Congress, industry criticize FAA launch licensing regulations

And before anyone wants to jump to conclusions, it’s bipartisan:

> Members on both sides if the aisle shared frustrations about Part 450. “License processing under the new Part 450 process is moving at a snail’s pace,” said Rep. Brian Babin (R-Texas), chairman of the subcommittee.

> He said he was concerned about implications it could have for NASA’s Artemis program, since the Human Landing System landers being developed by SpaceX and Blue Origin will launch using commercial licenses. “I fear at this rate the Communist Party will launch taikonauts to the moon while U.S. industry remains tethered to Earth with red tape.”

> “We are in a bureaucratic soup,” said Rep. Haley Stevens (D-Mich.) later in the hearing. “We know we’re not getting to the moon unless we get some commercial spacecraft. So something’s not working here.”

> The only person defending the Part 450 regulations at the hearing was Kelvin Coleman, FAA associate administrator for commercial space transportation.

The FAA’s blockages of progress on Starship licensing also came up:

> Coleman (FAA associate administrator for commercial space transportation) mentioned the Starship license, which is under Part 450, later in the hearing. “SpaceX has four flights under its belt, three of which have been under modifications to the license that have been requested by the company,” he said. Those modifications are caused by changes in the mission or the vehicle. “It is the company that is pushing mission-by-mission approvals. That’s what the pace is about.”

> That answer was unsatisfactory for one member of the committee. “You do realize that technology changes literally every day?” Rep. Rich McCormick (R-Ga.) told Coleman. “You’re in charge. You make the difference. You get to determine how fast these go through, and if what you’re doing is not working, you need to change.”

FAA, despite all this time, still seems to not understand the concept iterative development.