The White House released a new National Space Transportation Policy, much of which is consistent with the last policy released in 2004.
Goals of the policy include promoting and maintaining a healthy domestic space transportation industrial base, encouraging and facilitating the United States’ commercial space transportation industry, conducting and promoting technology research and development activities and fostering the development of U.S. commercial spaceflight capabilities serving the non-governmental human spaceflight market.
The Aerospace Industries Association (AIA) trade group applauded the release in a Nov. 21 Twitter post. Boeing [BA], participating in NASA’s Commercial Crew program, said in a statement that it, too, applauded President Barack Obama’s “balanced approach” to developing affordable commercial crew and cargo transportation areas of proven technology.
An industry source said there wasn’t anything surprising in the new policy, other than how long it took to be released. But the source said he liked the policy’s stability, because companies are now investing in launch capabilities and now is not the time for short-term changes, which he said dries up investment.
Other highlights of the policy include ensuring the availability of at least two U.S. space transportation vehicle families capable of reliably launching national security payloads, promoting the use of hosted payload arrangements and providing for the private sector retention of technical data rights in acquiring space transportation capabilities. The U.S. has United Launch Alliance (ULA) and Space Exploration Technologies Corp. (SpaceX) under contract for Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle (EELV) missions, which are to assure the federal government access to space. ULA is a joint venture of Lockheed Martin [LMT] and Boeing.
The policy also promotes investment in modernization of space launch ranges and new propulsion capabilities.
House Science, Space and Technology space subcommittee Ranking Member Donna Edwards (D-Md.) said in a statement she was pleased with what she called similarities between her NASA Authorization Bill for 2013 and the White House’s new space transportation policy, including support for human space transportation beyond low earth orbit (LEO) through the development of a heavy-lift launch vehicle and sustaining research, technology development and exploration-related capabilities enabled by the International Space Station (ISS).