PRIVATE SPACE IS A PART OF AMERICA THAT WORKS, SO NATURALLY THINGS NEED TO CHANGE: Space is Vast. So is the Administration’s Mission Authorization Proposal.

At the end of last year, the Biden administration released a draft bill for Congress to consider passing into law. This legislative proposal is for so-called “mission authorization.” Under the proposal, the Departments of Commerce and Transportation (via the FAA) would regulate all space activities that are not currently under some other agency’s authority. New and novel operations such as space habitats, asteroid mining, and lunar construction would require federal licenses.

Satellite remote sensing, satellite communications, and commercial launches and reentries already require licenses. If Congress passed the proposal as a law, the FAA would acquire authority over all human spaceflight and Commerce would regulate unmanned activities, such as robotic in-space servicing, assembly, and manufacturing, and debris removal.

Senator Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona said that although she was glad to see the administration working on the issue, she thought it contained “numerous ambiguities, new undefined terms, and broad grants of open-ended authority.” As Space News noted, she did not elaborate on these concerns. Perhaps the Senator meant the same thing as the courts do, when they turn a jaundiced eye on impermissibly broad grants of open-ended authority.

One example from the proposal is the administration’s request that the FAA be able to issue licenses and thus regulate human space activities consistent not only with public health and safety (among other things) as it does now, but consistent with the ambiguous, undefined, broad, and open-ended “national interests.” Although the administration’s accompanying explanation states licensing in accordance with national interests would allow the FAA to ensure other U.S. interests than national security and foreign policy interests are addressed in licensing, particularly those associated with the U.S. civil space program, planetary protection, and lunar heritage sites, it couches this in terms that make it clear that these are examples, not an exhaustive list. National interests could extend further.

In short, the administration seeks unfettered authority for Commerce and the FAA to regulate as they see fit.

I wish that I trusted them. I don’t.