At House Science, Babin aims to boost commercial spaceflight

WASHINGTON — Rep. Brian Babin, likely the next chairman of the House Science, Space and Technology Committee, is an outspoken advocate for greater commercial access to space, a stance the incoming Trump administration appears poised to support.

Babin, R-Texas, a dentist before he was elected to Congress in 2014, also looks to retain a strong role for NASA, which isn’t surprising considering he represents a Southeast Texas district that houses the Johnson Space Center, which employs more than 11,000 people.

“My near-term goals for the next Congress include reauthorizing vital programs at NASA and passing a commercial space bill to streamline regulations for industry while enhancing our capabilities and status as the world’s preeminent spacefaring nation,” Babin said in a statement.

Babin was recommended for House Science Committee chairman by the Republican Steering Committee on Dec. 9. The Republican Conference is expected to approve the decision.

Babin supports Americans’ returning to the moon because the country will benefit “geopolitically, scientifically, economically and from a national security perspective.”

His stance on commercial spaceflight might put him at odds with Democrats skeptical of further privatization of space, while space advocates may look to him to address a growing debris problem.

The stars could be aligning when it comes to commercial space travel. Fellow Texas Republican Ted Cruz will likely chair the Senate Commerce, Space and Transportation Committee. Like Babin, Cruz is an advocate of the commercial space industry and U.S. dominance in space exploration.

The third leg of support is likely to come from the second administration of President-elect Donald Trump. In his first term, Trump in 2017 reestablished the National Space Council and set ambitious goals for the U.S. to return to the moon and make it a staging ground for an eventual human mission to Mars.

Trump’s close ally Elon Musk has an interest in growing the commercial spaceflight sector. Musk’s company SpaceX holds more than $4 billion in government contracts, and the company is working toward human-crewed Mars missions. Trump’s pick for NASA administrator, Jared Isaacman, is a tech billionaire with close ties to Musk and SpaceX.

A bill that would reauthorize NASA, co-sponsored by Babin, included several provisions to promote commercial spaceflight, including directing the agency to work with commercial partners to deliver astronauts and materials to the International Space Station as well as logistics for returning to the moon. It also calls for a report on potential risks in the gap between the International Space Station’s removal from orbit in 2030 and commercially designed space stations’ readiness and certification for NASA’s use.

The bill passed in the House in September but hasn’t seen action in the Senate.

“We must ensure our nation is not tethered to Earth by red tape — industry should operate at the rapid speed of innovation rather than the sluggish pace of bureaucracy,” Babin wrote in a press release following his recommendation as committee chairman.

Consolidating space authority

Legislatively, he has already begun laying out his vision for deregulation of space travel.

Babin is the sponsor of a bill that would overhaul government oversight of commercial space activities to make the Commerce Department’s Office of Space Commerce the sole authority responsible for certifying commercial space activities. That office would report directly to the secretary of Commerce and have the authority to “authorize and supervise the operations of United States nongovernmental entities in outer space.”

Babin’s proposal would be at odds with a National Space Council framework announced in December 2023 that would split oversight for commercial space activities between the Transportation and Commerce departments.

Under current law, commercial space activity is licensed and regulated by the Federal Aviation Administration, an agency within the DOT.

House Democrats have been skeptical of the overhaul. When it came up for a House Science Committee vote in 2023, ranking member Zoe Lofgren, D-Calif., said the bill would “result in the largest expansion of space regulatory policy since we first began legislation on this topic in the 1980s” and thus required more study.

Although the bill was approved in committee more than a year ago, it hasn’t reached the House floor.

According to former NASA Administrator Sean O’Keefe, space policy has a lot of catching up to do and Babin will have his work cut out for him.

“It’s pretty much uncharted waters,” O’Keefe said. “Literally, the only analogue we’ve seen in terms of access to common space is the law of the seas, and that took hundreds of years to develop.”

There’s also a major unaddressed side effect of the commercial race to outer space: debris. The amount of debris in low earth orbit can pose serious risks both in space and on Earth.

“The catch is once you launch any vehicle, any rocket from Earth, once it leaves the atmosphere there is no traffic management,” O’Keefe said. “There’s no FAA equivalent, none of that stuff, and then you’re looking at a volume of activity up there that is greater than we’ve ever seen before.”

Private companies often plan for their satellites to only have a lifespan of a few years, but they may remain in orbit for a long time.

“If they’ve gone dormant, they’re still flying along at 15,000 miles an hour. It’s basically like an unguided missile above the atmosphere. As more objects are added, the liability goes up. The risk increases,” O’Keefe said.

While many of the objects in space burn up upon reentry into the atmosphere or splash down into the oceans, that is not always the case. In March 2024, a piece of the International Space Station crashed into a family home in Florida. No one was injured, but the family subsequently sued NASA for damage to the house. The lawsuit adds to a new area of jurisprudence emerging as space becomes an ever greater part of daily life.

Babin’s commercial space bill includes a provision aimed at reducing space junk. As part of the certification process, applicants would have to include a space debris mitigation plan for the object to be launched into orbit.

Legislation already passed in the Senate would take a more active role in clearing space debris. The bipartisan bill would require the Commerce Department to identify and publish a list of debris in low earth orbit that could pose a danger to satellites. It would also require NASA to develop and demonstrate technology to remove such debris from orbit.

The House received the bill in November 2023 but hasn’t taken action. The House counterpart measure did not receive a hearing or markup.