.S. 
companies from turning to overseas destinations that promise 
speedy authorizations with minimal restrictions.
    Maintaining U.S. leadership in space is also critical to 
the future of international space policy, especially as more 
actors become involved in space worldwide, both private and 
governmental.
    The United States' status as a major spacefaring nation has 
historically secured us a key role in discussions of 
international norms and standards.
    That has allowed us to ensure that our off-world activities 
embody our values: transparency, fairness, and collaboration.
    I can assure you that those aren't the norms that our 
adversaries would establish if they were steering the 
development of international space policy.
    If we want to continue to set the rules of the road, 
Congress must work hand-in-hand with the executive branch and 
stakeholders to ensure the U.S. maintains its status as a 
leader in space. Passing legislation that fosters the 
burgeoning commercial space industry is a key step towards this 
goal.
    As our Committee develops this legislation we'll keep these 
major considerations in mind: a thoughtful regulatory 
environment that supports innovation, a competitive approach to 
grow our domestic industry, and a focus on maintaining U.S. 
leadership in international space policy.
    Our witnesses today represent a range of stakeholder 
perspectives and I look forward to hearing their testimony and 
having a robust discussion on these important topics. I now 
recognize the Ranking Member for her opening statement.

    Chairman Lucas. I now recognize the Ranking Member for his 
comment, opening statement.
    Mr. Sorensen. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for holding today's 
hearing on continuing U.S. leadership in commercial space at 
home and abroad. I also want to extend a warm welcome to our 
distinguished witnesses. Thank you for being here today.
    Three years ago, during the early months of the COVID-19 
pandemic, the Nation breathed a sigh of relief when the SpaceX 
crew Dragon demonstration mission successfully and safely 
transported crew to the International Space Station (ISS) and 
back home again. The United States had been dependent on Russia 
to deliver our astronauts to and from the ISS for nearly a 
decade following the planned retirement of NASA's (National 
Aeronautics and Space Administration)'s Space Shuttle Program. 
The success of that crewed demonstration mission was the 
culmination of years of government investment and partnership. 
Our Nation's investment in civil space R&D (research and 
development), science, exploration, and utilization have 
advanced the underlying space capabilities and technologies 
that have fostered a thriving commercial space industry. I want 
to thank the--I want the United States to continue to lead the 
world in innovative space technologies, and--which provides 
significant economic and societal benefits for our country.
    Today's hearing will review the governance of our United 
States commercial space sector, if and how the frameworks the 
Committee has put into place are sufficient, and what is needed 
to not only encourage the continued growth and leadership but 
to meet our international obligations. While I'm sure we all 
have many questions, one thing is clear. The success of the 
industry depends on safety. A bad day could hurt the entire 
commercial space industry.
    With that in mind, I hope we will hear from our witnesses 
on how we can ensure safe and responsible commercial space 
behaviors, which are the types of actions we want other nations 
to emulate. It's not only the right thing to do, it's our 
obligation as signatory to the Outer Space Treaty of 1967, to 
ensure authorization and continuing supervision of U.S. 
nongovernmental entities in outer space. In short, the U.S. 
Government is responsible for what its commercial actors do in 
space.
    The Science Committee has been at the forefront of 
commercial space regulations since the Launch Act of 1984 first 
directed the Department of Transportation to license and 
regulate commercial space launches. The Committee also 
authorized regulation of private remote-sensing space systems, 
the last major commercial space statutory update in 2015. Since 
that time, commercial space activities have expanded and they 
have accelerated. Companies are placing mega-constellations in 
space to enable broadband communications and other services. 
Private citizens are flying into space on both commercial 
suborbital and orbital spacecraft. Companies are providing in-
space satellite servicing. Through NASA, commercial companies 
are also developing space stations for low-Earth orbit and 
landers to deliver both scientific payloads and astronauts to 
the surface of the Moon.
    Space is becoming a busy place, placing increasing 
importance on the role of space situational awareness 
capabilities to track space debris, satellites, and to warn 
operators of potential risks for collisions. Each of these 
areas come with issues and complexities, as well as advocates 
for differing positions. I hope we'll have an opportunity to 
hear from the relevant Federal agencies on their role as the 
implementers of regulatory frameworks, as well as other key 
sectors such as the insurance industry on what Congress needs 
to do and what we need to consider if we're to legislate in 
this area. This Committee will take a thoughtful look at all of 
the relevant information and insight as we seek to balance 
leadership and growth with safety and responsibility.
    I look forward to working with the Chairman, my colleagues 
in the minority, and the Administration on any potential 
legislation that Committee may consider.
    Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back.
    [The prepared statement of Mr. Sorensen follows:]

    Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for holding today's hearing on 
``Continuing U.S. Leadership in Commercial Space at Home and 
Abroad.'' I also want to extend a warm welcome to our 
distinguished witnesses. Thank you for being here.
    Three years ago, during the early months of the COVID-19 
pandemic, the nation breathed a sigh of relief when the SpaceX 
Crew Dragon demonstration mission successfully and safely 
transported crew to the International Space Station and back 
home again. The United States had been dependent on Russia to 
deliver our astronauts to and from the ISS for nearly a decade, 
following the planned retirement of NASA's Space Shuttle 
program.
    The success of that crewed demonstration mission was the 
culmination of years of government investment and partnership. 
Our nation's investments in civil space R&D, science, 
exploration, and utilization have advanced the underlying space 
capabilities and technologies that have fostered a thriving 
commercial space industry. I want the United States to continue 
to lead the world in innovative space technologies and which 
provide significant economic and societal benefits to our 
country.
    Today's hearing will review the governance of our U.S. 
commercial space sector, if and how the frameworks this 
Committee has put into place are sufficient, and what is needed 
to not only encourage the continued growth and leadership but 
to meet our international obligations.
    While I'm sure we all have many questions, one thing is 
clear. The success of the industry depends on safety. A bad day 
could hurt the entire commercial space industry. With that in 
mind, I hope we will hear from our witnesses on how we can 
ensure safe and responsible commercial space behaviors, which 
are the types of actions we want other nations to emulate. It's 
not only the right thing to do, it's our obligation as 
signatory to the Outer Space Treaty of 1967 to ensure 
authorization and continuing supervision of U.S. 
nongovernmental entities in outer space. In short, the U.S. 
government is responsible for what its commercial actors do in 
space.
    The Science Committee has been at the forefront of 
commercial space regulations since the Commercial Space Launch 
Act of 1984 first directed the Department of Transportation to 
license and regulate commercial space launches. The Committee 
also authorized regulation of private remote sensing space 
systems. The last major commercial space statutory update was 
in 2015. Since that time, commercial space activities have 
expanded and accelerated. Companies are placing mega 
constellations in space to enable broadband communications and 
other services. Private citizens are flying into space on both 
commercial suborbital and orbital spacecraft.
    Companies are providing in-space satellite servicing. 
Through NASA, commercial companies are also developing space 
stations for low Earth orbit and landers to deliver both 
scientific payloads and astronauts to the surface of the Moon. 
Space is a busy place, placing increasing importance on the 
role of space situational awareness capabilities to track space 
debris, satellites, and to warn operators of potential risks or 
collisions. Each of these areas come with issues and 
complexities as well as advocates with differing positions.
    I hope we will have an opportunity to hear from the 
relevant Federal agencies on their role as the implementers of 
regulatory frameworks, as well as other key sectors such as the 
insurance industry, on what Congress needs to consider if we 
are to legislate in this area.
    This Committee will take a thoughtful look at all the 
relevant information and insight as we seek to balance 
leadership and growth with safety and responsibility. I look 
forward to working with the Chairman, my colleagues in the 
Minority, and the Administration on any potential legislation 
the Committee may consider.
    Thank you, and I yield back.

    Chairman Lucas. Thank you, Mr. Sorensen.
    [The prepared statement of Ms. Lofgren follows:]

    Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for holding today's hearing, 
``Continuing U.S. Leadership in Commercial Space at Home and 
Abroad.'' I also want to welcome our panel of expert witnesses. 
Thank you for being with us today.
    My home state of California is a hub of commercial space 
and aerospace companies, large and small. For that reason, I've 
seen firsthand the valuable contributions our commercial space 
sector has on creating good paying jobs, economic growth, and 
innovative systems and technologies that benefit our civil, 
commercial, and national security space activities.
    That's why it's important we are considering commercial 
space regulatory frameworks, which were last updated 
statutorily in 2015 with the Commercial Space Launch 
Competitiveness Act. I'm pleased that our U.S. commercial space 
regulatory regime, led by the work of the Committee on Science, 
Space, and Technology over many decades, has enabled a robust 
and world-class commercial space industry, and I want to ensure 
our U.S. commercial space sector continues to lead globally.
    The recent pace of growth in commercial space, the 
increasing number of companies involved, and the diversity of 
commercial space services being offered create both 
opportunities and challenges. Today's hearing allows this 
Committee to take a fresh look at whether regulatory and 
statutory changes are needed to help embrace those 
opportunities and address the challenges. To that end, I look 
forward to hearing from our expert witnesses on several 
questions, including,
      Are there opportunities to improve the efficiency 
and effectiveness of the governance of commercial space 
regulations that Congress has put in place?
      What are the options for a framework that meets 
our international obligations for the authorization and 
supervision of novel commercial space activities, and what 
technical experience is necessary for the entity or entities 
involved in such framework?
      Who has accountability for risk in commercial 
space activities, and how is risk handled?In closing, I would 
be remiss if I did not mention the vital importance of our 
commercial space workforce. I hope our witnesses can help us 
understand what can be done to support and grow that workforce 
commensurate with the evolution of the commercial space 
industry.
    I look forward to working with the Chairman, the 
Administration, and other relevant sectors on how we can ensure 
that our U.S. commercial space regulatory frameworks provide 
clarity and predictability, enable both innovation and safety, 
are efficient and effective, meet our international 
obligations, and support success and continuing leadership.
    Thank you, and I yield back the balance of my time.

    Chairman Lucas. Let me introduce our witnesses. Our first 
witness today is Ms. Karina Drees, who serves as President of 
the Commercial Spaceflight Federation (CSF). She is also Chair 
of the FAA's (Federal Aviation Administration's) Commercial 
Space Transportation Advisory Committee (COMSTAC) and serves on 
the National Space Council Users' Advisory Committee. And prior 
to Commercial Spaceflight Federation, Ms. Drees was the CEO 
(Chief Executive Officer) and Manager of the Mojave Air and 
Space Port.
    Our next witness is Mr. Jim Dunstan, who serves as the 
General Counsel of TechFreedom. He's also founder of the Mobius 
Legal Group. He has four decades of experience as a space 
lawyer, which includes drafting and negotiating the first 
commercial lease of a manned space station. He also served as a 
member of the Virginia JCOTS (Joint Commission on Technology 
and Science) Aerospace Advisory Committee.
    Our third witness is Josef Koller. He serves as the Systems 
Director for the Center for Space Policy and Strategy at The 
Aerospace Corporation. He's also co-founder of The Aerospace 
Corporation's Space Safety Institute. Mr. Koller has previously 
served as a Senior Adviser to the Office of the Secretary of 
Defense for Space Policy, and prior to that, he managed and co-
led more than 40 scientists at the Space Science and 
Applications Group at Los Alamos National Laboratory.
    And our final witness is Ms. Caryn----
    Ms. Schenewerk. Schenewerk.
    Chairman Lucas. Yes, thank you. Let it be known if I 
pronounced your name correctly, you probably should be worried. 
And Founder and President of CS Consulting. Prior to founding 
CS Consulting, she served as Vice President of the Regulatory 
and Government Affairs at the Relativity Space. She also served 
as the Industry Head of FAA's Part 440 Aerospace Rulemaking 
Committee (ARC) and is a member of the FAA's Commercial Space 
Transportation Advisory Committee where she leads the 
Regulatory Working Group.
    Thank you to all of our witnesses for being here.
    And I now recognize Ms. Drees for five minutes to present 
her testimony, please.

                 TESTIMONY OF MS. KARINA DREES,

          PRESIDENT, COMMERCIAL SPACEFLIGHT FEDERATION

    Ms. Drees. Thank you so much. Chairman Lucas, Subcommittee 
Ranking Member Sorensen, and distinguished Members of the 
Committee, thank you for inviting me to testify on behalf of 
the Commercial Spaceflight Federation. I'm honored to share our 
members' views on commercial space in the United States and the 
policy and regulatory issues facing our industry.
    CSF is the leading national trade association for the 
commercial space industry. CSF members expand America's 
leadership in space, create thousands of high-paying 
engineering and manufacturing jobs, and invest billions of 
dollars across the country, revitalizing a domestic aerospace 
supply chain that had been in decline. CSF members proudly work 
with civil, national security, and intelligence agencies to 
ensure they carry out their missions in a manner that is more 
cost-effective and innovative than government-developed 
solutions.
    The policies enacted by this Committee and by Congress as a 
whole, including the 2015 Commercial Space Launch 
Competitiveness Act, are vital to facilitating the growth of 
the industry. The future pace of development and the retention 
of our Nation as the flag of choice depends on a policy and 
regulatory environment that facilitates innovation. Our Nation 
must leverage and grow the commercial sector to outcompete 
State actors like China and Russia.
    As the Committee develops a commercial space package, CSF 
respectfully offers several items for your consideration. 
Further details on each of these priorities and a full list of 
priorities are included in my written testimony.
    First, the learning period for human spaceflight is set to 
expire at the end of September. As Congress considers the 
future of the learning period, it is important to note that 
industry has had slower technical development and significantly 
fewer commercial crewed spaceflight missions than anticipated 
during the last extension in 2015. CSF supports a multi-year 
extension to the learning period to enable key dialogs to 
continue between government and industry through the ASTM F47 
standards process, the Part 460 Aerospace Rulemaking Committee, 
and the COMSTAC safety working group to ensure that the FAA has 
the appropriate expertise and resources to take on this 
authority. Allowing the learning period to end this year would 
lead to regulations that inadvertently freeze development 
before industry has had time to mature, harming safety and our 
Nation's competitiveness in the long term.
    Second, consistent with prior legislation offered by this 
Committee, the Department of Commerce is the most appropriate 
agency to ensure Federal compliance with Outer Space Treaty 
Article VI obligations for ``authorization and continuing 
supervision'' for activities that fall outside of existing 
regulatory approval structures. A light-touch regime would 
satisfy treaty compliance requirements and provide clarity, 
while facilitating innovation and American leadership in space. 
A single agency must manage this process to ensure there is one 
accountable entity, minimal burden on industry, and no 
unnecessary duplication of effort between Federal agencies.
    Third, Federal space launch infrastructure demand is 
steadily outpacing supply. Thankfully, there is a network of 
FAA-licensed space launch sites across the country eager to 
help ensure our Nation has sufficient infrastructure for this 
sector. However, these sites largely do not have access to 
Federal grant money. There is an existing authorized grant 
program, but it has been dormant for over a decade. The program 
should be reauthorized with key changes consistent with GAO 
(Government Accountability Office) recommendations.
    Fourth, many current regulations governing commercial space 
activities require near-term modernization to ensure efficient 
processing as the rate of commercial activity accelerates. 
These regulations, including Part 450 launch and reentry 
licensing, export control regulations, and remote sensing 
regulations were developed in an era with limited industry 
activity. Without reform, agencies risk missing statutory 
timelines to fulfill regulatory responsibilities, harming our 
ability to compete and slowing innovation while other countries 
surge ahead.
    Additionally, access to space situational awareness (SSA) 
information is essential to ensuring continued safe operations 
in space for all users. As Congress considers SSA, it's 
important that the Department of Commerce is given the 
statutory authority to take on this mission and is encouraged 
to use commercial services data and analytics to the greatest 
extent possible.
    Thank you again for the opportunity to contribute to this 
conversation on commercial space. It is a critical time for our 
industry, and we greatly appreciate Congress' attention to 
these important issues.
    [The prepared statement of Ms. Drees follows:]
   [GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
    
    Chairman Lucas. Thank you.
    And I now recognize Mr. Dunstan for five minutes to present 
his testimony.

