[Congressional Record Volume 161, Number 159 (Wednesday, October 28, 2015)]
[Senate]
[Pages S7584-S7585]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                         COMMERCIAL SPACE BILL

  Mr. NELSON. Mr. President, it looks like there has been a resolution 
between the House and Senate on a commercial space bill which includes 
an update. This goes way back 31 years ago. When this Senator was a 
young Congressman, I actually participated in and sponsored the first 
Commercial Space Act. Very few people could have envisioned what would 
happen 30 years later with this legislation, for indeed commercial 
companies are delivering launch services not only to commercial 
customers, such as all of our satellites, GPS systems, and some 
communication satellites, but also government payloads for the U.S. 
Government, obviously Air Force payloads, and various other intel 
satellites and satellites for foreign countries.
  Our American space launchers are putting these satellites up into 
space, and of course it has revolutionized our daily life. How many 
among us are so accustomed to using this device to look up the location 
of an address? How do you think that is happening? It is happening 
because we have hundreds of satellites up there in the GPS system--
scores of satellites--that give you precise locations of any point on 
the globe where one might want to visit. These devices have gotten so 
sophisticated that they talk to you and say: Go 600 feet and turn right 
on such and such street and then turn left. It is just amazing. This 
doesn't just happen. It happens because of our space industry and in 
particular our commercial space industry.
  Since this Senator, as a young Congressman, got into this in the 
beginning, which was about 31 years ago, we have had to update this 
legislation. A lot of things have happened, and now there are very 
significant things that are happening. For the past decade, we have had 
a national laboratory in space, which is one component of what is 
happening, and it is known as the International Space Station. There 
are six human beings up there. There is an international crew, which 
includes American astronauts, and one of them, by the way, has now 
completed 6 months of a 1-year stay so we can study the effects on the 
human body after a long duration in space. That will help us so we can 
be ready to go to Mars with human beings in the decade of the 2030s.
  There are other activities on the space station that are commercial 
activities. There are all kinds of pharmaceutical experiments that are 
going on. As a matter of fact, there are drug trials right now, and the 
FDA, having used the properties of zero G on the International Space 
Station, is developing vaccines for salmonella and

[[Page S7585]]

MRSA. If using the properties of zero G may help us to develop vaccines 
that help us with diseases and bacteria on Earth, then that is a 
significant accomplishment. Those are some of the commercial activities 
that are taking place in space.
  As we think way into the future, we could be mining other planets, 
and we could certainly be mining asteroids. Wouldn't it be nice if we 
found an asteroid that was suddenly full of diamonds. We don't even 
have to stretch our imagination that far. There are all kinds of 
elements on these asteroids.
  This legislation should be cleared later on tonight and in the 
morning by both sides. Once it has been cleared, we can take the House 
bill that is down here, amend it on the Senate bill, and send it back 
to the House. The House has agreed with the far-reaching thought of 
mining on asteroids, which will be considered intellectual property so 
it is preserved for the commercial sector and that would be their 
property.
  This whole commercial space business today, including launching and 
some of the other activities, unbelievably, is a $330 billion industry. 
The commercial launch industry started out on American rockets. Over 
the course of the last three decades, our launchers were more 
expensive, and so international competitors came into this--the 
Russians, in some cases using old Soviet rockets, and the European 
Space Agency launched the Ariane rocket, which they developed. Other 
nations also have rockets that offer fierce competition to the American 
rockets.
  The need for this legislation to be passed at this time--by updating 
the Commercial Space Act--is because we are now seeing commercial 
enterprises that are set on a road in the NASA authorization bill of 
2010 and are becoming so efficient and effective that they are bringing 
down the cost of launching payloads into orbit. That is also 
benefitting the U.S. Government, which is buying these launch services 
in order to get government payloads into orbit. Because of that, we are 
now seeing some of that international business which went to other 
countries starting to come back to us. Orbital Sciences has a 
commercial rocket, and SpaceX has a very successful program. Amazon 
founder, Jeff Bezos, has a rocket company called Blue Origin and is 
likewise getting into the commercial space business. There are many 
others as well.
  This is an exciting time for us to be bringing a lot of this activity 
back to America. Therefore, at the end of the day, what does that mean? 
More industry, more high-tech, more research and development, more 
exploration, and more jobs.
  So we are seeing increasingly the U.S. Air Force cooperate on their 
installation, the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, using government 
property but leased through State or local space authorities, which are 
then, in turn, leasing to these commercial operators. A good example 
that has been tremendously successful for the past several years is an 
Elon Musk company called SpaceX. They contracted with Space Florida, 
which had worked out an arrangement with the Cape Canaveral Air Force 
Station for launch complex 40, for that to be the SpaceX launchpad. 
They have been enormously successful. They have not only launched 
government payloads--the NASA cargo to and from the space station--but 
they have also launched other commercial payloads, government payloads 
of foreign countries, as well as government payloads of the U.S. 
Government.
  Eventually, that commercial space company, along with the Boeing 
Company, will be the ones that, in just 2 years, will launch American 
astronauts on American rockets for the first time since the shutdown of 
the space shuttle back in 2011--American astronauts on American rockets 
to and from our international space station. Those two companies are 
competing for it, but it doesn't mean that just one of the two 
necessarily wins the competition. Both could be the providers for NASA 
of ways for us to get Americans on American rockets to our own 
international space station instead of having to rely on the Russian--
very proven and very dependable--Soyuz rocket, which is the only way to 
get our astronauts there at the moment, until we start flying these 
other new rockets.
  So I wanted to alert the Senate that this is happening as we speak. I 
hope we get all of the clearances in the Senate later tonight--if not, 
early in the morning--so that we can get this amended, onto the House 
bill. It would basically be this: ``Strike all after the enacting 
clause,'' put the Senate bill on, which we have already negotiated with 
the House, get it to the House, let them pass it, and get it to the 
President for signature. I wanted to bring the Senate up to date on 
what is happening.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The senior assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

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