Posted on 05/25/2018 1:03:13 PM PDT by messierhunter
"A second section deals with commercial remote sensing regulatory reform. “The current regulatory system is woefully out of date and needs significant reform to ensure the United States remains the chosen jurisdiction for these high tech companies,” the fact sheet states.
A related section calls on the Secretary of Commerce to provide a plan to create a “one-stop shop” within his department “for administering and regulating commercial space flight activities.” The Commerce Department had previously announced plans to combine the Commercial Remote Sensing Regulatory Affairs office with the Office of Space Commerce..." http://spacenews.com/new-policy-directive-implements-commercial-space-regulatory-reforms/
This appears to address regulatory issues that forced SpaceX to stop providing images from the second stage of their Falcon 9 rocket during the launch of Iridium communications satellites in March of this year. During launch, video of the rocket was halted when it orbital velocity, shortly before engine cutoff. SpaceX stated that they were being required to stop providing the footage due to regulations enforced by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Currently the Commercial Remote Sensing Regulatory Affairs office is part of NOAA, which ruled the second stage webcam to be a "commercial remote sensing platform" for the purposes of commercial rocket launches. This decision may have been made by government bureaucrats in response to the Falcon Heavy launch in February which featured a 4 hour webcast of earth from cameras located around the Tesla Roadster payload on the second stage. This is pretty clearly an abuse of the original intent of the regulations, which were designed to prevent national security from being compromised by commercial satellites with sensing and imaging capabilities similar to government spy satellites. Thankfully, this policy directive should streamline the current regulations and make it easier for commercial companies like SpaceX to conduct their launches and re-entries with less red tape.
(Excerpt) Read more at spacenews.com ...
One can only assume that the prime directive from Barry Soetoro promoting Mohamedans has been lifted.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.