                 TESTIMONY OF MR. JIM DUNSTAN,

                  GENERAL COUNSEL, TECHFREEDOM

    Mr. Dunstan. Thank you. Chairman Lucas, Subcommittee 
Ranking Member Sorensen, and Members of the Committee, thank 
you for the opportunity to testify today. I hope that this 
testimony, along with my recently published paper on regulating 
commercial space activities, will assist Congress as it 
considers comprehensive space legislation.
    The testimony I provide today is my own personal and does 
not reflect the positions of any organization or company.
    Space is heating up, not from an environmental standpoint, 
but in terms of business activity. Advances in space 
technology, especially the advent of cheaper access to space 
created by space entrepreneurs, with strategic funding from the 
government of course, have opened entirely new opportunities 
for U.S. businesses to be the catalysts of the creation of a 
robust cislunar economy. According to Space Foundation, the 
world space economy was valued at almost $470 billion in 2021, 
and according the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis, the U.S. 
portion of that economy generates $211 billion in gross output 
each year. I think that's actually understated. And space 
entrepreneurs are just getting started.
    The legal and policy questions that commercial space 
activities present, frankly, I thought I would be working on 40 
years ago when I graduated from law school, not what we are 
finally addressing today in 2023. The first problem is that we 
do not have a comprehensive regulatory approach to commercial 
activities in space. We've never had a National Space Act. The 
rules of the road are cobbled together from various agency-
enabling statutes, some of the regulatory underpinnings dating 
back almost 150 years. The result, as I discussed in my paper, 
is gaps, overlaps, and stovepipes. Simply put, space is 
regulated by several different agencies, none of which were 
originally sanctioned by Congress to regulate in outer space. 
This includes the FCC (Federal Communications Commission), the 
FAA, the Department of Commerce, NASA, and the Department of 
Defense (DOD), all of which currently have a hand in directing 
if not directly regulating outer space commerce.
    The second problem is that, following the Supreme Court's 
decision in West Virginia v. EPA, it is clear that agencies may 
no longer regulate based on vague terms like the public 
interest. Congress, quote, ``does not alter the fundamental 
details of a regulatory scheme in vague terms or ancillary 
provisions. It does not hide elephants in mouseholes.'' The--
end quote. The current patchwork regulatory system is a 
labyrinth of mouseholes that new entrants must traverse, great 
for me as a practicing space lawyer, but highly dangerous for 
us as a country for there is a very real danger that courts, 
when asked to review regulatory actions in the future, may well 
conclude that Congress never provided the basic regulatory 
authority to those agencies in the first place.
    The stakes are sky high, pun fully intended. Space is 
inherently international. If we do not provide a practical 
regulatory system that can quickly and economically authorize 
and supervise the activities of U.S. nationals in space, what I 
would call a frictionless regulatory system, two things will 
happen. First--and we're already seeing this--U.S. domestic 
companies will simply move offshore and find a country that 
will quickly and cheaply grant them authorizations for their 
outer space activities in exchange for license fees and taxes. 
Those fees and taxes are thus exiting the U.S. economy.
    Second, the existing regulatory scheme and any future 
regulatory scheme that is characterized with a high degree of 
friction slows down the U.S. space economy and thus advances 
the interests of our adversaries, including China, who do not 
share our domestic--our democratic principles and who would 
wish to export their ideals into space to direct--to our direct 
detriment.
    So what should a National Space Act look like? After West 
Virginia v. EPA, I think Congress needs to do four things. It 
needs to assign clear regulatory authority to any agency or 
small set of agencies with minimal gaps and overlaps. It must 
provide explicit rulemaking authority to that agency to create 
the rules of the road for space in the 21st century. It must 
also provide explicit enforcement powers to its chosen space 
agencies so that there is a cop on the beat to ensure both 
compliance with domestic law and the United States' obligations 
under international law. And four, understanding that some 
overlap is inevitable and that there must be some interagency 
coordination, ensure that that coordination process is as 
transparent as possible.
    Understand that I'm not advocating for Congress to 
overregulate space activities. Overregulation introduces levels 
of friction into the regulatory system that could accelerate 
flight overseas and play directly into the interests of our 
adversaries. Nor I'm advocating for a totally hands-off 
approach to space activities, but danger to the commons of 
outer space require us to be good stewards of the cislunar 
system.
    In the same way that the Earth sits in the Goldilocks zone 
of our solar system--not too close to the sun, not too far 
away--Congress' task is to find a balance on the continuum 
between permissionless innovation where nearly anything goes 
and the precautionary principle where the government must 
micromanage and approve every activity by U.S. citizens in 
space. This is a hard but necessary task if we wish to continue 
to be leaders in the cislunar economy going forward.
    I hope that this Committee will consider introducing in the 
formal record my paper entitled ``Regulating Outer Space: Of 
Gaps, Overlaps, and Stovepipes,'' and I welcome the questions 
and the dialog on these important issues. Thank you.
    [The prepared statement of Mr. Dunstan follows:]
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    Chairman Lucas. Thank you.
    And I now recognize Dr. Koller for five minutes to present 
his testimony.

      TESTIMONY OF DR. JOSEF S. KOLLER, SYSTEMS DIRECTOR,

             CENTER FOR SPACE POLICY AND STRATEGY,

                   THE AEROSPACE CORPORATION

    Dr. Koller. Thank you, Chairman Lucas and distinguished 
Members of the Committee, for inviting me to join the 
discussion on continuing U.S. leadership in commercial space at 
home and abroad. I'm Assistant Director at The Aerospace 
Corporation, which is a nonprofit, Federally Funded Research 
and Development Center (FFRDC) working across the entire space 
domain to solve complex problems and advanced solutions in the 
national interest. We provide independent and objective 
technical advice to all government space programs with a 
workforce of over 3,000 scientists and engineers. In addition 
to helping lead Aerospace Center for Space Policy and Strategy, 
I'm also the co-founder of the Space Safety Institute.
    Allow me to cover some aspects of a safety framework and 
why a holistic approach is critical to enable the projected 
growth in a space economy. The current approach in the 
commercial spaceflight sector is for industry to develop 
consensus standards before the government implements binding 
regulations. This approach appears sensible. There is a fear 
among commercial providers that regulation could only be a 
hindrance and could slow down innovation and progress. At the 
same time, even commercial providers are concerned that an 
accident would set the industry back by many years. These 
concerns center on defining the right balance to foster 
commercial innovation and safety. However, we should really 
broaden our discussion and create a more comprehensive picture 
of what contributes really to safety. In the end, no government 
regulation or industry standard can guarantee an accident-free 
environment. Only through a comprehensive set of safety-
promoting initiatives can we achieve a procedurally efficient, 
safety-effective, and innovation-permissible environment.
    Based on our study on developing a comprehensive safety 
framework for commercial spaceflight, we identified guiding 
principles and five major groups in a successful safety 
framework. First, people, safety culture, and a safety 
management system, these three are the most critical aspects of 
any safety framework as people are your eyes and ears on the 
ground and catch mistakes and possible failure modes early on 
before any regulators can.
    The next group consists of everything like best practices, 
industry consensus standards, regulation, certification, 
licensing, accident investigations, and so forth, all important 
in themselves.
    The third is about third-party reviews and safety case 
methods to identify safety blind spots because everybody has 
them.
    Fourth is another important one, which is on data 
collection and analysis in order to catch safety issues and 
failure modes so they can be anticipated, predicted, and 
mitigated.
    And fifth is a component on international cooperation and 
open collaboration. The full report describes those in detail 
and is publicly available online, and it also includes a 
roadmap for implementation.
    The second part of my testimony is regarding mission 
authorization of commercial human spaceflight and highlighting 
an issue that is separate from the learning period. The FAA 
oversees commercial spaceflight during launch and reentry, but 
operations outside the atmosphere are not part of the FAA's 
regulatory authority. Even when the learning period ends, the 
FAA authority to oversee passenger safety would only apply 
during launch and reentry. Just like commercial aviation 
benefits from a single oversight agency, commercial human 
spaceflight would do the same. It should be provided a one-stop 
shop with a continuous chain of custody through all phases of 
flight.
    In closing, I want to highlight the need for practical 
solutions and their implementation in addition to a 
comprehensive safety framework rather than the status quo. 
Economic growth is not enabled by the status quo but by a 
practical, innovation-permissive environment that is consistent 
with domestic and international obligations. The United States 
should lead the way in commercial human spaceflight safety.
    Thank you again for the opportunity to testify on these 
essential topics, and I look forward to your questions.
    [The prepared statement of Dr. Koller follows:]
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    Chairman Lucas. Thank you.
    I now recognize Ms. Schenewerk for five minutes to present 
her testimony.
    Ms. Schenewerk. Thank you.
    Chairman Lucas. I'm getting closer.

