Advocacy Groups Urge FAA to Approve the SpaceX Flight Test to Speed Up Development of Domestic Heavy Lift Capability

An industry effort urging the Federal Aviation Administration to pick up the pace on SpaceX Starship approval. 

The statement was released today, signed by a group of 14 space advocacy entities publishing a joint statement in support of the project. The signatories said that the approval of the SpaceX Starship, a super heavy, reusable launch system, is vital to the progression of the commercial space industry as a whole. The Complete system is hoped to someday carry both crew and cargo not just into Earth orbit, but to Luna, Mars, and someday - beyond. 

One of the co-signers of the statement, the Mars Society, an organization devoted to the eventual goal of manned missions to the red planet, said: 

"The SpaceX Starship offers extraordinary potential benefits for the exploration and development of space by both the public and private sectors. It will enable many new commercial space ventures as well as dramatically lower the costs and raise the frequency of scientific missions that will provide amazing new knowledge about our universe and home planet." 

The society stressed the reusability and relative sustainability inherent to the SpaceX design, as well as the now-apparent, vital need for a home-grown heavy lifter to replace the now-unavailable Soyuz rocket. "Its relatively clean environmental footprint, the large savings it offers taxpayers as a means of transport for government programs and missions and its ability to rapidly and regularly deliver satellite constellations and payloads to orbit will enhance national security, increase high paying jobs in the space sector, and propel American space leadership far ahead of any global competitors." 

The SpaceX Starship program was slated for its next test launch pending a consistently-postponed environmental assessment. The due date for its completion - a requirement before any flight test can take place - has come and gone multiple times. The FAA has intimated that there was a deluge of comments submitted to the administration upon request for public input, the processing of which has been assumed to be the cause of the extensive delays. SpaceX, and the surrounding industry is impatient, however, as founder Elon Musk mentioned early last month.

"Therefore we, the undersigned organizations, strongly urge the Federal Aviation Administration  and other federal agencies to provide full approval to SpaceX to begin orbital test flights of the Starship at the earliest possible date,"closed the co-signed statement. 

FMI: www.spacex.com, www.marssociety.org