At a time when China is threatening America's national security interests in space, why are U.S. federal agencies putting America's leading advantage at risk? 

That appears to be a concern the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee had in mind last week as it expressed disapproval of the Federal Aviation Administration's refusal to enforce tight security standards among U.S. space contractors.

China seems to believe that it can defeat the U.S. militarily if it becomes an aerospace superpower.  Last month, it took the unprecedented 21st-century steps of mining lunar rocks and creating a lunar space station with fellow American adversary Russia. 

For all China's feats in space, reliability remains its Achilles heel.  The People's Republic doesn't appear capable of fully handling its new demanding launch schedule, which includes more than 40 orbital launches for 2021.  After watching its first rocket failure in two years in 2019, the country has overseen plenty more explosions, including two in a month last year.

If the U.S. can't top China's ambitious launch goals, it needs to launch its own rockets with precision so it can keep up with the communist regime and fend off its forthcoming abuses.  That hasn't been the case in the first quarter of this year, and, concerningly, the FAA doesn't seem willing to intercede to the extent required to protect public safety.

In December, U.S. contractor SpaceX violated its launch license by sending off a rocket without security clearance.  In the ensuing months, three more SpaceX rockets failed.  Rather than conduct a thorough agency investigation, as national security should demand, the FAA directed SpaceX — the same company that broke its rules — to examine the incident.  Then, after a brief mandated delay, the agency allowed it to continue launching unabated, barely even slapping the company on the wrist for its deliberate neglect of the federal government's safety regulations.

Given what's at stake, how does this lax response from the agency make any sense? 

In a letter to the FAA, the House Transportation Committee chairman and the aviation subcommittee chairman expressed this very sentiment.  They wrote that, "given the high-risk nature of the industry, we are disappointed that the FAA declined to conduct an independent review of the event and, to the best of our knowledge, has not pursued any form of enforcement action."

It's absurd that the nation's largest transportation agency is willing to put the fate of the space race with China in the hands of the same businesses that flout FAA regulations and have a vested interest in putting profits over protection.  This careless approach to enforcing law and order will signal to the rest of the industry that these rules are guidelines, not requirements, leading to the gradual decline of America's reliability advantage over the communist regime.

Thankfully, Congress is now doing what the FAA is not.  Per its letter, it's investigating these launch irregularities following two months of examinations "that, taken together, raise serious questions."  In the letter, lawmakers also urged the FAA to "resist any potential undue influence on launch safety decision-making" and asked that the agency implement "a strict policy to deal with violations of FAA launch and reentry licenses." 

If the FAA ignores Congress's advice, the Legislative Branch should use its oversight authority to force the implementation of these changes.  After all, the FAA was created by Congress and should remain accountable to it. 

With China planning to launch crewed missions to Mars and even deploy a solar power plant by 2050, the space race from China isn't going anywhere; it's just getting started.  Faceless bureaucrats at the FAA may be able to afford ceding America's national security advantages for political purposes, but our elected representatives in Congress can't.  Here's hoping they step up to the plate and intercede before it's too late.

Muth is the president of Citizen Outreach.

Image via Pxhere.

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