               TESTIMONY OF MS. CARYN SCHENEWERK,

                 PRESIDENT, CS CONSULTING, LLC

    Ms. Schenewerk. Chairman Lucas, Space and Aeronautics 
Subcommittee Ranking Member Sorensen, and distinguished Members 
of the Committee, thank you for inviting me to share my 
perspective on the U.S. commercial space industry. I think you 
will hear some similar themes to what you have heard from my 
colleagues. I am honored to appear before the Committee in my 
personal capacity, and I'm not representing any company or any 
client's views.
    Today's U.S. space industry's growth has been dependent on 
forward-looking policies and key government partnerships. This 
Committee's support for STEM (science, technology, engineering, 
and mathematics) education, as well as public-private 
partnerships that foster technical exchanges, Federal facility 
access, and early stage research and development has been 
essential. My testimony is aimed at clarifying a few key points 
regarding U.S. space law and policy governing private space 
activities.
    While I haven't been to space yet, I have significant 
experience engaging with the regulatory regimes governing space 
access. Most importantly, I hope to convey that space is highly 
regulated and shed light on oversight of launch and reentry, 
including the fact that human spaceflight is not wholly 
excluded from regulation. I also want to highlight the need for 
clarifying authority over exciting new or so-called novel space 
activities.
    My first point, the U.S. space industry is highly regulated 
and encompasses a diverse range of activities with different 
levels of maturity and customers. As such, it operates in 
accordance with a multitude of local, State, and Federal laws 
and depends--it depends on where companies operate. In some 
cases, in fact, they may be subject to foreign laws. U.S.-based 
companies are licensed based on their primary activities, 
launch reentry, remote sensing, and telecommunications by the 
FAA, NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration), 
and FCC respectively. That said, each of those activities may 
also require licenses from one or both of the non-primary 
agencies. Despite this Committee's support, we have not yet 
achieved a one-stop-shop approach to licensing space 
activities.
    In addition to space-focused regulations, companies, 
manufacturing, and testing facilities and operations are 
regulated by Federal, State, and local agencies governing 
environmental protections, labor practices, and transportation 
activities, among others. When companies utilize legacy U.S. 
Government capabilities such as launch sites or test stands on 
U.S. Space Force or NASA facilities, for example, they are 
subject to the controlling agency's rules and requirements.
    Second, U.S. launch and reentry companies, which compose a 
small segment of the space economy, approximately $7 billion of 
the $350-60 billion economy, private sector economy, are 
subject to U.S. law no matter where they operate. That was 
established in the 1994 Commercial Space Launch Act. The 
primary focus of the CLA-based licensing regulations and review 
is public safety. That requires the FAA to review and--the 
design, operation, and testing of a vehicle's flight safety 
system, as well as vehicle hazards, including debris, toxic 
release, and overpressure. As outlined in my written statement, 
obtaining a launch or reentry license is an extensive multiyear 
effort.
    With respect to human spaceflight, the learning period or 
moratorium does not limit all regulatory oversight. For 
example, the FAA regulates to protect crew members because they 
are part of the vehicle's flight safety system, which falls 
within the FAA's public safety authority. There are also 
regulations regarding spaceflight participants, including their 
training and acceptance of risk.
    Given the limited number of private human spaceflights, 
three orbital and seven suborbital, the ongoing opportunities 
for thoughtful engagement between the FAA and industry, as well 
as the FAA's challenges with implementing its existing 
regulations, the original premise underpinning the learning 
period still appear solid.
    Next, I'd like to quickly focus on novel activities, an 
emerging aspects of the space economy. These include in-space 
servicing, assembly, manufacturing, or in-space destinations, 
such as LEO habitats or Moon- or Mars-based capabilities. These 
are exciting endeavors that do not clearly fall within FAA, 
FCC, or NOAA's licensing regime. Significant support exists for 
the Commerce Department's Office of Commercial Space having 
mission authority over novel space activities. I recommend that 
this Committee support efforts to clarify agency authorities in 
a manner that is appropriate to the in-space activities and 
ensure that any regulatory regime is clearly defined. Continued 
uncertainty will diminish U.S.-based leadership and is costly 
to companies developing these novel and necessary capabilities.
    Last, effective regulatory regimes required resourced-
trained and organized regulators who engage meaningfully with 
cutting-edge innovations. Sometimes the safest approach may not 
look like the status quo. U.S. space policy and legal oversight 
is extensive. And while not perfect, it is facilitating rapid 
technological and scientific advances. I have no doubt that 
space capabilities are having or have the potential to 
positively impact each of your districts from agricultural 
optimization to disaster relief, energy efficiency efforts, and 
rural connectivity. As the Committee considers commercial space 
legislation, it has the opportunity to continue U.S. leadership 
and diminishing regulatory uncertainty, while facilitating 
continued space safety.
    Thank you for your time you're--thank you for the time you 
are investing in developing balanced and thoughtful 
legislation. I look forward to your questions.
    [The prepared statement of Ms. Schenewerk follows:]
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    Chairman Lucas. I want to thank all the witnesses for their 
testimony. And I recognize myself for five minutes.
    And I address my first question to both Ms. Schenewerk--
Ms.--yes, Schenewerk and Mr. Dunstan. How does the regulatory 
framework for commercial space activities in the United States 
compare with frameworks in other countries? And while you're 
thinking about that, are there any regulatory processes 
impacting the ability of U.S. space companies to compete 
internationally? A lot of question, but two good witnesses, 
whoever cares to go first.
    Mr. Dunstan. I'll jump in first. I think we need to 
understand that for a lot of other countries, their approach to 
space regulation began with more of a clean slate, more of a 
blank sheet of paper. And so they have--places like Luxembourg 
and the United Kingdom have, I think, more specific something 
approaching a National Space Act that we never had, whereas we 
have sort of built it from the agency up through the various 
processes. And so I think we're a little bit behind the curve 
because of the regulatory system that we already had in place.
    Ms. Schenewerk. Yes, I concur with Mr. Dunstan. In America, 
we love the phrase bootstrapped, and indeed, in this case, I 
would say that we have bootstrapped our legal regimes from 
existing regimes. And so, you know, that is a significant 
difference. And I do think that is a disadvantage in some 
cases. It does show American ingenuity and our willing to be 
innovative with regard to how we apply our regulations and our 
desire to ensure that our companies are able to proceed with 
their activities, but it definitely begs that, as we look at 
the new in-space activities, the ones that I mentioned and 
other ones that are--you know, even things like space nuclear 
power and propulsion, are we thinking about these new 
activities in a manner and devising legal regimes to govern 
them that are forward-looking? I like to say that we shouldn't 
let a failure of imagination be the source of our failure, and 
so we should be imaginative as we think about what the 
possibilities are for the future.
    And I do think that there is a point where we may realize 
that building on the existing foundation, we've built too many 
layers of the house, and the foundation is not strong enough to 
hold it. And so I do think that we need to be really thoughtful 
as we think, especially in competition with countries like 
China that have very different legal regimes, if you want to 
call it that, governing their activities. So I guess the short 
answer is we need to definitely be thoughtful about the way 
we're doing things today, and we certainly need to be very 
careful and thoughtful about how we devise new regulatory 
regimes for tomorrow's activities.
    Chairman Lucas. Absolutely. To Ms. Drees, in just over 2 
months, the statutory learning period that limits FAA's ability 
to regulate human spaceflight safety is set to expire. What's 
the status of standards development efforts related to 
commercial human spaceflight?
    Ms. Drees. Thank you so much for that question. The 
industry has been working very hard to ensure that we continue 
that standards process. We continue working directly with our 
regulator to ensure that we're developing these standards and 
eventually regulations very thoughtfully and very carefully. I 
agree with my colleagues that safety is the highest priority by 
far within industry. So, so far within the ASTM process, seven 
standards have been passed, two are up for ballot right now, 
and there are 10 currently being drafted. There has been 
substantial progress made even in the past 12 months. Everyone 
within the industry has now come to the table. And we also have 
FAA AST participating.
    Chairman Lucas. How would the added workload of regulating 
human spaceflight safety impact FAA's execution of its existing 
responsibilities to license launch and reentry of course to 
protect the uninvolved public?
    Ms. Drees. That's an excellent question. And one of the top 
concerns that we have with respect to the 460, which is the 
human spaceflight regulation, as there's a lot of work that 
still needs to be done on the part 450 regulation, which is the 
launch and reentry licensing piece that the FAA is responsible 
for. They released their new rule in 2020, and there's really a 
long way to go to ensure that that rule, that regulation is 
working well for industry. So the concern that we have is if we 
put too much on AST's plate all at once, it will really detract 
from their primary mission, which is the safety of the 
uninvolved public through launch and reentry regulation.
    Chairman Lucas. Mr. Dunstan, as noted in testimony, FCC is 
licensing authority for satellite spectrum. However, FCC has 
begun to propose regulation for satellite activities beyond the 
transmission spectrum. Is this consistent with FCC's authority 
in your opinion?
    Mr. Dunstan. I do not believe so. I think that exceeds the 
FCC's authorized authority to regulate.
    Chairman Lucas. Going one step further, is the FCC the 
appropriate agency to lead Federal efforts on satellite 
regulation beyond spectrum, or are there other agencies that 
have a stronger interest and bring better expertise to the 
table?
    Mr. Dunstan. I think there are other agencies that are 
better situated to do that. The FCC is incredibly good at 
licensing spectrum and allocating spectrum. A lot of the other 
stuff, they simply do not have the expertise in house.
    Chairman Lucas. If my colleagues will indulge me for one 
more moment, what are the potential consequences of FCC's 
increased involvement in space activities?
    Mr. Dunstan. Well, I think, first and foremost, it's going 
to be speed. The FCC has had a great difficulty even keeping up 
with the licensing of spectrum, and to put more on their plate 
in areas that they just are going to have to come up to speed 
on, I think it's going to slow those activities down 
substantially.
    Chairman Lucas. Thank you. My time has expired.I21I 
recognize Mr. Sorensen for five minutes.
    Mr. Sorensen. I'd like to begin by thanking Chairman Lucas 
for convening this hearing and our witnesses for appearing 
before us today.
    I'm a meteorologist and also the proud son of an aerospace 
engineer, who was a contractor supporting the Space Shuttle 
Program. I have a visceral memory of the loss of Challenger and 
her crew. After the Challenger disaster, I didn't see my dad 
for several days. My dad worked for Sundstrand in Rockford, 
Illinois, a city that I now represent. Sundstrand was a 
contractor on the Challenger project. And after the disaster, 
my dad and his colleagues spent days determining if the O rings 
that they produced for a mission were on that shuttle, and they 
were not. With that indelible imprint from my childhood, I'm 
very interested in knowing what can be done to continually 
improve safety for those explorers and those heroes.
    As the Committee that leads our government's R&D efforts, 
we have an obligation to ensure spaceflight safety. Ms. Drees, 
can you speak to what agency such as the FAA's Office for 
Commercial Space Transportation are doing on R&D to support 
commercial human spaceflight safety? And are there other areas 
of R&D that would enable continued safety advances in 
commercial human spaceflight?
    Ms. Drees. Thank you so much for that question, Congressman 
Sorensen. I completely agree with you that safety is by far the 
most important aspect of the entire industry. And every single 
one of our members, as far as I know, believes that as well, 
which is why we're working so hard to ensure that we maintain 
the perfect public safety record that we have with commercial 
human spaceflight.
    You mentioned the shuttle program. And yes, our members and 
myself obviously agree that those tragedies were very difficult 
for every single American and especially myself and folks in my 
generation growing up in that era. It wasn't so much the Apollo 
program. For us, it was the shuttle program that was so 
impactful for my generation. The challenge that we have on a 
regular basis with respect to safety is we want to be able to 
innovate our vehicles to ensure those things don't happen, 
which is exactly what we're doing.
    So the challenge is if we start developing that regulatory 
environment too soon before we have enough data, before we have 
enough knowledge of those individual vehicles, there is a long-
term safety risk that something could go wrong. The purpose of 
continuing to innovate while we develop these standards side by 
side with the regulator will allow us to have the best, the 
most safe vehicles on the market in the future.
    Mr. Sorensen. I appreciate that. We--instead of learning 
from our mistakes, we need to make sure that we're using 
science to not make the mistakes in the first place.
    To Dr. Koller, we recently lived through the harrowing 
incident of the OceanGate Titan submersible and the rescue 
campaign that was undertaken. As we see the rapid evolution of 
commercial space activities, what do we know about 
contingencies for on-orbit human safety and in-space rescue, 
which will be even more challenging than was done for Titan? 
And who would be responsible for that?
    Dr. Koller. That is a very important question. Thank you 
for asking that. Often, people make comparisons and also call 
it apples and oranges. What's similar is that similar 
clienteles, similar, you know, price range, informed consent. 
But when it comes to in-space rescue, comparing it to the 
OceanGate tragedy, what's really important to understand is do 
we have the capabilities, the authorities, and the environment 
in place to actually rescue somebody from space? You know, for 
the OceanGate tragedy, the Coast Guard immediately--and from--
not just from the United States, but from other nations, rushed 
to rescue and spend enormous amount of effort trying to find 
the submersible. We do not have anything in place for in-space 
rescue. We have no strategy in place. We have no capabilities. 
And I think we need to start now to learn from examples like 
the submersible and submarine rescue and from the past and what 
capabilities need to be put into place, but also answer the 
question on who pays for what efforts? Because is it a 
humanitarian effort to rescue somebody in space? And so all 
these questions still need to be answered.
    Mr. Sorensen. Thank you for that. And, Mr. Chairman, I 
yield back.
    Chairman Lucas. The gentleman's time has expired.
    The Chair recognizes the gentleman from Florida, Mr. Posey, 
for five minutes.
    Mr. Posey. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. Ms. Drees, 
why is it important that the United States lead the standards 
process, developing standards?
    Mr. Dunstan. Thank you so much for that question. Just as 
we want to set the norms of behavior in space, we want to be 
able to have a good standards regime within the United States 
that the entire international community follows. And the 
challenge that we're having right now is if we're too focused 
on some of these other things or too distracted by some of 
these other things, then the challenge is international players 
could start to develop their own standards as they dominate 
more of the space activities.
    Mr. Posey. I heard some references to giving FAA more 
authority to regulate space, and I just want to share with you 
before I got elected to Congress, Starfighters, who operate a 
fleet of F-104s flown by pilots that have flown zillions of 
missions and zillions of miles safely, have been doing 
parabolic testing for NASA for years. You know, it's so much 
cheaper to put your experiment in the backseat of an F-104 and 
do some parabolic stuff than it is to launch a rocket to do the 
same thing.
    And as it would be, some people said, hey, I'd really like 
to take a ride in one of those things, and, you know, witness 
weightlessness for myself. You know, the space tourism business 
is already booming. We'd already heard about people with, you 
know, hundreds of reservations at a quarter-million bucks a 
shot, be weightless, and taking them up in the cargo planes. 
And so Starfighters applied for a launch license to carry these 
tourists. That was 14 years ago. Now, before they even applied, 
FAA had licensed human space launches in Nevada for a company 
that had, you know, never launched a bottle rocket. And they 
said, well, you know, we regulate airlines from Washington, 
D.C., to Orlando, things like that, and we did this real 
extreme over here space regulation, but you're kind of in the 
middle. So for over 14 years, they've been fighting to get a 
license that any other country in the world would gleefully 
grant them. So, you know, I'm real concerned about that. And 
can the U.S. Government support the commercial space industry 
with its allies in global standards bodies?
    Ms. Drees. Yes, absolutely. And our members are working 
very hard on standards development across the board, not only 
with human spaceflight, but there are a lot of standards 
organizations that we're helping to be involved with to ensure 
that we're setting the stage for these norms of behavior.
    Mr. Posey. Mr. Dunstan, what do you think about the 
prospect of FAA basically taking over all space activities?
    Mr. Dunstan. I don't know that the FAA has that expertise 
in house. It certainly has the expertise as to launch and 
reentry. They've got great engineers over there. But when 
you're talking about what activity somebody can conduct in 
space, I'm not too sure FAA is the proper home to be 
authorizing that or regulating that activity.
    Mr. Posey. Thank you very much. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I 
yield back.
    Chairman Lucas. The gentleman yields back.
    The Chair recognizes the Ranking Member for five minutes, 
Ms. Lofgren of California.
    Ms. Lofgren. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    One of the things that, you know, I think we need to wrap 
our heads around is who bears the risk of commercial activities 
in space? Who's accountable for things that go wrong? And along 
those lines, I'm concerned about the potential for on-orbit 
collisions from space debris, defunct satellites, or even 
active satellites, especially with mega-constellations being 
deployed that comprise large numbers of satellites. The United 
Nations is taking a look at this issue, along with others. And 
I'm not sure who in the United States is accountable for the 
potential damage for these risks.
    Now, the Department of Commerce's Office of Space Commerce 
is currently working to establish a civil space situational 
awareness capability to track debris and issue warnings to 
space operators on potential collisions. And the DOD, of 
course, is performing this function, but I think it's eager to 
transition it.
    So to what extent is there a clear plan in place for the 
civil capability? What will it entail? How do we deal with the 
potential and avert the collision risk? And I don't know who 
would--should answer this, but maybe we'll start with you, Dr. 
Koller?
    Dr. Koller. Thank you very much. That's a very important 
question. Space debris is a real issue and conjunction 
avoidance maneuvers are done to a large degree, especially with 
large constellations. To the first part of your question, who 
bears responsibility, well, I want to defer to my legal 
colleagues here on this distinguished panel, but it's the Outer 
Space Treaty, Article VI, continuous authorization and 
supervision that's mirrored by other nations.
    So the plan is I think some--let me answer the question 
from an international perspective. What I see is that the 
United States has been struggling with who should hold what 
types of responsibilities and authorities in this arena. And I 
see the international community standing by to some degree. But 
I think that time is about to pass now, and I think the status 
quo is not adequate. I see where we're trying to figure out 
who--what organization should hold what responsibilities, and I 
think it's time to make an assignment and stick with that 
assignment.
    Ms. Schenewerk. Thank you, Ranking Member Lofgren. So a 
couple of things that contribute to this. One is that my 
colleague is correct. The Outer Space Treaty addresses this, 
but it's actually addressed in the liability convention. And 
the liability convention is focused, as are most activities and 
discussions around space, with the idea of protecting the 
uninvolved public and accepting risk in space. So the liability 
convention assigns strict liability for activities that occur 
in the airspace, so in Earth's airspace or on the ground. So to 
