Pete Domenici: “I have long been concerned over the excessive cost of space launch. We have lost the commercial space launch industry…”

“I have long been concerned over the excessive cost of space launch. We have lost the commercial space launch industry, which America pioneered, to overseas competitors. The burden on the defense budget is inordinate. Current space launch vehicles are still using 1970's technology and have little margin for error. The military spends well over $1 billion per year on space launch. A 15,000-pound communications satellite launch is over $100 million; a 50,000-pound surveillance satellite over $350 million. Today's rockets are engineering miracles in an industry that needs to achieve manufacturing economies. I have been closely following the progress of Microcosm, a small California company and its Scorpius program, a family of space launch vehicles. This is an effort to lower the space launch cost from its current over $7,000 per pound to low Earth orbit to under $1,000 per pound. For example, if Scorpius is successful, the current launch cost for a 15,000-pound military communications satellite would drop from over $100 million to less than $15 million. Scorpius's launch crew would be 12 technicians, not the current hundreds, even thousands of engineers needed for today's. Those same 12 technicians, when not actually firing the rocket, would be assembling them. It is truly a simple design. Scorpius would be true launch on demand, able to lift off within 8 hours after the payload arrives at the launch site.”