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Commercial space companies are sending more rockets than ever before. Now the industry may need to start paying into a federal fund to support their efforts. Our colleagues at THE INDICATOR from NPR's PLANET MONEY asked why. Here are Adrian Ma and Wailin Wong.
WAILIN WONG, BYLINE: In 1969, Michael Huerta was one of the tens of millions of Americans watching the Apollo 11 moon landing on TV. He was a teenager then, and he was transfixed.
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UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: Man on the moon.
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CHARLIE DUKE: We copy you down, Eagle.
ADRIAN MA, BYLINE: Almost 50 years later, Michael was at Cape Canaveral for another historic moment. The company SpaceX launched a rocket and successfully landed the booster on a barge off the coast of Florida.
MICHAEL HUERTA: It was one of the most exciting things I've ever seen.
MA: Michael wasn't just a curious bystander for the SpaceX launch. At the time, he was the head of the Federal Aviation Administration.
WONG: One of the main jobs of the Federal Aviation Administration is to manage the country's national airspace system.
MA: Every day, big players like commercial airlines, all the way down to recreational pilots, make use of this system.
WONG: But rocket launches by commercial space companies like SpaceX have become much more frequent.
MA: That increased activity means more work for the FAA.
WONG: Over half of the FAA's annual budget comes from something called the Airport and Airway Trust Fund, and commercial airlines contribute to this trust fund. None of the money comes from commercial space companies like Blue Origin and SpaceX. They do not have to pay into this trust fund, but Michael Huerta thinks they should start.
HUERTA: Today, you have a structure that is founded largely on airline ticket taxes. You have this group of new users that are paying nothing into the system that are an increasing share of the operations. I truly believe the current structure isn't sustainable.
MA: And the Biden administration agrees, at least in principle. The President's recent budget proposal calls for updating the trust fund's sources to account for who's actually using the system. Now, the proposal doesn't lay out specific numbers or give a timeline, but it signals that it wants the current funding structure to change. We reached out to the Commercial Spaceflight Federation, which is this group whose members include SpaceX and Blue Origin, and the president of the federation said in a statement that, look - aviation and space - these industries are fundamentally different in terms of their operations, their scale and also how they use national airspace.
WONG: For example, there were just over 100 commercial space missions last year versus 16 million traditional flights. Because of this disparity, the federation said that it would not be appropriate to have commercial space companies pay into the trust fund right now.
MA: Economist Matthew Weinzierl notes a lot of these companies aren't making a profit yet. That's another argument in favor of holding off taxing the industry, especially an industry that's deemed vital to scientific research, defense and other national priorities.
MATTHEW WEINZIERL: There's a belief among many in the sector that there are real commercial opportunities to really solve some of the biggest problems we have here on Earth, whether it's climate change or other things, through the use of space technologies. And so the last thing people will then say that we should be doing is discouraging growth by taxing and therefore raising the costs of launch.
WONG: That said, Matt thinks it's reasonable to have the commercial space companies chip into the FAA trust fund. He says the government could also perhaps increase subsidies and support for the industry in other ways, to make sure that the increased taxes don't put a damper on growth.
MA: Adrian Ma.
WONG: Wailin Wong, NPR News.
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