the extent that a piece of debris falls from space and lands on 
my car, the launching State is responsible for that. And I've 
actually been involved personally in managing debris that has 
reentered and had to be cleaned up or addressed.
    And so what happens is, it's a government-to-government 
engagement because it's a treaty obligation. And we have 
insurance in the launch industry and reentry insurance in the 
launch and reentry regulations that governs that 
responsibility, that indemnifies the government or covers the 
government up to a certain amount. And we've never, ever had 
any claims in any way that hit any kind of cap on the 
insurance, the coverage that's required. But it's strict 
liability in space. It's actually--you have to find fault. So 
it's more similar to you know, what we would consider regular 
tort liability. And so that's the framework, and it's the idea 
that if you're in space, you're accepting the risk of being in 
space.
    The second aspect that I want to highlight on this is the--
are there efforts that are happening at the United Nations, for 
example, with the long-term sustainability space activity, so 
that's working to set norms of behavior in a collaborative 
environment at the United Nations, as well as significant 
nonprofit efforts and industry-led efforts. So even the World 
Economic Forum is talking about safe space sustainability at 
this point. COMSTAC has talked about the issue. I know COMSPOC 
is thinking about the issue. There are numerous activities. It 
is the hot topic of the day because everybody recognizes that 
the last thing we want to do is junk up space because then we 
can't use space for all these very important capabilities that 
can save lives on Earth.
    Ms. Lofgren. Very good. Mr. Chairman, I yield back.
    Mr. Babin [presiding]. Thank you very much. And I'd like 
recognize myself for five minutes.
    First off, thank you very much, every one of you, for being 
here. Ms. Drees, the last Commercial Space Act called for the 
FAA to deliver a report on human spaceflight safety frameworks. 
This report was to be delivered after coordination with the 
Commercial Space Transportation Advisory Committee, COMSTAC, 
but the FAA posted a draft report that was not coordinated with 
COMSTAC. What is the status of that report, and why did the FAA 
issue a draft report without COMSTAC's input?
    Ms. Drees. Thank you so much for that question. And by the 
way, it's my honor to serve as the current Chair for the 
COMSTAC, so I'm----
    Mr. Babin. Right.
    Ms. Drees [continuing]. Deeply involved in these topics.
    So the FAA has drafted a report to Congress. They've asked 
COMSTAC for input on the report. COMSTAC held a meeting in May 
to discuss the report and come up with recommendations for the 
FAA. COMSTAC has agreed on the recommendations. We're still 
working through some of the additional language. So COMSTAC 
will be sending that report--the comments back to FAA probably 
within the next week, and then the FAA will be able to wrap up 
that report.
    The challenge, from my perspective, is that we did not see 
much information in the first draft of that report responding 
to the question of which aspects of the industry are ready for 
new regulation and why. So when COMSTAC weighed in, we wanted 
to make sure that that concern was addressed.
    Mr. Babin. OK. Thank you. Ms. Schenewerk--I know how to 
pronounce your name--the approval process for commercial remote 
sensing systems involves an opaque interagency process that has 
led to licensing delays and often overly burdensome conditions 
placed on the operators. This inefficiency had significant 
impacts on U.S. leadership. When several U.S. companies sought 
to establish synthetic aperture radar services here in the 
1990's--we've alluded to this already a little bit--delays and 
dysfunction in the approval process pushed those capabilities 
overseas. Many proposed models for space governance feature the 
same opaque interagency structure that operates outside of the 
Administrative Procedures Act. How can we ensure all space 
activities don't fall victim to the same troubles that the 
commercial remote sensing industry did?
    Ms. Schenewerk. Thank you, sir. I think it's because of the 
Texan connection.
    Mr. Babin. That's it.
    Ms. Schenewerk. So I very much appreciate your question. 
And I think that the point is exactly that. At the end of the 
day, somebody has to be responsible. So one of the fundamental, 
you know, issues that we face in the remote sensing world has 
been whether or not a specific office and a specific designated 
official has a responsibility for approving or disapproving and 
even getting feedback, specific actionable feedback in a clear 
timeframe to the applicant. And, you know, we're facing that 
challenge across all these regulatory regimes that govern our 
space activity, but you're correct that in the remote sensing 
realm, it specifically was a problem that did send activity 
overseas.
    And so, you know, we're seeing a resurgence in--a 
significant resurgence in Earth observation capabilities 
growing in the United States right now for a number of reasons. 
And the last thing we want to do is see a chilling effect on 
that as a result of that problem, the black box problem, as 
it's been referred to. So I'd say that as we develop a regime 
to govern any kind of novel activities, in-space activities, 
that's often talked about as an interagency process, right? We 
need to have a clear door that I take my clients to, a clear 
person who is responsible at the end of the day for 
adjudicating the differences among the agencies and making a 
decision that they can be held accountable for in allowing or 
disallowing or placing conditions upon the applicant's 
activities.
    Mr. Babin. OK. Thank you very much, Ms. Schenewerk.
    Mr. Dunstan, does the National Environmental Policy Act, 
NEPA, pertain to activities in space?
    Mr. Dunstan. Thank you for that question. I believe it does 
not. TechFreedom has filed two amicus briefs on appeals from 
the FCC in which we walked through the history of NEPA. In 
fact, it was passed in 1969. Something else really important in 
space happened in 1969. We were walking on the Moon. It was 
also just after the Senate had ratified the Outer Space Treaty 
of 1967. Congress knows how to specify when it wants something 
to apply to outer space, and Congress did not say that NEPA 
applies to outer space.
    Mr. Babin. Absolutely. Thank you.
    One more. Ms. Drees, the FAA recently announced plans to 
reduce the amount of airspace closed off around launches at the 
Cape. What are the FAA and industry doing to better integrate 
and coordinate launch activity with air traffic? And are there 
recommendations from advisory groups that the FAA has not 
implemented?
    Ms. Drees. Thank you so much for that question. I'll be 
very brief. So there are opportunities now for industry to work 
directly with FAA, and we're doing that through a Collaborative 
Decision Making (CDM) effort where a lot of the space 
companies, including Commercial Spaceflight Federation, are 
talking directly with FAA ATO (Air Traffic Organization) on a 
lot of airspace issues. ATO has been working on developing this 
space data integrator tool. There are other tools that they're 
considering. And this was part of the recommendation from the 
SPARC in 2018, I believe, or the airspace ARC at the time, 
where we recommended some additional tools.
    So the FAA is evaluating those options at this point, and 
we are working very closely with them. We are also working 
closely with the airline community. Now, that's something 
that's different through the CDM process to ensure that we're 
exchanging information in much better--much more real time and 
having those open dialogs with the aviation community.
    Mr. Babin. OK. Thank you very much.
    And I'd like to recognize the gentlewoman from Oregon, Ms. 
Bonamici.
    Ms. Bonamici. Thank you to the Chair and Ranking Member, 
and thank you to the witnesses for being here and for your 
expertise.
    I'm grateful that we're having this hearing because the 
rate of human spaceflight and commercial activity has risen 
steeply since 2015 when Congress last considered updates to 
commercial space policy. In fact, according to the FAA in 2022, 
last year, a record 79 licensed launches made commercial space 
activity, nine times more frequent than it was in 2015. 
Commercial rockets are servicing the International Space 
Station. Regular satellite launches and the advent of 
commercial space tourism have raised concerns about improving 
human and environmental safety. And I think that's especially 
highlighted now in light of the recent analogous OceanGate 
situation.
    It's also critical to strengthen the transparency about 
occupant risk and also build cooperation and collaboration 
among companies and regulators as we assess this maturing 
industry and put safety at the center of its rapid innovation.
    So I want to ask first, Ms. Schenewerk, this past April, as 
you know, SpaceX attempted the first launch of the orbital test 
flight with its Starship rocket, which exploded and destroyed 
much of the launch pad. So the results sent concrete chunks of 
the pad, clouds of pulverized debris miles away, and that 
affected south Texas towns and a national wildlife refuge. And 
it's my understanding that both SpaceX and the U.S. Government 
are facing lawsuits, and the environmental effects are still 
being assessed.
    So is it clear who's responsible for understanding, 
assessing, and, where appropriate, mitigating against 
environmental risks and other consequences of commercial space 
launches?
    Ms. Schenewerk. Yes, ma'am, it is. Thank you for your 
question, Ms. Bonamici. It is actually clear. So the thing that 
is true about the space activity that you just referenced is 
that it is subject to environmental law no differently than any 
other activity, whether it's an industrial activity, a building 
activity, whatever it may be. The--NEPA applies in the same 
manner. So in my testimony, my written testimony, I included a 
chart that showed all the different parts of the review of a 
license or reentry activity, and a significant aspect of that 
is actually the environmental review. It can take many years 
before you can even start building your launch site or your 
reentry site. Reentry sites tend to be less construction to 
date, but that environmental review--so--and it depends on, you 
know, is--and you follow the same evaluation on whether or not 
it's an environmental--an EA (Environmental Assessment) or an 
impact statement.
    Ms. Bonamici. Right.
    Ms. Schenewerk. So the answer is yes, it does apply, and 
the activities that will follow, will follow the law in the 
same manner that they would, regardless of the leading agency.
    Ms. Bonamici. Terrific, that's helpful. My next question is 
for Ms. Drees. The commercial spaceflight industry operates 
under an informed consent system currently for human 
spaceflight. So in the April 2023 report, the RAND Corporation 
stated that was unable to examine the extent to which 
spaceflight participants are being fully informed of the risks 
because informed consent documents are considered proprietary. 
So, Ms. Drees, how can the commercial spaceflight industry 
improve transparency? And how can Congress and the FAA evaluate 
the safety the industry if the moratorium on commercial 
regulation is extended another eight years, especially when 
consent documents are considered proprietary?
    Ms. Drees. Thank you so much for that question. Yes, so the 
industry currently operates under an informed consent regime. 
The FAA currently regulates the launch and reentry aspects of 
the actual launch. They regulate some aspects of the vehicle, 
but the participants that are inside the vehicle participating 
in that activity are asked to sign a waiver essentially saying 
that they've been told what the risks are of that vehicle, 
they've been told that that vehicle has not been certified by 
the FAA, et cetera. The FAA has very specific requirements for 
what the operator must inform all participants of regarding the 
spaceflight experience. The participant is very well-informed 
because of what the FAA requires and there is a pretty 
extensive process in place to ensure that the folks that are 
signing those informed consent waivers know exactly what 
they're signing.
    Ms. Bonamici. I appreciate that. And, Dr. Koller, your 
studies focus on what can be done to improve safety was based 
on an extensive analysis of other commercial sectors, and you 
note that the study's recommendations do not affect space 
vehicle design or affect innovation. So with that in mind, is 
there any reason the government should not require or regulate 
actions to improve safety, or should it be voluntary?
    Dr. Koller. I think it's really important to broaden the 
conversation and, in addition, to talk about the difference 
between industry best practices and regulation is that we 
broaden our perspective on what contributes to safety. There is 
an inextricable tie between safety culture and the prevention 
of accidents, for example. Another example is there's--we need 
to understand where failure modes are coming from. So 
collecting data, analyzing it is very important. Otherwise, 
you're just working in a retroactive regime, and we need to be 
proactive and predictive.
    Ms. Bonamici. I agree with that.
    Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back.
    Mr. Babin. Thank you very much.
    And now I'd like to recognize the gentleman from Indiana, 
Mr. Baird.
    Mr. Baird. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and Ranking Member. I 
appreciate the opportunity to listen to such expertise from our 
great witnesses, so we thank you for being here.
    You know, a few months back I had an experience visiting 
the Zucrow Labs at Purdue University. This one-of-a-kind 
facility developed a Hypersonic Pulse shock tunnel, which allow 
for flight simulations for speeds ranging from Mach 5, to Mach 
40, their most recent development being a Mach 8 quiet wind 
tunnel. And this one wind tunnel provides a critical 
development in hypersonics and is the first of its kind to 
collect data in speeds greater than Mach 6. The advancement in 
the hypersonic industry is reimaging--reimagining the way we 
look at suborbital commercial flight.
    So my first question, Ms. Drees, goes to you. You mentioned 
in your testimony that Congress should enact a learning period 
extension past September of this year and mentioned 2031. If 
the learning period was to expire, can you explain the impact 
that this would have on our advancements in hypersonics and 
global competitiveness? And do you agree with CSF to extend the 
learning period to 2031, or would you suggest something else?
    Ms. Drees. Thank you so much for that question. Yes, CSF 
absolutely agrees that the learning period should be extended 
for a number of reasons. You know, first and foremost, with a 
focus on safety, we feel like the only way to achieve that in 
the long-term is by focusing on industry consensus standards 
today rather than writing regulation today based on the 
vehicles that are that are designed today. We want to enable an 
industry that allows entrepreneurs to flourish and that allows 
new companies to come online with new capabilities. It's very 
difficult to do that if the regulation is already in place. 
There's a lot that we have to sacrifice potentially and give up 
if we start regulating now versus allowing companies to 
continue innovating on their own designs.
    The challenge that we have is the folks that are designing 
these vehicles are the experts. They truly are the experts. 
There's no one else that they can lean on to get advice from on 
how they should develop their own systems. So we want to be 
able to continue focusing on those standards alongside FAA 
until we get to that point where we're much more mature as an 
industry and adequately informed to focus on regulations.
    Mr. Baird. So would any of the other witnesses care to 
comment on that question?
    Ms. Schenewerk. I'll just add, sir, that one of the 
important points about where the industry is, is that it's a 
very diverse industry right now. So we have three activities 
that are occurring or three entities that are licensed to 
operate and fly, including humans. Those three entities and 
their vehicles look vastly different. So I think it's an 
important point that, you know, writing a regulation based on a 
number as small as three is a challenge in and of itself, much 
less in an industry where you haven't had a consolidation of 
design.
    So what we often see in much more regulated industries such 
as, you know, the cruise industry, even the commercial aviation 
industry, trucking industry, is that those things all look like 
each other. So, you know, you can have innovation around the 
software around the edges of those, but what you don't see is 
real innovation in the design of the vehicle in and of itself.
    And I'll point to the fact that our industry has really 
innovated in ways that are driven at safety. For example, the 
vehicle that is flying to space right now looked at the 
previous vehicles and learned the lessons based on the data and 
the science around what the best shape of a vehicle is for the 
highest safety factors. And that, of course, was in 
partnership--and this is a very important point--with NASA, 
and, you know, thereby with the government.
    And so I think there's also a point to be made around this, 
that these activities aren't happening in a vacuum, pun 
intended. They're happening in partnership, often with 
government officials, and they're based on a significant amount 
of experience in the past.
    I also will add that one of the ways that we could benefit 
is we do have expertise that aren't in government today or 
aren't in the companies, but the availability of those folks 
and the way that they engage is often somewhat challenging. So 
I think that we need to have a situation where we can have, you 
know, free access, for example, perhaps to engineers at FFRDCs, 
or free ability to exchange information.
    That said, proprietary--the proprietary aspect of these 
vehicles is still an important aspect of being commercial and 
being competitive. And I think that what we'll continue to see 
is safe operations because we also see aligned incentives 
across government, industry, and the regulators.
    Mr. Baird. Thank you for that. And I see my time is 
expired, and I yield back, Mr. Chairman.
    Mr. Babin. Thank you.
    I'd like to recognize the gentlewoman from Michigan, Ms. 
Stevens.
    Ms. Stevens. Thank you, Mr. Chair. And thanks to all our 
panelists. It's a big topic that deserves a lot of attention 
and, frankly, coordination across multiple Committees in the 
Congress, which is how the United States is going to continue 
to lead in the commercial space industry.
    And we talk a lot on this Committee about investment and 
the need to invest, and we go through that in our 
reauthorization process. And we're also in appropriations. But 
as I was thinking about today's hearing and as I heard Mr. 
Dunstan deliver his opening testimony, I just have to ask, 
where and how is the international law working? And what 
happens if it gets broken? And we start to see a lot of 
innovation coming into play. We recognize and remember Mr. Musk 
doing Starlink for when Russia invaded Ukraine. But what 
happens if that takes place in the reverse? And how do we start 
enforcing--and this is in one of your recommendations, sir. How 
do we start enforcing international law if we're working with 
actors who might seek to break it?
    Mr. Dunstan. Well, when I was discussing enforcing, I was 
specifically talking about U.S. agencies regulating U.S. 
companies. Obviously, when we're talking about international 
treaty obligations and norms, now, you've got to go to the 
State Department, which is our--which is our arm there, which 
is more difficult. And we do have a Space Force, our United 
States military, it protects our interests on the high seas, 
and hopefully, the Space Force will protect our interests and 
our citizens in outer space.
    Ms. Stevens. And as we're looking to compete with the 
Chinese Communist Party--and I'm on the Select Committee for 
that topic--we're looking at a range of business practices that 
are fair, some that are not. And are you aware of any instances 
in which some nations that might be more adversarial to the 
United States are not necessarily obliging treaty negotiations 
or are potentially giving a signal that State-owned enterprises 
are going to get in the way of our free market enterprise as it 
pertains to commercial space activity?
    Mr. Dunstan. So thank you for that question. I think it's 
twofold. One is the--I think the real problem that we're seeing 
right now is we're seeing especially Chinese companies coming 
in and trying to buy their way into U.S. technology. I'm--have 
a number of clients who, frankly, have turned down some pretty 
big sums of money because when you trace it back through the 
eight or nine layers of companies, it turns out the money is 
coming from China. And we know that what's going to happen 
there is going to be an outflow of intellectual property. So 
they're--it's----
    Ms. Stevens. They're willfully making that choice to turn 
down the----
    Mr. Dunstan. Yes. Yes, they are. The second thing I think 
is the United States needs to be more aggressive in terms of 
its stance on ASATs (anti-satellite weapons), and we need to 
take a position and push the international community to stop 
testing things that create tens of thousands of pieces of 
debris. It's just stupid. And frankly, it doesn't really need 
to be done. We know how that works. We know how bombs work----
    Ms. Stevens. Right.
    Mr. Dunstan [continuing]. And so we should really press our 
international----
    Ms. Stevens. Debris has come up a couple of times already, 
and I had a question on debris as well because how are we 
managing that? And even the simple question of how does a 
satellite get into space and what rules do you have to go 
through? And we've obviously got our own system, and then 
there's other countries that have their own system per se, but 
then we're dealing with this junk and it's--it is going to 
cause us some challenges. And so I don't know if any of our 
other witnesses want to jump in on the risks of debris in 
addition to what we've already talked about.
    Dr. Koller. Yes, if I may add to that, there are several 
ways of dealing with debris. One, of course, is the Space 
Traffic Coordination System that lets you coordinate amongst 
the different operators to avoid the debris generation through 
