FFA and the Moon

Dear Mr. Thomason,

Your request has been assigned within FAA Headquarters. Attached you will find an Acknowledgement letter with the contact information for the office(s) responding. Also, so you are aware, we have entered your fee category as ALL OTHER, and not media.

Respectfully,

Alan Billings
FOIA Business Analyst
Federal Aviation Administration AFN-140
CPS Professional Services
Desk:202-267-9166

Dear Mr. Thomason,

Your request has been assigned within FAA Headquarters. Attached you will find an Acknowledgement letter with the contact information for the office(s) responding

Mr. Thomason,

The program office is working on your FOIA request and have asked for additional time to compete their process. Please let us know in writing if April 24, 2015 is an acceptable date to receive your response. Thanks in advance for your assistance, take care and have a nice day.

Susan McLean
FOIA Management Specialist
FAA FOIA Program Management Branch, AFN-140
202-267-8574- Office
202-262-6277 - Cell

This email is intended solely for the recipient(s) named above. The information may be privileged and/or confidential. If you are not the intended recipient of this message, notify the sender immediately and delete this message. Thank you.

Dear Mr. Thomason,

I have gathered documentation required to respond to your FOIA request but understand that our letter of response bear the signature of our Associate Administrator. Unfortunately Dr. George Nield is on travel this week. He is returning Monday morning, so I respectfully ask for your allowance of an extension into next week for our response.

Thanks and regards,

Laura Bachurski
Office of Commercial Space Transportation
Strategic Planning
202-267-7829 Office

Dear Mr. Thomason,

Sorry for the delay in getting you a formal response to your FOIA request. I must explain that I have only recently assumed FOIA responsibilities for my office and am learning new pieces of the process with each document that I discover and each conversation that I have in pursuit of getting you as complete a response as possible.

This Monday morning our chief of staff drew my attention to a letter sent to Bigelow Aerospace in December 2014 which falls under the category of "responsive record." However, I do not have authority to release it prior to receiving concurrence from the company. That will take more time. Have you possibly approached Bigelow directly for a copy of that letter?

Meanwhile, I want to provide you with two documents that contain public information related to the moon. Perhaps they can be of some help to you. The first is our 2013 compendium of commercial space transportation, pages 79 and 80. The second attachment is a presentation from Professor Joanne Irene Gabrynowicz that was presented at one our annual conferences (see chart 10 on Evolving: Private Lunar Missions).

Thanks and regards,

Laura Bachurski
Office of Commercial Space Transportation
Strategic Planning
202-267-7829 Office

Hello Mr. Thomasson,

I am actively working on your request. In the past month I have discovered responsive documents from Moon Express, Inc. in addition to the responsive documents from Bigelow Aerospace. I am in process of having the submitters (ME and BA) review these documents and provide me with authorization to release or sufficient justification for denying their release to you. This will take possibly another 45 days.

I don’t know if these will be useful to you or not, but here is a listing of a flurry of legislation in congress this month regarding commercial space:

Commercial Space: On May 20, the Senate Commerce, Science, & Transportation Committee passed S. 1297, a bipartisan bill called the Commercial Space Launch Competitiveness Act. This bill extends the International Space Station until 2024 and aims to ensure a stable regulatory environment for emerging space companies, operators and investors by – among other things – extending the commercial industry’s regulatory grace period until 2020.
On May 13, the House Science Committee marked up four commercial space bills – the Spurring Private Aerospace Competitiveness and Entrepreneurship (SPACE) Act of 2015, the Space Resource Exploration and Utilization Act (“to promote the development of a United States commercial space resource exploration and utilization industry and to increase the exploration and utilization of resources in outer space”), the Commercial Remote Sensing Act (“to facilitate the continued development of the commercial remote sensing industry and protect national security”), and the Office of Space Commerce Act (“to rename the Office of Space Commerce and for other purposes”) – passing each out of committee along party lines. Later, all four bills were combined under the auspices of H.R. 2262, the SPACE Act.
The SPACE Act also intends to secure a predictable environment conducive to the development of a robust commercial space industry. It provides clarification regarding the definition of government astronauts, aims to assist FAA in its efforts to facilitate a safe regulatory regime and explores the controversial issue of private property rights of U.S. companies on celestial objects.
On May 21, the SPACE Act was debated on the House floor and passed 284-133 (with approximately 50 Democrats joining Republicans in voting for it).
In addition, the House passed H.R. 1561, the Weather Research and Forecasting Innovation Act of 2015 on the evening of May 19. This bill aims to advance NOAA’s weather research through a “focused program of investment on affordable and attainable advances in observational, computing, and modeling capabilities to support substantial improvement in weather forecasting and prediction of high impact weather events” and to expand opportunities for the commercial provision of weather data. On May 20, the House Science, Space, and Technology Subcommittee on Environment held a hearing entitled, “Advancing Commercial Weather Data: Collaborative Efforts to Improve Forecasts,” which focused on policies and acquisition strategies of weather data for NOAA.
Thanks and regards,

Laura Bachurski

Dear Mr. Thomasson,

We are preparing our formal reply to you. It will be forthcoming shortly.
Best regards,
Laura Bachurski

A copy of documents responsive to the request.

A cover letter granting the request and outlining any exempted materials, if any.