House Committee Passes Comm. Space Launch Amendments Act of 2004

XCOR Aerospace praised the House Science Committee on Monday for its swift markup and passage of H.R. 3752, the Commercial Space Launch Amendments Act of 2004, earlier last week. The company is in the business of developing and producing reusable rocket engines and rocket powered vehicles.

"The Members and staff of the House Science Committee have crafted an excellent piece of legislation that will help foster the new commercial human space flight industry.  Several staffers took the time to understand very technical details and subtle regulatory and policy issues, and therefore were able to produce a bill that will make a real difference," said XCOR CEO Jeff Greason."Ultimate credit goes to the lawmakers who sponsored the legislation; Mr. Rohrabacher, lead sponsor of this bill, and co-sponsors Chairman Boehlert, Ranking Member Gordon, Mr. Hall and Mr. Lampson."

The bill takes major steps such as:

• Providing a clear and enabling regulatory program for commercial human spaceflight. This program will allow the consuming public to make an informed decision before undergoing the risks of spaceflight.
• Creating a new regulatory concept, the "experimental permit", that has many features of the long-standing experimental aircraft program.  The bill also allows for streamlined regulation and the conduct of reusable launch vehicle test flights.
• Eliminating uncertain or overlapping jurisdiction between airplanes and space vehicles. The legislation confirms that the FAA's Associate Administrator for Commercial Space Transportation (AST) has sole authority over suborbital vehicles.
• Extending the existing liability indemnification for the entire commercial space transportation industry in general, and confirms its application to commercial human spaceflight.

XCOR urges everyone interested in the commercialization of space to write or call their Member of Congress. In your communications, request they co-sponsor H.R. 3752 and support the bill when it comes up for vote on the floor of the House of Representatives.

FMI:  http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c108:H.R.3752,  www.xcor.com