conjunction and collisions. There are other effects like in 
drag debris. If it's in low-Earth orbit, it will reenter 
automatically, so if your placement is not high enough, it's in 
the lower-Earth orbit, it will automatically reenter. And third 
is active debris removal. And I think there is some more work 
to be done----
    Ms. Stevens. Yes, and who pays for that, right, and how do 
we--you know, are we picking up the world's debris in outer 
space? And, you know, who are good actors, who are not in 
different systems, and the like? I mean, those are good 
questions, and we'll submit the rest for the record. But thank 
you all so much.
    And I yield back, Mr. Chair.
    Mr. Babin. Yes, ma'am. Thank you.
    And I'd like to recognize the gentleman from Florida, Mr. 
Webster.
    Mr. Webster. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
    Mr. Babin. Yes, sir.
    Mr. Webster. Let's see. Ms. Schenewerk, you mentioned 
that--the possibility of companies experiencing overregulation 
or other things that could drive them away from the United 
States into another place? What do you think that we as a 
Congress should do? I guess, there's some regulatory things 
that already is--sort of people understand and we're talking 
about, but what could we do to prevent that or maybe enhance 
that or something?
    Ms. Schenewerk. Thank you, Congressman Webster. So I think 
the most important piece is looking both at what we're doing 
today and looking at what we're planning for the future. So the 
activities, the in-space servicing activities, assembly, 
manufacturing, mobility activities, space habitats, the 
activities that are not subject to the launch and reentry 
regulations where we definitively say that you are subject to 
U.S. law and jurisdiction no matter where you go, those in-
space activities, particularly the ones that I think will 
define the future of our industry, as we think about who owns 
the oversight of that--and, as I mentioned in my testimony, 
there's a lot of thought around the Department of Commerce's 
Office of Space Commerce handling that. That ownership at 
Office of Space Commerce is more similar to the way other 
countries have structured theirs where they're thinking about 
those activities in regards to their economic contribution and 
the potential for economic growth and also their terrestrial 
impacts.
    And so I would say that what we want to do is make sure 
that we develop an oversight regime that is clear, clearly 
defined, transparent, and has clear timeframes for feedback to 
applicants so I know which door to go into, I know how long 
it's going to take, I know exactly what I need to provide. And 
I will say that what I need to provide should be clearly tied 
to the key aspects of the activity. What are the most important 
things that the government cares about? Is it a national 
security concern? And then who is responsible with the national 
security apparatus to give the feedback back to the person who 
is the authority at the Department of Commerce, and thereby 
adjudicate the decision and give me my license?
    Mr. Webster. So just as much as the determination of what 
should be done, there's also the idea of what agency, what 
department, what form of Federal Government or one that doesn't 
even exist should take up those? And it could be multiple ones, 
is that correct?
    Ms. Schenewerk. Well, currently, it is multiple, and I 
don't honestly see a day where it won't be multiple. So an in-
space activity, for example, a company that wants to provide 
space servicing, who wants to refuel on orbit or wants to clean 
up debris on orbit, they're going to use spectrum, so they're 
going to have to talk to the FCC no matter what because they're 
going to need to communicate with their satellite. If they're 
undertaking remote sensing activities, which they probably are 
because they're probably doing rendezvous proximity operations 
in order to combine with another satellite and provide that 
refueling or to pick up that debris, that currently is an 
activity that is mostly overseen by the Department of 
Commerce's NOAA and its remote sensing regulations. So, you 
know, that--there's some expertise there with that activity. So 
I think we can find--we'll find ourselves in one office, but 
we'll find ourselves, as we do today, talking to multiple 
offices unless we have a wholesale reform of our regulatory 
approach to space.
    Mr. Webster. Thank you very much. Let's see. Ms. Drees, how 
does AI (artificial intelligence) affect all these things we're 
talking about?
    Ms. Drees. That's a really interesting topic and one that, 
you know, our members are paying very close attention to. There 
are definitely a lot of benefits and a lot of risks with 
artificial intelligence, especially with something as sensitive 
as space. We have a lot of smart people working on these issues 
right now. And, you know, there are some companies that are 
already starting to use AI for their technical development, so 
it's definitely something the industry is watching very 
closely.
    Mr. Webster. Thank you very much. I yield back.
    Mr. Weber [presiding]. The gentleman yields back.
    The Chair now recognizes Ms. Ross from North Carolina.
    Ms. Ross. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman and Ranking 
Member Lofgren, for holding this hearing. And thank you to all 
the panelists for joining us today.
    My State of North Carolina--actually, our State of North 
Carolina--has a longstanding Federal-State partnership with 
NASA that brings an impressive capacity to NASA and the Nation 
through leveraging research, education, outreach, and products 
that have relevance and transferability at the State, regional, 
and national levels. In 1991, North Carolina Space Grant was 
established, which is administered at NC State University in my 
district. North Carolina is inspiring the NASA and commercial 
space workforce of the future. In fact, one of our own NC State 
graduates, Christina Koch, is one of the four astronauts 
selected for Artemis II, the first crewed mission on NASA's 
path to establishing a long-term presence at the Moon for 
science and exploration.
    My first question is for Ms. Schenewerk. You have extensive 
experience in the commercial launch industry. To what extent is 
workforce and the availability of a skilled workforce an issue, 
and does this issue affect the commercial space sector? And are 
there issues for Congress to address?
    Ms. Schenewerk. Congressman Ross, I'm so grateful for this 
question because I--there are issues. And the--it's an 
important topic, actually, with regard to regulation because 
one of the things that we heard at the COMSTAC meeting just 
this week in our discussion about the oversight of launch and 
reentry and the implementation of Part 450 is the challenge 
that the regulators are finding in recruiting and retaining 
talent. So they need engineering talent and analytical talent 
that can go toe-to-toe with the industry in order to be able to 
engage with us meaningfully in our innovative designs and 
operations.
    And so one of the things that we really need to be, you 
know, thinking about, and I think this is a charge for the 
Committee, is what does it look like to be able to support that 
agency and the other agencies that oversee space and making 
sure that they are staffed in a manner that fulfills their 
obligations to your interests and fulfill--in furthering 
research and development, in furthering safe regulations, and 
in making sure that we're competitive. So thank you for that 
question.
    Ms. Ross. Do any of the other panelists want to weigh in?
    Dr. Koller. Yes, real quick, what I would like to say is 
about five years ago, I asked a similar question at a panel. 
And at that time, it was not relevant or deemed not relevant. 
Today, I really appreciate the question and highlighting that 
issue.
    Just to summarize very shortly, I do not think you can grow 
a $1 trillion space economy without the adequate workforce. So 
crucially, investments are desperately necessary.
    Ms. Ross. Great. Anybody else?
    Ms. Drees. Yes, absolutely. We are very proud in our 
membership. You know, when we think about STEM, when we think 
about, you know, the--educating the workforce, our members are 
highly in tune with us and highly interested in this. And in a 
lot of ways, the new space industry is STEM. You know, this is 
where we're getting a lot of folks interested in the science 
and engineering jobs. A lot of our members have their own 
organizations that help to inspire and really get even kids as 
young as kindergarten excited about what's going on in the 
space industry. So we do see this as a real challenge, but I 
think a lot of the new space companies are proactively engaging 
not only with the educational systems, but also with the 
Administration, with the Space Council and their STEM 
initiatives because we recognize that, as the industry grows, 
developing talent is going to be absolutely critical.
    Ms. Ross. And just to re-ask my last part of the question, 
what can Congress do? Because what I've noticed is with 
everything going on, with the Webb telescope--I also have the 
Museum of Natural Sciences in my district, which projects all 
of these things in this enormous globe called the Daily Planet 
where you can watch what's going on in space--that Congress has 
made some recent investments in space exploration so kids want 
to be rocket scientists again instead of go to Wall Street. And 
is that something that's on us to do as well as you?
    Mr. Dunstan. Yes, I'll take that one. I appreciate the 
question. I think the answer is that Congress needs to make 
clear that space is open for business and that there are 
opportunities there. In addition to my space law practice, I 
have done an awful lot of internet law, and I will tell you, we 
lost an entire generation of what--who probably would have been 
aerospace engineers, became internet engineers because that was 
the exciting place to be. And so we need to do everything we 
can to re-entice the next generation coming up. At a very early 
age STEM has got to start, as Ms. Drees said, in kindergarten. 
And we've got to make sure that everybody understands that 
there's a place in space as a child growing up. Thank you.
    Ms. Ross. Great. Thank you. And I yield back.
    Mr. Weber. Thank you. And by the way, gentlelady from North 
Carolina, I believe Christina Koch lives in my district, just 
so you know.
    Ms. Ross. Educate me.
    Mr. Weber. All right. OK. All right. A little friendly 
competition there.
    The Chair now recognizes Mr. Strong.
    Mr. Strong. Thank you, Chairman Weber.
    My district is an epicenter for space activity in the 
United States with NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center and many 
space industry partners located in the greater Huntsville area. 
I look forward to working with my colleagues on developing a 
modern commercial space bill that supports the growing number 
of space companies in my district, while also supporting our 
civil and national security space capabilities.
    Ms. Drees, you mentioned that Commercial Spaceflight 
Federation members are already using cislunar space to generate 
value for our economy. At the same time, Marshall Space Launch 
System and Moon to Mars system will require greater investment 
in collaboration with industry to create a strong deep space 
exploration business model. Can you elaborate on how members of 
the Commercial Spaceflight Federation are working with NASA to 
stimulate the commercial cislunar economy that supports deep 
space exploration?
    Ms. Drees. Absolutely. Thank you so much for that question. 
So with the Artemis program, when NASA announced that we're 
going back to the Moon, it inspired a lot of existing companies 
and new companies to start thinking about how are we going to 
develop the cislunar economy? How are we going to develop the 
Moon and in the future Mars? And how are we going to use the 
Moon to go to Mars. And there's an entire ecosystem that needs 
to be built and developed to make that happen.
    So the first step really is NASA saying we're going back to 
the Moon. Now that NASA has said we're going back to the Moon, 
they will be able to determine how many launches they need per 
year, what the government will actually do there, and industry 
can grow around that. So there's a lot of exciting 
opportunities.
    Folks, obviously, are building a lot of great things in and 
around the Huntsville area, a lot of our members are there as 
well, and companies really all over the country are developing 
these capabilities. So it really is an exciting sort of next 
step when we think about what happens in space beyond LEO that 
a lot of companies are getting more involved with.
    Mr. Strong. That's great. And I know that we've got to have 
NASA say it, but I think Congress has already said it, we're 
going back to the Moon.
    Ms. Drees, how can we work with commercial partners to 
develop interoperable deep space systems without compromising 
national security and intellectual properties?
    Ms. Drees. So that's an excellent question. And what I 
would say is, you know, we've gotten to the point now where the 
entire government really is dependent on the capabilities of 
commercial space companies. So not only are there companies 
that are working on space systems for commercial use or for 
civil use, they're working on a lot of these systems for 
national security purposes. And because of that, they work 
closely with national security organizations, with the 
intelligence community to ensure a lot of these coordination 
things are already happening.
    Mr. Strong. And I know that I've got everything going at 
you, but I appreciate your answers. What government agency is 
best situated to create international deep space 
interoperability standards? Who do you think would be best to 
do that?
    Ms. Drees. So that is a really good question, and it's 
something that the community is really starting to think much 
more about. There are a lot of standards opportunities 
happening right now in terms of what could happen in the 
future, what can happen in a cislunar environment. It's still 
very much to be determined. I think we have a long way to go 
before we start thinking about that. I think the first step 
really is in something like the Artemis Accords, which has been 
established and a lot of countries have signed on to. They have 
been the first step in that process to ensure that we're 
getting countries on board to start to develop these norms.
    Mr. Strong. Thank you. National security agencies are using 
commercial remote sensing data to enhance and augment their 
capabilities. We have seen firsthand how impactful the use of 
the commercial data is and how quickly the DOD and armed 
services can get critical intelligence from commercial 
partners. Mr. Dunstan, can you elaborate on how the government 
agencies can use the model that our national security agencies 
have used to better leverage the commercial space industry, 
especially the growing remote sensing sector?
    Mr. Dunstan. Thank you for the question. Yes, I think that 
you can really look at what the national security agencies have 
done vis-a-vis remote sensing and can be applied elsewhere 
rather than continuing to build all of their own facility by 
diversifying and using data from commercial sectors. It's 
really enhanced our national security, which is really 
interesting, because if you go back in the original Landsat Act 
and whatnot, there was a real concern that commercial entities 
shouldn't be allowed to do this. And now I think we've realized 
that it's a real asset. It's not a national security liability 
to lean hard on commercial remote sensing data.
    Mr. Strong. Thank you. Mr. Chairman, I yield back.
    Mr. Weber. The Chair now recognizes Mr. Lieu.
    Mr. Lieu. I'm happy to be recognized. I think there are 
Members before me if they want to be recognized, but I'm fine.
    Mr. Weber. You want to see if anybody will volunteer?
    Mr. Lieu. OK. I will go.
    So thank you to the witnesses for your testimony today. 
It's very helpful. I represent the 36th Congressional District 
in southern California. We have a lot of space assets, so--I'm 
honored that The Aerospace Corporation is located in the 
district. It is the same district where the James Webb 
telescope was assembled. And I just talked to a CEO of a 
company last year who was manufacturing pharmaceuticals in 
space. And so space is really important to my constituents, as 
well as to America.
    And I want to talk first about critical infrastructure 
sectors. So the United States has designated a number of 
critical infrastructure sectors. And according to the 
Department of Homeland Security (DHS), here is a definition. 
There are 16 critical infrastructure sectors whose assets, 
systems, and networks, whether physical or virtual, are 
considered so vital to the United States that their 
incapacitation or destruction would have a debilitating effect 
on security, national economic security, national public health 
or safety, or any combination thereof. Some of these sectors 
include the chemical sector, the food/agriculture sector, 
assets such as dams, but space is not one of them.
    And so I want to ask Ms. Drees. Do you think it'd be 
important for space to be one of them? And I do have 
legislation with Congressman Ken Calvert. We're co-Chairs of 
the Aerospace Corporation--I'm sorry, the Aerospace Caucus on 
this legislation, and so I want to get your views on that.
    Ms. Drees. Thank you so much for that question. It is a 
really important question, and it's something that is actually 
being considered right now. There's an effort under DHS right 
now to sort of take a look at the critical infrastructure 
sectors and whether space should be included in that 
conversation. So we are continuing to work with these industry 
partners and with the government partners to determine is this 
really going to be the best path for the space industry 
overall? Because there are a lot of capabilities that are still 
very new, I think there's just a lot of questions to be 
answered. But there's absolutely no doubt that this country 
relies on the space industry.
    Mr. Lieu. Thank you. So let me know if we can be helpful.
    So second, I have a question about safety. And I understand 
that when you put a human being on any launch vehicle, you're 
going to make sure to go above and beyond in terms of safety. 
I'm just curious about before that happens, about all the 
research and development. And so Bill Nelson was here at this 
Committee, and I'm going to read a portion from SpaceNews and 
talk about his testimony. It was after the SpaceX launch that 
had to be aborted midflight. ``Testifying before the House 
Science Committee about the agency's Fiscal Year 2024 budget 
request, Nelson said SpaceX expects to be ready make another 
Starship launch attempt in as little as 2 months. `The 
explosion, that's not a big downer,' he said.'' Then he goes on 
to say--this article says, ``He explained SpaceX's `hardware-
rich' approach to vehicle development, with several Starship 
and Super Heavy vehicles in production. `That's their modus 
operandi. They launch, and if something goes wrong, they figure 
out what it is, go back, and they launch it again.' ''
    So, as you know, SpaceX did this monumental thing where 
they designed rockets that fly back and land and they're 
reusable. If they had to sit there and make sure the very first 
time they launched that it worked, maybe they wouldn't have 
developed that for several more years, if at all.
    So, Dr. Koller, I'm just curious, what is your view of that 
approach, that when you don't have a human being on this, maybe 
we let companies innovate and try different approaches? I'm 
just wondering if that's a sensible way of doing it.
    Dr. Koller. Absolutely. I'm a firm believer in agile 
development. The paradigm of failing often and failing early is 
very much adequate, and that is the reason why we see so much 
innovation today in the sector. However, I would reserve that 
for the non-crewed, non-human, non-passenger phase of the 
development. I do believe failing often and failing early does 
not apply anymore once people are actually on board.
    Mr. Lieu. Thank you. I see my time is up. I yield back.
    Mr. Weber. The gentleman yields back.
    The Chair now recognizes Mr. Miller.
    Mr. Miller. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and Ranking Member, and 
thank you all to the witnesses who are here today.
    In my district, NASA Glenn Research Center works closely 
with the commercial industry on a variety of programs, 
including the Artemis mission, to return to the Moon and to go 
beyond. These partnerships bring together the government's 
institutional knowledge and world-class facilities with the 
speed and efficiency of the private sector. And I know this has 
been touched on already a little, hopefully not too repetitive 
or redundant, but, Ms. Drees, Ms. Schenewerk, or Mr. Dunstan, 
can you further highlight the benefit of partnerships like 
these and lay out how we can ensure their continued success at 
NASA Glenn and elsewhere in the future?
    Ms. Drees. I'll just start briefly. You guys can definitely 
chime in. So it's incredibly important. And there's a--there 
are a lot of opportunities to really partner between commercial 
and civil organizations. In particular, the Glenn Research 
Center is really important to our space program, and a lot of 
our CSF members partner with Glenn in a variety of ways, 
including through communication service programs and space 
nuclear network. There are a lot of other opportunities to 
partner with NASA through things like Space Act agreements, and 
with all of the NASA facilities around the Nation, a lot of 
companies are taking advantage of those opportunities.
    Mr. Dunstan. Yes, I would agree. I think the Glenn center 
especially has been very good with working with commercial. 
Unfortunately, at times, I don't think that filters all the way 
up to headquarters back to Washington, D.C. I was extremely 
critical of the Moon to Mars architecture that NASA put out 
because it placed--commercial partnerships were way down in the 
corner of their overlapping Venn diagrams. In fact, it got me a 
trip to NASA Johnson Spaceflight Center to talk more about 
that. So I think we need to keep our eye on that. And the fact 
that there is so much innovation going on in the private 
sector, we can't go back to the Moon with a new Apollo. We've 
got to rely on our commercial partners and bring that 
technology back to NASA.
    Mr. Miller. Yes, I--sorry, I didn't--I was just going to 
