Rep. Kiley has introduced legislation to make the Office of Commercial Space Transportation report directly to the Secretary of Transportation. This comes after Rep. Kiley questioned Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) Administrator Michael Whitaker before the Aviation Subcommittee with respect to the FAA’s decisions with SpaceX launches in September.
The bill streamlines the oversight process by moving the Office of Commercial Space Transportation (AST) out from under the FAA and requiring AST to report directly to the Secretary of Transportation. This eliminates the middleman in the reporting process and enables AST to keep pace with a rapidly growing industry.
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I think there is a bit of development left before some rapid pace emerges. I can’t imagine they want to refactor old hardware too much as they learn. The Starship hasn’t even orbited yet. In terms of the regs, the FAA certainly has a lot of black marks lately, but the puppet Sean Duffy that will be installed as Secretary of Transportation has no domain knowledge so I would guess anything goes from now on.
So the 25 launches per year permit given by the FAA might be its swan song with respect to space launchers.
If the number of launches permitted ceases being a problem, how many SpaceX could immediately perform and in what time frames?