Political Quotes

“The Bridenstine-Rohrabacher-Posey amendment, which is supported by the Commercial Spaceflight Federation, transfers $250,000 from the FAA's finance and management activities to the Office of Commercial Space Transportation. This is a small amount, but it is extremely important if we are to support the booming commercial spaceflight industry. The FAA Office of Commercial Space Transportation's mission is as follows: ``to ensure protection of the public, property, and the national security and foreign policy interests of the United States during commercial launch or reentry activities and to encourage, facilitate, and promote commercial space transportation.'' To carry out this mission, AST, as the office is known, is tasked with overseeing commercially licensed launches, test launches under experimental permits, licenses and permits for new vehicle designs, supporting NASA and the Commercial Crew contractors, taking the lead role in coordinating space traffic at the White House's request, and many other duties. Over the past few years, the number of activities AST oversees has grown significantly; yet funding and staffing levels have remained absolutely flat. Just last month, the House of Representatives passed the SPACE Act on an overwhelmingly bipartisan basis. That bill establishes a statutory and regulatory regime that provides stability and encourages private sector investment in order to facilitate the growth of commercial space activities.…”