say I believe that if we could get NASA further down the road, 
at least NASA Glenn Research Science Center, you know, the 
program authority, I think that we could expand on those 
relationships a lot. And I'm never going to stop pushing for 
that being the Representative in northeast Ohio with that 
center right there. So to everyone's dismay, I'm going to keep 
on pushing for program authority.
    As some of you may know, NASA Glenn also administers the 
Communication Services Program, is pioneering NASA's near-Earth 
space communications. This program in part will procure 
commercial services for space communications. By NASA's own 
admission, using commercial technology will provide NASA 
missions with a cost-saving access to continual industry 
innovation, saving money that can be refocused on scientific 
work.
    Again, this is for any of the witnesses. Can you please 
elaborate once again on NASA's collaboration with private 
sector companies on the Communication Services Program?
    Mr. Dunstan. Yes, I'll go ahead and take that. I absolutely 
agree that that coordination is vital. I do spend a lot of time 
at the FCC, and I will tell you that oftentimes, NASA is 
extremely cooperative and good to work with, but there are 
times when you'll have an application sitting before the FCC 
that there will be a very short letter from NASA, which 
essentially says standby, we're looking at this, and then it 
takes a long time for them to come back in and get there. And 
meanwhile, the clock is ticking on the time value of money for 
commercial entities. And so even Glenn, as good as they are, 
has got to speed things up in that coordination efforts. We 
can't allow NASA to just--this is sort of the precautionary 
principle. We can't say, hold off until we decide that it's 
safe. That coordination has got to move with greater speed and 
relevancy.
    Ms. Schenewerk. If I could add to that in agreement, but in 
addition, I would say that this is an example of one of the 
challenges of government using commercial more, right, so using 
commercial-style contracts, which tend to put the burden on the 
commercial entity to go through the commercial licensing 
regime, which is not wrong, but it does result in a situation 
where the government is looking for a capability, and then 
another part of the government is slowing down their access to 
that capability. And so, you know, it's--it is something that 
is in need of kind of whole-of-government thought about, so 
we've sent demand signal from the national security world or 
from the civil space world to commercial to develop this 
capability. We potentially have a procurement or we have 
research and development funding flowing to that capability. 
But then we don't have either a clear regulatory regime, or we 
have a highly disorganized regulatory regime that that entity 
will have to go through before it can provide that service back 
to the government customer. So you got--you have to kind of 
think about all the threads that get pulled.
    And, you know, I don't say that in any way to diminish the 
benefits, which are huge, of using commercial-style contracts. 
I say that to highlight that you have to think holistically 
about this as we think about the--why regulatory reform and why 
smart regulations are so important.
    Mr. Miller. You know, I'm not going to disagree with either 
of your assessments and couldn't agree more that, you know, 
regulatory reform needs to be put in place and dial down just a 
bit to be a little bit more pragmatic with where we are within 
this country as we continue to put guidelines and revisions on 
ourselves, foreign countries. And our adversaries and even 
allies are moving forward at the speed of light, and we are 
still stuck back in time, unfortunately.
    I thank all the witnesses for your answers and for your 
time today. And I yield back, Mr. Chairman. Thank you.
    Mr. Weber. The gentleman yields back.
    And, Congressman Foushee, if you were supposed to have been 
recognized earlier, then that was Congresswoman Lofgren's 
mistake by their choosing the gentleman from California in lieu 
of you----
    Ms. Lofgren. I would say it's the staff's mistakes.
    Mr. Weber. Then I'm responsible. So at any rate, you're 
recognized.
    Mrs. Foushee. Not an issue. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and 
certainly Ranking Member Lofgren, for having this Committee 
hearing today. And thank you to all of the witnesses for your 
testimony and appearing before us.
    First off, I'm going to join the competition and make sure 
that, for the record, it is known that astronaut Christina Koch 
went to high school in my district. NASA has said that----
    Mr. Weber. When you throw the gauntlet down, it's tough.
    Mrs. Foushee. Absolutely. Absolutely.
    NASA has said that the billions of dollars in savings it 
has generated from public-private partnerships across its 
portfolio will enable it to return to the Moon, while also 
allowing for vital investments in climate science, STEM, and 
more. This question is for Ms. Drees and Dr. Koller. Can you 
outline how these partnerships with the commercial industry 
support NASA and what steps are needed to maintain both rapid 
innovation and fiscal responsibility?
    Ms. Drees. Thank you so much for that question. It has been 
absolutely essential for NASA to partner with industry on a lot 
of programs that we've seen and a lot of programs going 
forward. There was a shift not too long ago of bringing 
commercial partners on board through firm fixed-price 
contracts, through more partnership agreements to enable the 
industry to provide the best possible options for the Federal 
Government to take advantage of. So what we've seen change with 
NASA over the past really 15 years, we see that continuing to 
develop. And there are a lot more opportunities to get--to have 
these partnerships.
    You know, in addition to the Artemis program, which is 
going to be absolutely critical to the future of the space 
program, the ISS is going to be retiring in the next several 
years, and NASA has proactively started working with industry 
to develop commercial habitats to essentially replace the ISS 
in the future to allow NASA astronauts to continue going to 
space. So this partnership has been absolutely critical.
    Dr. Koller. I don't have really anything in addition to add 
to that fantastic answer. I think public-private partnerships 
in the United States are of great value and should be 
continued. There's tremendous benefit in using those kinds of 
tools and developing synergies with the industry. It's also 
important not to just look at the benefits, but also the risks 
involved.
    Mrs. Foushee. Thank you for those responses.
    NASA and DOD's partnerships with commercial space companies 
promote economic growth far outside the industry. In North 
Carolina, new commercial satellite services are providing high 
speed connectivity to communities in my district and across the 
State that had been left behind in the digital divide. Ms. 
Drees, can you please elaborate on how this industry supports 
other national priorities beyond space exploration like 
broadband expansion, workforce development, climate science, 
agriculture, and more?
    Ms. Drees. Absolutely. That's a really great question and a 
very important thing that we're seeing not only within the 
space industry, but also beyond the space industry thanks to 
spin-offs inspired by the technical developments for the space 
program that's helping a lot of other industries as well. For 
example, you mentioned climate science. We wouldn't know--I 
think the estimate is 50 percent of what we know about the 
climate is because of assets in space and remote sensing. We 
wouldn't have the knowledge that we have. We wouldn't be able 
to be proactive about some of the things that we want to be 
able to do to help the climate. Agriculture as well has now 
relied much more heavily on the remote sensing industry. So 
there are a lot of opportunities to bring some of that 
technical capability that we're developing in the space 
industry to more problems--to more solve more problems and 
challenges here on Earth.
    Mrs. Foushee. Dr. Koller, would you care to elaborate as 
well?
    Dr. Koller. I think there is a very interesting trend 
happening when it comes to remote sensing and communication and 
artificial intelligence and analytics. There's a very 
interesting trend that leads to more transparency in the world. 
And just like Ms. Drees pointed out, there's a tremendous 
benefit in using those trends and finding the right 
combinations to derive those benefits.
    Mrs. Foushee. Thank you. Mr. Chairman, I yield back.
    Mr. Weber. I thank the gentlelady.
    And the Chair recognizes himself for five minutes.
    Mr. Weber. Man, where do I start? Ms. Schenewerk, you said 
in your remarks--and I'm trying to quote you now--``Don't let 
innovation or the source of our imagination be the source of 
our failure'' or something to that effect. Can you elaborate on 
that?
    Ms. Schenewerk. Don't let our lack of imagination be the 
source of our failure.
    Mr. Weber. OK.
    Ms. Schenewerk. Yes. So, you know, one of the things that 
we see, again, going back to my experience with launch and 
reentry was that the original launch regulations--because 
originally, it was just launch--were taken directly from range 
requirements. So one of the things that they didn't imagine was 
a day when we would have reusable rockets like SpaceX has with 
Falcon 9. So I was at SpaceX at the time when we were like 
licensing Falcon 9 and working with the agency to figure out 
what you do in a situation where your regulations say one thing 
and they don't contemplate this potential state where you have 
a reusable orbital rocket.
    And so what I mean by that in--more broadly is we need to 
make sure that, as we devise a regulatory regime, that we're 
not just thinking about the specific thing that is in front of 
us today at that time, only expendable rockets, but we're 
thinking about developing a regulatory approach that is 
flexible, as well as clearly defined. And that is not easy. 
Not--you know, if there's no----
    Mr. Weber. Thinking outside the box.
    Ms. Schenewerk. Right. Exactly. Exactly. And I'll note that 
there has been a shift to performance-based regulations, right, 
which can accommodate more optionality, diverse kinds of 
approaches to technology, but they're not a panacea. And I'll 
refer back to my comment about the need for well-staffed, well-
trained, well-organized regulators because when an applicant 
comes in with a unique approach and the regulator is used to 
things being done the way they've always been done, that 
failure of imagination could occur in the sense of saying, this 
could be safer, but we're used to the status quo. So now it's 
harder to get the safer approach through or nearly impossible.
    Mr. Weber. So my recommendation would be in their 
engineering department, above the door it ought to say 
``imagineers'' instead of ``engineers.''
    Ms. Schenewerk. I fully support that.
    Mr. Weber. So--and this would be a question for everybody. 
And one of the questions was in 2018, Trump Administration 
issued Space Policy Directive-2, which proposed the elevation 
of Commerce Department's Office of Space Commerce report 
directly to Secretary of Commerce. Then we also mentioned DHS 
because you know we're going to have some bad actors in space. 
Which agency in your opinion, Ms. Drees--and we'll go this 
way--do you think should be in charge?
    Ms. Drees. So I think in the immediate term there needs to 
be several involved, as Ms. Schenewerk mentioned earlier. When 
it comes to things like mission authorization or the gaps that 
we have to fill, CSF is definitely supporting the Office of 
Space Commerce to fill that role. So the commercial activities 
that do not currently fall under existing regimes for 
compliance under the Article VI Outer Space Treaty obligations, 
we think the Department of Commerce is going to be the best 
agency to handle that.
    Mr. Weber. Mr. Dunstan?
    Mr. Dunstan. Yes, I would agree for those gaps, that 
Department of Commerce, but we also have to be cognizant of the 
fact that not every single activity needs to be regulated. If 
someone is up in space and pulls out a harmonica, they 
shouldn't need a license to be able to play their harmonica 
on----
    Mr. Weber. It depends on how good they are.
    Mr. Dunstan. Well, yes, there is that. But yes, we have to 
be careful that we're not overregulating every single activity 
because that's just going to clog the system up.
    Mr. Weber. Mr. Koller?
    Dr. Koller. I want to draw on what Ms. Schenewerk said 
earlier in a similar way of don't let the perfect be the enemy 
of the good. I see that we've had this discussion for way too 
long now, and I think it almost doesn't matter anymore which 
agency is responsible for what types of activities as long as 
you provide it with the adequate resources, the workforce, and 
the capabilities to actually fulfill that requirement.
    Mr. Weber. So a trifecta, DHS, Space Force, Commerce? Ms. 
Schenewerk, who do you think?
    Ms. Schenewerk. So my expectation would be that those 
entities would all to the extent that it was appropriate, and 
by--and I think that the person who is responsible--so if it's 
housed at the Department of Commerce, then the official that 
runs that office and runs that application process would be 
responsible for establishing the interagency review on any 
given application. And if that application and the activities 
in that application should be under consideration by DHS, then 
it would be their job to bring DHS in. It would also be their 
job to say, DHS, we've heard your concerns, and we're going to 
move forward. And that decisionmaking process needs to be 
clearly placed in one location and then have a timeframe 
associated with it.
    Mr. Weber. I was going to say they have a timeline----
    Ms. Schenewerk. Yes, sir.
    Mr. Weber [continuing]. Because we don't want these things 
to drag on.
    Ms. Schenewerk. Yes, sir.
    Mr. Weber. And I'm going to go to you, Mr. Dunstan. The 
1967 cooperation act--I forget what it was called--was--it was 
literally, what, between Russia and the United States. 
Primarily at that time, Russia wanted it to be State-driven, 
and the United States wanted it to be, you know, industry-
driven. How many more cosigners do we have now on to that, do 
you know?
    Mr. Dunstan. On the 1967 Outer Space Treaty, I believe it's 
112 nations. So the vast majority--and virtually all countries 
that have any presence in outer space are signatories to the 
Outer Space Treaty of 1967. But that begins to then drop off as 
we go through the treaty regime, less so for the registration--
--
    Mr. Weber. Well, I'm running out of time. I apologize for 
going over, but I would offer this idea that we need somebody 
who is watching all the actors in this and has a responsibility 
to say bad actor, you know what I mean, and one that we have to 
really be focused on.
    I'm going to yield back and recognize Mr. Lee. I'm sorry, 
Ms. Lee. Here we are. I'm looking over here. Sorry.
    Ms. Lee. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And thank you to our 
panel today for your time and your expertise.
    In recent years, Pittsburgh has stamped itself as a hub for 
development and innovation in the commercial space industry and 
space aviation. Just last month, I had the honor of announcing 
and voicing my support for the Keystone Space and Defense 
Innovation District that will bring together partners in the 
tristate area of Pennsylvania, Ohio, and West Virginia. Ash 
Robotics, one of our companies based in Pittsburgh, is a 
leading company in the commercial space industry, specializing 
in lunar lander development, lunar payload delivery, and other 
space-related services. They recently won a $79.5 million grant 
from NASA commercial lunar payload services programs to deliver 
payloads to the lunar surface.
    I'm proud that companies and universities I represent play 
a pivotal role in developing cutting-edge technologies for the 
commercial space industry and space aviation. Our vibrant 
entrepreneurial ecosystem support startups and small 
businesses. Their expertise spans a wide range of areas, 
including robotics, artificial intelligence, material sciences, 
and advanced manufacturing. These innovations have been 
instrumental in enhancing the capabilities of space systems, 
satellite technologies, launch vehicles, and more. And it's 
just a shoutout, a few of our higher education partners, we 
have Carnegie Mellon University, which is renowned for its 
expertise in robotics and AI. We have the University of 
Pittsburgh, who collaborates with NASA on various research 
projects and initiatives, advanced--and advanced materials for 
spacecraft, biomedical studies, and the effects of space travel 
on human health. And we have Duquesne University, which offers 
a space law program to analyze the legal and policy aspects of 
space activities. Thank you for allowing me the opportunity to 
brag a bit.
    Our amazing higher education partners do incredible work, 
but there is enough space in the sky for all to contribute to 
discoveries in space, regardless of whether they hold an 
advanced degree or went to a 4-year university. So while 
Pittsburgh has a rich history in robotics research and 
development, I look forward to seeing that opportunities in 
educating and training the next generation of space industry 
professionals are more equitable and accessible to all.
    Commercial space aviation is undeniably fascinating and 
holds immense potential for scientific discoveries, 
technological advancements, and economic growth. However, I 
want to make sure that the development and activities in the 
commercial space industry remain relevant to the day-to-day 
concerns of citizens. While space exploration often captures 
the imagination, I want to be able to translate its 
achievements into the practical applications that impact the 
lives of people I represent. I also want to remain mindful that 
my environmental advocacy must reach to the lowest depths and 
the highest heights. The development and deployment of space 
technology should strive to minimize carbon emissions, waste 
generation, and pollution. Sustainable practices must be 
implemented to reduce the industry's ecological footprint and 
align with the day-to-day concerns of citizens regarding 
climate change and environmental stewardship.
    So with that in mind, Ms. Drees, I was just wondering how 
someone like me, a Representative, could reconcile the growing 
amounts of money from both the public and private sector on 
space exploration with my constituents here on the surface of 
Earth, right? We have people who have so many concerns about 
how they're going to make--meet their ends day to day, and 
they're facing cuts to social welfare and programs like Social 
Security and SNAP (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program) 
benefits. So what type of work do you do that translates to 
those folks on their day to day?
    Ms. Drees. Thank you so much for that. I completely agree. 
You know, there are so many exciting things that are going on 
across the country in terms of technical development, 
entrepreneurship. When I got interested in the industry almost 
20 years ago, there was very little going on. And unless you 
were an engineer, you had no chance of working in the industry. 
The new space industry has evolved--the commercial space 
industry, I should specify, has evolved in such a way that it 
needs everybody. It needs engineers, but it needs technicians, 
it needs welders, it needs plumbers. It needs everybody that 
can contribute to the industry because there's so much 
happening within the space industry. And it's not just rockets 
that we're launching anymore. There are companies that are 
building satellites. There are companies that are building 
habitats. There's a lot of things happening even on the ground. 
There's the ground infrastructure. But there's so much that the 
entire space industry needs. And, as Caryn mentioned earlier in 
her remarks, even the regulators are struggling to hire people. 
So there's a significant demand for labor in the industry 
across all levels.
    Ms. Lee. Thank you. Just really quickly, how are these 
scientific discoveries being accelerated by commercial space 
aviation? And also, what do these discoveries mean for creating 
solutions in the community for like urban agriculture and 
combating pollution and mitigating adverse effects of climate 
change?
    Ms. Schenewerk. I'm happy to take this. I'm actually 
working on a TED talk about this. So I think that it's a very 
important question. There is a massive amount of data that we 
can collect from space, and we are on the verge of collecting 
even more. So we have we have capabilities for Earth 
observation like hyperspectral that offer great opportunities 
for us. So one of the most important things that we need to do 
is we need to be able to get massive amount of data, and then 
we need to be able to analyze that data and apply it across a 
number of industries, whether that's agriculture, whether 
that's being able to design more energy efficient. So can we 
see our buildings from space and then make good decisions about 
how we manage our energy use? Space offers the ability to have 
that data. It's then what do we do with the data. So that's 
also a job-creating opportunity. It's also why things like 
quantum computing and AI are so important because those are 
tools that we can deploy against the data to then help us make 
good decisions to then drive outcomes that impact everyday 
Americans, particularly those that are suffering the most.
    Ms. Lee. Thank you. That was my time. Thank you so much for 
answering those. I look forward to your TED talk. And I yield 
back my time.
    Mr. Weber. Man, she speaks at about 250 words a minute with 
gusts up to about 350.
    Ms. Lee. It's my gift.
    Mr. Weber. Yes, ma'am. It is.
    The Chair now recognizes the gentleman from California, Mr. 
Obernolte.
    Mr. Obernolte. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. And thank 
you to all of our witnesses for a fascinating hearing.
    Dr. Koller, I was particularly interested in your testimony 
regarding the creation of a safety framework for space. I think 
that that's extremely important. You said something in your 
testimony that really resonated with me. You said that an 
effective framework would guarantee an accident-free 
environment. And I want to talk a little bit about that because 
I'm not sure I agree. But I think it's very important that we 
