The U.S. House of Representatives passed the Commercial Space Act of 1997 November 4 while two Floridians planned to introduce a version of the bill in the Senate.
     H.R. 1702 passed the House on the evening of the 4th on a voice vote. The bill, introduced in May 16 by 16 House members, including Science Committee chairman James Sensenbrenner (R-WI), was approved the committee in the summer. Co-sponors included the committee's ranking minority member, George Brown (D-CA), and space subcommittee chair Dana Rohrabacher (R-CA).
     The bill calls for a number of changes that would benefit the nascent commercial space launch industry in the United States. Included in the bill are regulatory and licensing changes for spaceports and reusable launch vehicles, a requirement for the federal government to use commercial launches for government payloads in most cases, and require NASA to study the commercial possibilities for the International Space Station.
     We are transforming the way this country deals with commercial space issues," Sensenbrenner said. "Passage and eventual enactment of H.R. 1702 will provide an environment which will allow the U.S. commercial space industry to flourish."
     A Senate version of H.R. 1702 has yet to be introduced, but progress is being made in this area as well. Florida's two Senators, Democrat Bob Graham and Republican Connie Mack, are reportedly drafting a version of the bill for introduction in the Senate early next year.
     A similar commercial space bill passed the House in 1996 but failed to gain passage in the Senate near the end of the session when a few members blocked the bill.
     "Today the House of Representatives did its job," said Rohrabacher after the bill's passage. "Now the American people need to contact their Senators and the White House to ensure its enactment into law early next year."

Over 200 members of the House of Representatives have a signed a letter calling for an increase, not a cut, in NASA's budget for fiscal year 1999.
     The letter, addressed to House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-GA) and drafted by Reps. Dave Weldon (R-FL) and Dennis Kucinich (D-OH), calls for Gingrich and Congress to support an increase in funding for the space agency when the 1999 budget is drafted early next year.
     Released November 13, the letter states that the nation has "reached a point at which further cuts could inflict irreparable harm on the Agency's mission and personnel, particularly NASA's ability to plan long-term initiatives."
     The letter calls for a four percent increase, after adjustments for inflation, above NASA's $13.6 billion 1998 budget for 1999. The letter also asks for two percent increases in 2000 and 2001.
     "Even with these increases," said Charles Walker, National Space Society president, "NASA would still be less than half way back to recouping the funding that's been lost since 1992, while NASA's commitments to the nation and accomplishments have dramatically increased in the same period of time." Walker added, "We encourage Speaker Gingrich to take a hard look at the members' proposal."
     Reports last month estimated NASA's budget for 1999 to be as low as $12.5 billion, a cut of more than $1 billion. Such a cut would endanger key NASA science and research programs, including reusable launch vehicle research and future robotic Mars missions.
     Figures released earlier this month indicate the Office of Management and Budget, the federal agency drafting President Clinton's 1999 budget proposal, may be settling on a figure near $13 billion for NASA's budget.

Members of the House space subcommittee made it clear in a November 5 hearing that they were growing increasingly intolerant of the budget overruns plaguing the International Space Station.
     "If NASA were to propose the Space Station today, I couldn't support it knowing what I know now," Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-CA), chair of the space committee, said at the hearing. "I have to admit that the problem isn't the Space Station, but in the agency that's running the program."
     Rohrabacher and other committee members vented their frustration about the station problems on Wilbur Trafton, NASA Associate Administrator of Space Flight. Trafton reported on the current status of the station to the committee.
     Trafton may have triggered Rohrabacher and others by reporting that cost overruns on the station may reach $800 million, $200 million more than reported in July. Trafton said an additional $207 million would be needed in fiscal year 1998 to cover the overrun.
     The $207 million comes on top of $230 million in extra funding appropriated for 1998 to cover overruns in NASA's contract with Boeing. "We are disappointed that the appropriations bill did not include the flexibility sought by NASA to identify the remaining $200 million within the Science, Aeronautics and Technology and Mission Support appropriations accounts," Trafton said. "We believe these adjustments could have been made without direct impacts on the productivity of our science and technology program."
     Trafton said several options are being considered in the event additional funding is not approved, including delaying the assembly of Phase III of the station or research activities during assembly, or stopping "Russian contingency activity" in the event further problems delay Russia's contribution to the station.
     In an apparently unrelated story, Trafton announced November 13 that he was resigning from his associate administrator position for personal reasons. A NASA spokesman told the newspaper Florida Today that the timing was merely coincidence, and had nothing to do with the progress on the station or the recent Congressional hearing.
     Rohrabacher, who said he was "very troubled" by Trafton's resignation, thought Trafton might have tired of defending other's mistakes on the station. "I know that if I were in his shoes, I would be very tired of taking other people's medicine for them."

A $250,000 prize for the first non-government rocket to send a small payload into space by the year 2000 was announced by the Space Frontier Foundation and a supporting foundation November 7.
     The Cheap Access To Space (CATS) Prize will award $250,000 to the first group who can send a payload of at least 2 kg (2.2 Bs.) to an altitude of at least 200 km (120 mi.) by November 8, 2000, three years after the prize was announced. The catch: the rocket must be "substantially privately designed, developed, and built", according to the prize guidelines.
     A secondary prize of $50,000 will be awarded to a rocket that first carries a similar payload at least 120 km (74 mi.) but below 200 km, with the same stipulations on the rocket and launch deadline.
     The goal of the prize is to "put the face of normal people behind the face mask of the spacesuit" by showing that space access is open to more than just the government and large industries, said Rick Tumlinson, president of the Space Frontier Foundation.
     Tumlinson is also a founder of the Foundation for the International Non-governmental Development of Space (FINDS), the foundation that is providing the financial support for the prize.
     Prize entrants will be required to loft a 2 kg payload provided by the rules committee for the prize. The launch will be supervised by judges for the prize to verify any claims of success and to also be sure the launch is conducted in a safe manner.
     Representatives from several small aerospace companies, including those who have developed high-powered amateur rockets in the recent past, expressed an interest in competing for the prize.

[Ed. Note: more information about the Space Frontier Conference, at which the announcement was made, will be published in the December issue of SpaceViews.]