On March 29, 1999 the Assistant to the President for Science and Technology
and the Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs signed
a memo to the Secretaries of Defense, Transportation, and Commerce, the
Director of Central Intelligence, and the NASA Administrator.  This
memo initiated a White House-led interagency review on the management and
use of the U.S. space launch bases and ranges.  The interagency working
group was co-chaired by NSC and OSTP and all U.S. space sectors had a voice
in the process.  The review examined modernization efforts and looked
to the future to recommend areas where we can streamline policy and management
arrangements to enable the launch bases and ranges to accommodate all U.S.
space transportation users more efficiently. The report is available to
the public on the world wide web at the following addresses: www.af.mil,
www.hq.nasa.gov/osf, and www.whitehouse.gov/WH/EOP/OSTP/html/spaceranges.pdf.

The Report of the Interagency Working Group on Future Management and
Use of the U.S. Space Launch Bases and Ranges examines the current roles
and responsibilities of federal government agencies and the U.S. commercial
space sector and the major policy and management issues resulting from
the shift in launch base use from its historic government-dominated basis
toward more commercial, market-driven activities.  The U.S. government
is already sharing substantial responsibilities with the commercial sector
and is pursuing a path to share significantly more responsibilities with
spaceports, state governments, and commercial operators in the future.
The report describes a strategy that builds on these changes with a series
of near-term steps that will enhance and expand the government-state-industry
partnership.  These steps include:

 

  • Alternative management processes to allow U.S. commercial and government
    users to have a greater voice in improving operational flexibility and
    efficiency of the ranges.
  • Use of nonfederal funding where appropriateóespecially from states and
    spaceportsófor the maintenance and modernization of the launch bases and
    ranges to meet national needs.
  • Options for replacing the ìexcess capacityî construct in the current law
    to allow a more complete federal-state-industry partnership to develop.
  • Common range safety requirements for government and commercial launches
    at federal and nonfederal launch sites.
  • Next-generation range technology development and demonstration, with a
    focused charter to improve safety, increase flexibility and capacity, and
    lower costs for reusable and expendable launches.