consider what we mean when we put together a safety framework. 
I think it's important that we crystallize our approach to 
safety and what the end goal is. And I think that this thinking 
can be informed by our experience in the commercial aviation 
sector, where we started out with a terrible accident record 
where accidents occurred all the time. And now we've gotten to 
the point where all the people on this dais go hurtling through 
the stratosphere at nearly the speed of sound twice a week, 
usually, with the expectation that we will always get to where 
we're going, and that accidents will never occur. So I think 
space flight will be on a similar trajectory.
    But I also think that, you know, something else you said 
that resonated with me was that a single accident might set the 
industry back many years. And I think that's absolutely true. 
We've had a similar kind of public opinion problem with 
autonomously driven cars, where we hear about one accident 
caused by an autonomous vehicle in the entire country, and it 
makes front page news, and yet we've got tens of thousands of 
auto accidents that are caused by human drivers that occur 
every single day that aren't making the news. So really, we're 
not using a fair metric when we think about safety in that 
respect. We're--you know, the metric should be is an 
autonomously driven car safer than a human-driven car? And the 
metric instead that we're applying is that one accident 
anywhere is too many and is an illustration of a problem that 
has to be solved.
    So, you know, thinking about that, what should our approach 
to safety be in commercial spaceflight?
    Dr. Koller. Right. I hope I didn't create a 
misunderstanding. What I was trying to convey is that there is 
no guarantee that an industry best practice or a government 
regulation can prevent an accident from happening, right? But 
what we instead need to do to develop a more comprehensive, 
more holistic safety framework, if you look at all the 
different sectors, regardless if it's transportation or 
medical, there's a--always a more holistic, almost an ecosystem 
around safety developed, and it's never just industry best 
practice or regulation. That's what I was trying to say. And 
only if you take into account key components--and in our report 
that I have here, in our report, we lay out the fundamentals of 
those key components. And if you really boil it down to what is 
that dissenter, regardless of what launch mechanism you have, 
do you have horizontal, vertical, or even ballooned rights, 
people and safety culture are common. The common denominators 
are people are the ones that make mistakes. So safety culture 
is the key, in addition to collecting the data and to be more 
predictive and proactive. And there's a number of additional 
components that build a safety framework, and I think there's 
many lessons that can be learned from other fields.
    Mr. Obernolte. Right. I agree with you. And I'm hopeful 
that we can build a safety framework that recognizes our 
responsibility to protect consumer safety, but balances that 
against our responsibility to allow innovation and to allow 
freedom. And I think in aviation we've done a pretty good job 
of that where we recognize that our obligation to someone who 
buys a ticket on an airliner is different than someone who buys 
a ticket on a two-seat ultralight, right, that those levels of 
safety are not equivalent. We have a responsibility to do some 
education with the public, that their expectation of safety in 
those two situations is not equivalent. And yet there's room in 
our aviation ecosystem for both of those uses, and I hope that 
we can accomplish something similar in spaceflight because I 
think we're going to have to confront that question eventually.
    Well, I don't think I have time for another question, but I 
want thank you very much. Hopefully, this is a discussion that 
we can continue.
    I'll yield back, Mr. Chair.
    Mr. Baird [presiding]. The gentleman yields back.
    And next we go to Mrs. McClellan from Virginia.
    Mrs. McClellan. Thank you, Mr. Chair and Ranking Member, 
for planning this important hearing. And I always enjoy when we 
talk about space, and everyone goes through what's in their 
State, reminding everyone that manned spaceflight began in 
Virginia at Langley and that we are still home to the NASA 
Langley Research Center, the Wallops Flight Facility, and 
several commercial space companies that provide critical 
services, develop innovative technologies, and promote economic 
development in our Commonwealth and beyond. So, since we're 
putting those markers down, I just want to remind everybody of 
the importance of NASA Langley.
    With that, Dr. Koller, could you discuss any gaps that need 
to be addressed in the regulatory frameworks for commercial 
remote sensing, including any challenges with the updated 
three-tiered approach to assessing risk?
    Dr. Koller. A few years I was intricately involved in the 
interagency negotiations on what are the right license 
conditions. And was very pleased in the progress that has been 
made over the last five years. In the past, it was a lengthy, 
difficult process, and it's--I boil it down to due to the fact 
that different heads of departments and agencies have different 
authorities. And we recognized that a few years ago and 
developed a memorandum of understanding that really advances 
the resolution process of when there are differences in 
opinions as the Secretary is providing national security 
conditions that, you know--and the Department of State is 
providing conditions on international obligations. So I think 
there's a--tremendous progress has been made. And we were--I 
was very pleased to see the progress in the tiered approach 
between the three different tiers, and I see the numbers of 
approvals, the timeline for approvals have gone down 
tremendously and there was great progress. Since then, I sort 
of lack the insight of where things are being stuck or if there 
were still issues, but in general, all of these were great 
advancement and improvement.
    Mrs. McClellan. Thank you for that. Ms. Drees, would you 
speak to how the U.S. Government is working with the commercial 
space industry to enable more activity at commercial 
spaceports, especially those like Wallops?
    Ms. Drees. Thank you so much for that. One of our 
priorities is space launch infrastructure and making sure that 
we retain that robust launch infrastructure across the country 
so that facilities like Virginia Space Center and Wallops have 
that ability to continue launching commercial payloads at any 
given time.
    There's a lot of activity that happens in the Federal 
ranges--at the Federal ranges at the Cape in Florida and 
Vandenberg in California, but there's an entire network of 
commercial spaceports across the country that can continue 
ensuring that we are able to launch these assets into space. 
And one of our priorities is ensuring that the STIM (Space 
Transportation Infrastructure Matching Fund) grant program, 
which is the grant program available for commercial spaceports, 
gets refunded, reauthorized and refunded so that we can 
continue sending those assets into space from other facilities. 
Wallops is definitely one of the national assets that we 
consider in our commercial spaceport network. And Rocket Lab 
has been recently launching out of Wallops from a company that 
was, you know, originally established in New Zealand. So I 
think it's a testament to say, you know, there's a lot of 
capability. There's a lot more capacity within the spaceport 
community, but an infrastructure program for those space ports 
is essential.
    Mrs. McClellan. And then I wanted to follow up with you on 
a previous question. From the industry perspective, can you 
discuss what changes to the regulatory environment would be 
needed to provide certainty for long-term investment and job 
growth?
    Ms. Drees. So from a regulatory perspective, there are a 
lot of, I think--there's a lot of room for improvement overall. 
From launch and reentry regulation, export control, to remote 
sensing regulation, there's so much that we really need to be 
looking at as an entire space program within the industry, 
within the government, to make sure that we can continue that 
that robust launch cadence. We've seen a significant uptick 
overall in the launch cadence over the past couple of years, I 
think 180 orbital launches even last year, and almost half of 
those are coming from China. So there's a significant factor 
that we're considering here with international competition. The 
regulatory environment in the United States is absolutely 
critical to making sure that we can retain that competitive 
edge.
    Mrs. McClellan. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I yield back.
    Mr. Baird. The gentlelady yields back.
    And now we go to the great State of Georgia with 
Representative McCormick.
    Mr. McCormick. Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you to the 
witnesses for being here today.
    I first wanted to address in the last couple of days, the 
most commonly asked question, which is, first of all, no, I'm 
not abused at home.
    So now that we put that to bed, I wanted to go on with some 
other things that continue a line of questioning from Mr. Weber 
that he addressed to you earlier. He talked about the 
different--you talked about the treaties. We talked about the 
E.U. and their regulatory burden on what's happening right now. 
And knowing that they're kind of leading the way in regulation 
right now, what do we do to fight that, that tendency to 
constrict what we're supposed to get done when we have an ally, 
a group of allies really, that are doing something that may 
inhibit the progress of something we need to do, especially 
when we have to work in coercion with them? How do we combat 
that mentality, both here in the United States and also 
globally, so that we don't put ourselves at a disadvantage to 
those people who are maybe not playing as nice? And I'll leave 
that for either Ms. Drees or Ms. Schenewerk.
    Ms. Schenewerk. Perfectly said. So I'll happily answer the 
question, and thank you for it. So I think that the comment 
that Mr. Dunstan said earlier with regard to the fact that some 
of the other nations that have passed space law started with a 
blank sheet----
    Mr. McCormick. Right.
    Ms. Schenewerk [continuing]. Is certainly beneficial to 
them. And I'll reiterate that American innovation is beneficial 
to us. So, you know, they're still--despite the challenges that 
we have, you know, if you're going to operate in a democratic, 
regulated country, then I still posit that this is the best one 
to operate in. That said, we want to stay competitive to your 
point. And so I think that, you know, the work that is being 
done by this Committee, in collaboration with the National 
Space Council, with the Senate, and with industry, so that 
working-together aspect is very important. And I think that 
what we need to make sure that we do is, to Ms. Drees' point, 
continue to look at the regulations that we have and continue 
to look to optimize them, improve them. We can't be afraid of 
saying, oops, we got it wrong or it was right then, but for 
today, it needs to evolve. And so that is a burden that is on 
us constantly to run while we chew gum, I guess. And so we need 
to be actively engaged in looking for the opportunities to 
improve, supporting with resources to both do the job and do 
the improvements at the same time.
    Mr. McCormick. So I'll make the comment that I just hope 
that we don't go down that same trajectory of overregulating 
our industry in the idea that we of course have to be safe, 
which we've kind of addressed tonight, too, but that we don't 
hamstring ourselves in the competitive world that we live in.
    Secondly, we've seen this massive explosion of the both 
low- and high-orbit vehicles that are out there right now. And 
you can see even the debris and everything else like that. And 
one of the things we have a real concern with a trajectory that 
basically I think by 2030 we're supposed to have around 58,000 
satellites out there, which is going to be phenomenal in 
tracking them. I know the FAA is trying to get involved and 
that we have--we already mentioned all the other organizations 
that want to participate in that. But, Ms. Drees, I'll probably 
address you on this. Will it be necessary for the United States 
to have an entity capable of managing space traffic around the 
Earth's orbit, a single agency?
    Ms. Drees. Yes, absolutely. That's a great question. And we 
believe the Department of Commerce is that agency. So when it 
comes to space situational awareness, there are a lot of 
commercial capabilities out there. And if the Department of 
Commerce leverages the existing commercial capabilities, they 
can help fast-track some of these programs that they have in 
mind for managing the space assets. So the--you know, the 
critical thing about what's happening in space is not so much 
the functioning things that are in space, it's the things that 
we can't really control, the debris that we can't really 
control, the things that may not be able to maneuver.
    Someone actually mentioned a great analogy that's really 
stuck with me. You know, the things that are in orbit, that are 
going on in orbit are sort of like a marching band marching 
across a football field. The marching band is in perfect order 
and they're in sync and they're very well-choreographed. The 
debris sort of acts as the fan who's running across the field 
that is causing a lot of chaos within that marching band. So 
that's kind of what we think of when we look at things like 
debris.
    So the satellite community is, you know, very responsible 
in terms of making sure that their assets are deployed in the 
correct orbit, that if they need to decommission those 
satellites, they have a process by doing that.
    Mr. McCormick. Real quick because I'm almost out of time 
and I want to give you ample opportunity to address this, but 
why the Department of Commerce is superior over other 
organizations in managing what you're describing right now, 
what you're laying out?
    Ms. Drees. So they've already been designated as the agency 
for space situational awareness. There are always questions 
that continue to come up about whether that should be the right 
agency. And when those questions come up, it tends to derail a 
lot of progress that's already been made. They're the most 
capable of managing that, and they already are managing a lot 
of the space situational awareness that the Department of 
Defense has handed over to them.
    Mr. McCormick. OK. Good. And with that, I yield. Thank you.
    Mr. Baird. The gentleman yields back.
    And now we go to Mr. Casten from Illinois.
    Mr. Casten. Thank you, Mr. Baird from Indiana.
    So thank you all for coming here today. You know, we're 
talking about civilian and commercial uses of space, and I 
guess I sort of parse that into sort of looking down and 
looking up, if you will. And if I start with looking down, I 
want to build on Mr. McCormick's questions. My understanding--
and maybe I'm misinformed--is that most of the monitoring we do 
of the--how crowded space is getting is ground-based, either 
from DOD or commercial uses. And I guess I'd welcome--you know, 
I'd ask Dr. Koller but welcome anybody who's got thoughts on 
this, are there scenarios where we need to think about space-
based monitoring, maybe at higher elevations--higher orbit 
levels as well? And that may rapidly get beyond things that we 
can have an open hearing, I realize, because you know, there's 
civilian competition that then shades into confrontation if 
we're not careful. But I guess I would just love your thoughts 
on should we be doing more space-based monitoring? Are we doing 
enough? What should we be thinking about on this Committee with 
respect to that?
    Dr. Koller. Absolutely. And there are actually, in fact, a 
number of companies who are pursuing those kinds of activities. 
They also need to be provided with the appropriate remote 
sensing licenses. So absolutely, yes.
    Mr. Dunstan. If I can chime in, I think one of the things 
when we're talking about space situational awareness is how 
much data we are collecting. And we're improving on that, and 
we have improved very, very significantly. But that problem 
means you have more data in the all-against-all conjunction 
analysis. And those models need to get better because frankly, 
satellite operators are having to move around way more than 
they should have to simply because our models as to how close 
or whether or not there's actually going to be a collision are 
not good enough. And I analogize it to what the FAA did a 
number of years ago by upgrading its systems to allow planes to 
fly three miles apart as opposed to five miles apart. And 
that's the thing we're going to need in space because all that 
data doesn't do us any good if we're constantly telling 
operators seven or eight times a day that they're going to have 
to move their satellites around.
    Mr. Casten. Interesting. Thanks. Did you--I didn't know if 
you were chiming in there before I get to my next question.
    Ms. Schenewerk. I just want to agree with Mr. Dunstan and 
note that that's why we talk about space situational awareness 
and the need to have high fidelity space situational awareness 
before we can move on to some kind of space traffic 
coordination because if you don't know where things are with a 
high amount of--with a good fidelity, high--like high 
confidence, then it makes telling people to move and where to 
go pretty risky. And so you're introducing risk into the system 
versus what you have today. So we really need to perfect that 
space situational awareness capability to your point about the 
ability to do that from space and from the ground, so that's 
infrastructure investments that need to occur, as well as 
analytic capabilities.
    I think that that's--the other thing I'll note is--and why 
in that case would that be something at the Department of 
Commerce, given that it's this traffic management potentially, 
and it's because, at that point, we're talking about space 
actors who are engaging in space activities in a known 
environment who have gone to space to do space commerce. We're 
not talking about innocent people who are climbing on board 
with an expectation of safety as a passenger on a plane. And so 
it's a different kind of coordination on a technical-to-
technical operator-operator level versus a flying public 
situation.
    Mr. Casten. I want to get to another question. I think 
there's a rich conversation just because I think DOD gets in 
there very quickly in ways that we need to be careful about.
    My second question I almost hesitate to ask, but I'm going 
to do my best and hopefully not set our Nation backward. The 
second part of commercial is sort of looking outward, right, 
and the, you know, space tourism and travel and, you know, 
maybe ultimately settlement or colonization of other planets 
and the Moon. And there's such a tremendous inspiration in all 
that, and I don't want to in any way lose the inspirational 
value of that. I also sit here and say we--our species is 
unable to inhabit the vast majority of the Earth. The parts of 
the earth that we are unable to inhabit seem to be getting 
bigger lately. You know, the sea levels rise, the ocean gets 
bigger, the deserts get bigger. We've got more and more parts 
of the low latitudes that exceed temperatures that humans can 
live at. And that's to take nothing away from tourism. But I 
just find myself wondering, do we need to level set? Is it 
practical--is there any practical scenario where our species 
that can't figure out how to live on most of the Earth has a 
viable path to live on any location we have ever identified?
    Mr. Dunstan. I'll take that one on. I--the simple answer--
and it's not simple--is eventually, we need to move our heavy 
industry off of the surface of the Earth and into space. And if 
you look at some of the great visionaries, Gerard K. O'Neill 
and other people like that, that's what they've been advocating 
for. And there's so many--there's multiple generations of 
people that have grown up firmly believing that, that if we can 
take the bad stuff that we do here on the Earth and move it out 
into space where we--it can be better contained, we'll be much 
better off as a species. Also, it increases the resources 
incredibly to be able to tap into space power and the resources 
of space, so we can actually increase the size of the pie and 
fight less about the stuff on the Earth.
    Mr. Casten. Thank you so much for your time. I yield back.
    Mr. Baird. The gentleman yields back.
    And next we go to Georgia with Representative Collins.
    Mr. Collins. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    And I just want to make it obvious, I think, my other 
colleague from Georgia, y'all can tell who the troublemaker is.
    Now, Ms. Schenewerk, I want to kind of go over a couple of 
things that are usually my favorite topics, and one of them has 
really been discussed here a lot and that's regulations and 
China. I had the opportunity to be in Taiwan last week, and 
they were boxing up their latest satellite for launch. And I 
thought it was really cool that, you know, a country of 24 
million people are actively involved in the space race. And 
that being said--and you take a look at China and where they 
want to be dominant in everything from the economy to space and 
military and they say they want to surpass everybody by 2045. 
So you take that into account, and then you look at the amount 
of spending that they're doing on space, they may even pass us 
before 2045.
    So I guess my question is, the cost of ceding that 
leadership in space to China is pretty big. How can the 
commercial sector be utilized to help maintain the U.S. 
leadership?
    Ms. Schenewerk. So the U.S. private space industry services 
all three of the U.S. space markets, so to speak, and the 
international markets, commercial, civil, and national 
security. So to the extent that NASA makes research and 
development investments with one company that has, say, you 
know, capabilities--developing capabilities for nuclear power 
and propulsion or for hyperspectral imaging, those capabilities 
can also benefit, of course, the national security side of the 
house.
    And I think that's an important thing to remember is that 
we segment these markets, and we segment oversight of them, but 
at the end of the day, we really want to make sure that we have 
these robust capabilities. So it calls upon us to think 
holistically about our efforts and our investments. So are we 
making decisions that foster venture capital? Because that 
certainly has been a big piece of the growth of the U.S. 
commercial space industry. Are we passing smart regulation so 
that when we're engaging commercially and they're having--and 
the commercial company is having to get a license, they're able 
to do that and that's not overly burdensome? Are we thinking 
smartly about our procurement approaches? Are we setting 
requirements and sending demand signals that companies can then 
get investment and they can build against in order to develop 
the capabilities that we need to be competitive? So there are a 
number of pieces that need to be put together to get the puzzle 
right in the United States based on our system in order to 
compete competitively with China.
    Mr. Collins. Yes. Thank you. Swapping over to the to the 
regulation part, in your testimony--and I'm sorry if this has 
already been asked. I know--sometimes I feel like a ping pong 
ball being bounced back and forth between these Committees 
hearings. But the FAA has only issued four licenses under the 
Part 450, and you noted that two of those licenses had exceeded 
the 180-day time limit for review. Do you feel that with the 
time--FAA--if they're going to become more efficient in issuing 
Part 450 licenses? And alternatively, are there aspects of Part 
450 that can be reformed? Do you think they can be reformed to 
make it more streamlined?
    Ms. Schenewerk. So I'll start with the last part of your 
question, which is I'm encouraged by the fact that the FAA 
tasked the COMSTAC, the Commercial Space Transportation 
Advisory Committee, its FACA (Federal Advisory Committee Act), 
on which I serve and lead the regulatory working group, with an 
effort to advise them on updates to the 450 regulations that 
were needed and how to prioritize those vis-a-vis other 
regulatory changes that need to happen at the FAA. We approved 
recommendations on Tuesday to the FAA, and those 
recommendations do call upon the FAA to address specific 
aspects of Part 450 that are proving problematic. It also notes 
that because we've only had four licensees under Part 450, some 
amount of experience with Part 450 makes it--a limited amount 
of experience makes it challenging to give those kinds of 
specific discrete feedback aspects. But a big piece of the 
feedback was on process.
    And so we're encouraged, of course, that the FAA is seeing 
more resources, the ability to hire more people. And I really 
think that it's very important in a performance-based 
regulation scenario, that they be well-staffed and well-trained 
in order to be able to go, as I've said, toe-to-toe with 
industry. So I am concerned by the amount of time that it's 
taken to get those licenses. And I think that the--you know, 
the folks at the FAA are working very hard. They're very 
intelligent, very dedicated public servants, and they're trying 
to implement regulations that need to be updated because they 
were moved very quickly through the system. And industry is 
very eager to work meaningfully with them to get it right.
    Mr. Collins. Thank you.
    Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back.
    Mr. Baird. The gentleman yields back.
    And we go next to Representative Tonko from New York.
    Mr. Tonko. Thank you, sir. And thank--I thank our Chair and 
Ranking Member for holding this important hearing, and I thank 
our witnesses for their participation.
    We know that private companies rely on good and sound 
science to inform their most important decisions. And so much 
of that science emanates out of the robust federally funded 
research enterprise. The public-private partnerships that have 
allowed the space industry to flourish over the last 60 years 
will continue to be the cornerstone of safe and successful 
commercial space activities.
    So the Federal Government is undoubtedly in the best 
position to create standards that will protect the integrity of 
the R&D required to advance these ventures. Unfortunately, 
we're not only dealing with a patchwork of agency and 
regulatory processes for the licensing and approvals to operate 
in space, but we also have a patchwork of scientific integrity 
policies across the plethora of State--or Federal agencies.
    Throughout my time in Congress, I've made the establishment 
of Federal scientific integrity policy standards a major 
priority. It is imperative that no matter what Administration 
is in the White House and no matter who is at the helm of our 
Federal agencies, scientific research can be relied upon as a 
safe launch to deepen our exciting opportunities in this age of 
commercial space activity.
    So for anyone on the panel or any and all, what is the 
importance of scientific integrity in the context of commercial 
space activities, and how does that play a role in R&D efforts 
driven by the private sector?
    Dr. Koller. I think scientific integrity is--the 
fundamentals--is part of the fundamentals of scientific 
development. And in a collaborative approach between academia 
and industry and the government, I think we need to find ways 
to accelerate scientific progress and development because those 
are the seed points for technological innovation and 
development.
    Mr. Tonko. Thank you. Anyone else?
    Ms. Drees. I'll add to that for maybe a little bit of a 
different perspective. You know, one of the things that we see 
as an opportunity in the space industry is being able to bring 
scientists to the ideal environment where they can conduct 
research in a suborbital or orbital environment. And what we're 
seeing is, you know, a lot of companies that are partnering 
with government and with academia to be able to bring that 
scientific community up to up to space.
    In addition to a lot of the companies and organizations 
that are members of CSF, we also have several universities and 
other organizations that we consider research affiliates, and 
we work closely with them as well. We have a space applications 
research group that we work very closely with. So there's a lot 
of opportunity for scientific development, even within the 
commercial space sector as it is.
    Mr. Tonko. Anyone else? Yes, Ms. Schenewerk, please.
    Ms. Schenewerk. Yes. So the add I will make to this is the 
opportunities that have been created. So Ms. Drees was--you 
know, referenced this to some degree, but also the--with 
affordable launch and with more affordable manufacturing of 
spacecraft, we see that aspect being--those affordability 
aspects affecting the ability to get science to space faster, 
too. So, you know, one of the things that kind of is a 
crossover with this Committee's jurisdiction is thinking about 
how organizations like NASA think about how they conduct 
science and how they may need, in some cases, to modernize 
their approach to engaging the scientific community with the 
space community because of the opportunities that now exist 
that previously didn't. So the fundamental approach in--of 
bringing science to space is definitively different today than 
it has been in the past, and we need to make sure that that's 
moving through the system, getting into the academic world and 
we're making sure that we're really building those public-
private partnerships to make sure that we're capitalizing on 
that affordability factor.
    Mr. Tonko. Thank you. Thank you very much. And looking 
forward to the future, what possibilities are each of you most 
excited about in the commercial space sector?
    Ms. Schenewerk. So I mentioned I haven't gone to space yet. 
I would love to live in a world where a person like me, who's 
been a government servant and now a lawyer working with a 
number of companies, could go to space. I think that the 
benefit for that is that my time or my investment would then 
garner further activities because the thing that I'm really 
excited about with space are all the aspects of space that can 
benefit people's lives here on Earth, the technology that we 
will develop that will help us clean water so that we can have 
sustainable water in space, that helps us with more sustainable 
energy approaches, that helps us understand how we could do 
better crop growth, how we can have rural connectivity so 
people can access information to help them make a decision 
about how they might vote or about how they might access 
benefits or how they might travel next week. Whatever it is, 
space offers the benefits to people on Earth, and we will only 
see those if we continue to make the investments that we're 
making and we continue to expand the scope of the space 
activities.
    Mr. Tonko. Thank you. My time is up. And I thank you, 
Chair, and I yield back.
    Mr. Baird. The gentleman yields back.
    And the witnesses might want to know that there's just two 
of our Members that have questions left.
    And with that, we'll go to Representative Caraveo from 
Colorado.
    Ms. Caraveo. Well, thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you to 
all--to you all for sitting through a long hearing. I'm very 
excited for today's hearing, especially since a couple of us 
actually just got to meet with NASA astronaut Frank Rubio, who 
is currently orbiting the Earth on the International Space 
Station, and so that was a wonderful experience.
    Colorado, unknown to many people, is a national leader in 
space exploration and research. We're actually the Nation's 
second-largest aerospace economy, and we rank first in the 
Nation for aerospace employment concentration. Additionally, 
Colorado is home to one of 12 FAA commercial spaceports in the 
United States that can support horizontal launch and landing 
operations.
    As some of you may know, in 1994, Congress authorized the 
Space Transportation Infrastructure Matching program to provide 
Federal support for the development of a domestic commercial 
spaceport network. And unfortunately, only a small handful of 
STIM grants were distributed between 2010 and 2012, and the 
program has not been appropriated since then, despite a 
significant increase in the demand for space transportation 
services.
    Ms. Drees, as someone who has run a spaceport before, can 
you please speak to the need for Congress to reauthorize and 
reappropriate the STIM program in order to support civil, 
commercial, and defense missions?
    Ms. Drees. Absolutely. Thank you so much for that question. 
And I completely agree. Having run a spaceport myself, I can 
tell you how difficult it is sometimes to be able to get some 
of those--the grant funds to allow companies to continue 
innovating in that environment. When I was in Mojave, it was 10 
years ago when we got a STIM grant. Shortly after that, the 
program was defunded or I guess not funded again. It is 
absolutely critical. And one of the things I mentioned earlier 
is we have a network of nationwide commercial spaceports that 
can really support the things that are happening at the Federal 
ranges. So there is definitely a capacity problem that we're 
experiencing at the ranges, and our Nation's network of 
commercial spaceports can help really fill that gap.
    So it is really important that we see a grant program 
established for these commercial spaceports so that we can 
continue to allow these operations. A lot of testing happens at 
these commercial spaceports as well, which is really important 
to the development of the entire industry. So we see the 
opportunity for commercial spaceports across the country to 
really help establish that part of the industry.
    Ms. Caraveo. And more specifically, how important is 
building resilient spaceport infrastructure to maintaining 
technological competitiveness over our adversaries?
    Ms. Drees. Yes, absolutely. And we do see that as a 
critical component of having a national spaceport strategy of 
sorts, to have a lot of different capabilities around the 
country. This is something even that DARPA (Defense Advanced 
Research Projects Agency) has been very interested in in making 
sure we have some sort of resilient launch capability or launch 
system here in the United States. There are a lot of 
spaceports, but every spaceport has its sort of unique 
characteristics. So having those capabilities across the 
country is absolutely critical.
    Ms. Caraveo. Thank you. Great points there.
    Shifting to orbits, I want to talk briefly about remote 
sensing. It continues to be more and more important for our 
society, and its uses continue to grow. Our own government 
relies on commercial imagery for national security missions and 
civil applications. And in fact, in my district, there's a 
company that is based there whose remote sensing work has 
helped tell the story of Ukraine--of the conflict in Ukraine in 
ways that we haven't been able to do before.
    So, Ms. Drees, again, for you, you mentioned in your 
testimony the need for additional transparency and definitions 
for remote sensing regulations. Can you please elaborate on the 
need for continuing review of those--the regulatory environment 
for remote sensing?
    Ms. Drees. Thank you so much. Yes, we do know that some 
sort of regulatory reform at NOAA is absolutely critical. And 
Ms. Schenewerk can probably fill in anything that I might miss 
here. So the challenge that I think that we're dealing with is 
a lot of the regulations that were created long ago didn't 
really expect to see the industry as it's grown and developed 
into today. So the reforms that need to happen are really meant 
to help sort of speed up the process. The challenge that a lot 
of the satellite companies have is the length of time that it 
takes to actually get their asset up into space, which is very 
detrimental to small companies that are relying on that one 
single asset to keep their companies alive.
    So the streamlining process requires keeping industry very 
much engaged, along with the regulator, to make sure that 
there's transparency along the way. If there are challenges 
with the application, those challenges should be communicated 
back to the company immediately versus, you know, having a 
complete, you know, form back to the company with a lot of 
things that could have been answered along the way. So that's 
one of the things that we're recommending.
    Ms. Schenewerk. Yes, I'll just add that one of the pieces 
that really is important in the conversation about remote 
sensing capabilities and the licensing is how those conditions 
that are placed on licenses, especially for more sophisticated 
systems, right, so if you're a tier one system, maybe it's not 
so bad, but if you're tier two or tier three and you have 
conditions, whether those conditions expire over time, have 
clear indicators for when you can move past those and not face 
those conditions. Because that is the challenge of having to 
get a license and then go back and adjudicate the conditions on 
your license where you might be able to open up a market, might 
be able to serve as a customer, might be able to provide 
humanitarian support that is limited by virtue of that 
condition that perhaps is overtaken by events.
    Ms. Caraveo. Thank you both so much. And thank you, Mr. 
Chair, for extending my time.
    Mr. Baird. The gentlelady yields back.
    And now we go to Florida with Representative Frost.
    Mr. Frost. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
    NASA has launched dreams, careers, technologies and has 
helped with the expanding private space industry. And there's a 
lot of symmetry here. You know, public university researchers 
are now mainly launching their experiments from private 
satellites. But the increasing number of launches, you know, 
they're a hazard. Some fear that it could create a zero G Wild 
West.
    And, Dr. Koller, I agree with you, and it seems like you 
seem to redirect this binary choice that folks have--sometimes 
will have us to believe that there's either no regulation or 
crazy amount of regulation. And you seem to reject that tug of 
war between regulation and no regulation. You say we should 
focus on a comprehensive approach to safety with both 
government and industry taking initiative to solve these 
problems. I'm curious, what are some of the threats to safety 
that you see? And also, how has the industry stepped up to 
solve them, and where are they--where has it fallen short?
    Dr. Koller. So I think--excuse me. I think there could be a 
distinction being made between are the missions purely robotic, 
or are actually people involved? And I think different 
paradigms could apply to those, right, if the life and safety 
of an individual on board is directly at risk. And so for 
those--I think for those types of missions, I think we need to 
take lessons learned from other sectors and implement the right 
tools, the right mechanisms, and develop a more collaborative 
approach, not an adversarial approach between regulator and 
industry, but a collaborative approach that is taking into 
account people's culture, data collection, various different 
mechanisms, including, you know, international transparency and 
collaboration. And I think if we do build--if we are able to 
build a more comprehensive safety management system in a 
collaborative way, I think that is our chance to actually 
gradually improve the--and reduce the risks that are involved.
    Mr. Frost. Thank you. And there are many industries that 
have great relationships between regulators and the industry. 
And I think now that we're at this beginning phase, we have an 
opportunity to make this one of those.
    Last fall, the Biden Administration announced their first 
cislunar science and technology strategy. Mr. Dunstan, when you 
say we need to be good stewards of the cislunar system, what 
does that mean to you?
    Mr. Dunstan. Well, for me, it means that we have to 
recognize that--especially the orbits around Earth everyone 
uses and so everyone is responsible for them. And so we have to 
be--do our part to be responsible to not clog them up with too 
much junk. And I think because of our ability to innovate so 
rapidly, we should be at the forefront of developing 
remediation efforts, technologies that we can actually bring 
down. And there have been some really excellent studies as to 
where the worst ones are. We can identify sort of the worst 
bodies that are up there. And if we can develop the 
technologies to bring them down, we actually are being good 
stewards and are helping the world as a whole.
    Mr. Frost. Thank you. You know, I want this industry to 
continue to grow and thrive, especially in Florida, where we 
have over 150,000 jobs in aerospace and counting. And as a 
former cadet major in the Civil Air Patrol, I used to fly 
gliders out of Merritt Island, aerospace has a very special 
place in my heart.
    My district has some of the worst income inequality in the 
country, and I think young people equipped for good-paying STEM 
jobs can help provide a local solution to the income, wealth 
inequality we see, especially in central Florida. I've met with 
many STEM-obsessed students across my district, which 
constantly bring up the great programs that they hear about and 
have done through NASA that has helped them continue to spark 
and motivate them to be involved in STEM.
    Ms. Drees, how have members of the Commercial Spaceflight 
Federation engage in efforts to promote STEM education in the 
workforce?
    Ms. Drees. That's a really important point for our 
industry, and I appreciate the question. And many of our 
members are not only very interested in this topic, we are 
hiring, you know, students out of university to fill the jobs, 
and they're motivating and inspiring kids even as young as 
kindergarten to get interested in space and science and 
technology in hopes that we can kind of start recruiting from a 
very young age this next generation of scientists and engineers 
that the industry so desperately needs, not only in the space 
industry, but really across many industries. So it is a very 
critical component, as is workforce development, in terms of 
what's happening in the commercial space industry. We're also--
many of our members are partnering with the National Space 
Council in their efforts in STEM initiatives as well, so it's 
absolutely a critical aspect of the industry.
    Mr. Frost. Thank you. And, Ms. Schenewerk? OK. Perfect. 
Based on your experience, how can Congress help with workforce 
development in the commercial space sector?
    Ms. Schenewerk. So I think that the programs that the 
Congress supports through NASA, the education programs, I think 
thinking, of course, about how our education system supports 
schools across the Nation, particularly schools that are most 
in need, is important.
    But, you know, I think in terms of engaging with the 
industry, the more that Congress engages in a meaningful way 
and has meaningful conversations about the importance of the 
industry, the exciting aspects of the industry, that helps, 
right? So yes, when we have a bad day, that could get a lot of 
attention, but even more important is when we have really good 
days, like the day that we launched Americans from American 
soil for the first time in a decade.
    So that--those are the kinds of opportunities to highlight 
what this industry is accomplishing to make sure that students 
that are really young know that they are our futures in the 
industry and that there's a whole host of capabilities, right? 
Technicians, welders, truck drivers, to aerospace engineers and 
astronauts, we hire all of those folks, even lawyers. So I 
think that's an important point to engage meaningful and to 
talk about the positive potential of the industry.
    Mr. Frost. Yes, well, thank you all so much. The first 
rocket launch--I've seen rocket launches my entire life from my 
backyard. But my first one I actually did at Kennedy Space 
Center was just a few months ago was for the TEMPO 
(Tropospheric Emissions: Monitoring Pollution) rocket launch, 
which was NASA technology on a private rocket. And I think, you 
know, it shows that there's great room for collaboration here. 
Thank you.
    Mr. Baird. The gentleman yields back.
    We want to thank the witnesses for your valuable testimony, 
and we appreciate the Members' questions.
    The record will remain open for 10 days for additional 
comments and the written questions from Members. This hearing 
is adjourned.
    [Whereupon, at 12:46 p.m., the Committee was adjourned.]

                               Appendix I

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                   Answers to Post-Hearing Questions
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                              Appendix II

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                   Additional Material for the Record
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