Adventures with Starstruck
The Hill staffer’s question, “What are you going to do about Starstruck?” shocked us!!
Her question laid down the gauntlet, with the implication: if you are so good DOT, then tell us how you are going to keep Starstruck from becoming another SSI, i.e. locked up in the bog of innumerable regulatory Agencies all trying to protect their turf? At no time during the interagency discussions had anyone—not NASA; not DOD; not State; not even FAA—said that there was a launch company trying to get approval to launch a private rocket.
From the Hill staff, we learned that Starstruck had a novel idea to launch its rocket from the ocean. Its idea was to attach a huge weight to the tail of the rocket, and push the rocket over the side of the ship. Once in the water, the weight would align the rocket vertically and then begin to pull the rocket beneath the surface of the sea. As soon as the rocket was pulled down below the surface, the crew would set off a charge that would sever the tether cable and the buoyant rocket would start to rise to the surface at which time the crew would ignite the rocket. The concept was that the buoyancy of the rocket rising to the surface would provide the initial momentum and lift that would help propel the rocket. The greatest amount of fuel is required simply to get a rocket moving, and so the boost from the rocket shooting to the surface would save a significant amount of fuel.
The problem was that Starstruck was having trouble getting approvals to launch from a number of Agencies, including the Federal Aviation Administration. One of the first things I had started to do once we became lead agency was to begin identifying all the Agencies that SSI had encountered during their effort to launch. I knew those would be the same, more or less, that Starstruck would be navigating.
On the way back from the meeting with the hill, Jenna turned to me and asked, “Can you break this loose?”
My job was to get Starstruck onto its seaborne launch pad. The Hill staff had given us the names and numbers of Jim Bennet and Courtney Stadd. My first task was to contact them.
Once we connected they laid out the issue. They wanted to launch their vehicle off the coast of California. They had a ship that they had outfitted. They were having problems getting approvals for the radios to their destruct system; they couldn’t get FAA approval; and they were waiting for approval of their export license, among other things. Both of them spent a lot of time in Washington DC, so we arranged to meet. I got the names and contacts of all the Agencies from whom they were seeking approvals. The Agencies from which they sought approvals included the: Federal Communications Commission; Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives; US Coast Guard; Federal Aviation Administration; Department of Navy; and the State Department.
All the Agencies had basically the same issue with Starstruck as they had with Space Services Inc.’s launch. Each of them was approving something that was used on a launch vehicle (or missile) that potentially could be used for nefarious purposes.
The main agency Starstruck was struggling with was the Federal Aviation Administration. Jim Bennett and Courtney Stadd had given me the name of their contact, Neil Saunders. I contacted Neil who was with the air traffic control part of FAA. Starstruck had been connected with him because they needed airspace clearance.
His challenge was that Starstruck was proposing to launch into corridors heavily traveled by air traffic between the United States and Asia. To get a clearance for Starstruck, FAA would have to temporarily shut down those corridors and, in the process, disrupt international air traffic at a huge cost. In order to clear up the air corridor, FAA would have to contact controllers in Asia 24 hours in advance so they could hold traffic at the Asian end in order to create a “window” of open airspace. Further complicating the matter was the fact that Starstruck was proposing to launch in a naval military operations area. Starstruck was not permitted to launch in this area while the operations area was active. But, because it was classified, the Navy didn’t publish when the area was active and when it was not—a real case of Catch 22.
If this particular Starstruck launch had been proposed after the licensing process was created, we would have worked with them to find an alternative workable location. There were too many potential complications, and the location was simply not suitable for launching commercial rockets. However, telling Starstruck they needed to move their launch site was not an option. We had gained the lead agency role based on our claim we could eliminate regulatory hurdles. All eyes were upon us. Further, Starstruck had already committed to a sea launch at that location, and any changes to those plans had a distinct possibility of killing the Starstruck endeavor, if not the company itself.
Our goal became to work with the FAA and US Navy to create windows. Because FAA worked routinely with the Navy with respect to its military operating area, the FAA contact would be the liaison with the Navy; there was no need to complicate actions by adding an additional person to the process. The FAA contact and I started working closely together to arrange launch windows with the company.
In the meantime, Starstruck was not out of the woods with respect to other Agencies. I had to start contacting the Starstruck’s gauntlet of Agencies that were slowly reviewing Starstruck’s plans or withholding their respective approvals while waiting for other Agencies to grant their approvals. The bureaucratic risk is being the first Agency to approve something like this. The safest, like with the State Department and its export license, was to be last. There’s safety in numbers.
By the time that my boss, Bob Fairman, had recommended to Secretary Dole that she put the “lead agency” role in FAA, I was highly experienced with regulatory processes. I had been involved with all of the “modal administrations” in DOT; for the most part, DOT is the home for transportation regulatory agencies. I had started in the Federal Railroad Administration; I had done an internship in FAA and had become the chief of OST’s Aviation and Research Division; I had been the OST Management Planning Office’s senior analyst on the Urban Mass Transportation Administration, US Coast Guard, Federal Highway Administration, St. Lawrence Seaway Administration, and National Highway Administration at one time or another. At the time of her decision, I was involved in the sunset of an economic regulatory agency, the Civil Aeronautics Board. I also was familiar with the regulatory issues involving the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and a half dozen other regulatory organizations in the Federal Government.
During the meeting with the National Security decision making group at which I had said DOT was not going to put the responsibility in FAA, I had also introduced the concept that as a regulatory department we understood how to work with other regulators. During the preparatory work with the DOT team to make the case for the lead agency, I had prepared much of the material about our regulatory expertise.
This was “fish or cut bait” time for me.
The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms wanted assurance that this was a legitimate launch; BATF’s concern was that the explosives could be used to detonate the rocket over a populated area. The Federal Communications Commission, which approved the radio communication systems also wanted the reassurance this was an approved launch and could not be used as a bomb. Every Agency that had some type of approval was hesitant to give a clearance because of the inherent risk they perceived from an event that heretofore never occurred, i.e. a launch of a rocket by an entity over which they had no control and no trust. These suspicions were the same ones that affected SSI a couple of years earlier.
With each of these Agencies, I was able to accelerate or obtain an approval with a call by citing President Reagan’s Executive Order, assuring them that the President was personally interested in the launch and that Elizabeth Dole would be more than willing to contact their Agency head. However, steamrolling bureaucrats into acquiescing is relatively easy to do with the right incentives, but it builds poor relations. My discussions with them focused on helping them become comfortable with the notion of a private launch and addressing their concerns. In other words, they were familiar with the consequences of dragging their feet, but in the end, their reasons for not clearing Starstruck’s applications were eliminated for the most part by our discussions.
The biggest task was working with the State Department office for export licensing, which was the final and most important approval required. In essence, the Export License was the launch license. The State Department was not going to issue the “export license” until ALL the other Agencies, e.g. FAA, BATF, Navy, FCC, etc., had issued their approvals.
The official with the approval authority for Starstruck’s Export License was Steve Koumanelis, with the Department of State’s Office of Munitions Control. His dilemma was, “What are the criteria for finally saying this launch is ok?”. The easy answer was that he could give approval once all the other Agencies had given their approvals; he could assume that their “OKs” meant that there were no ancillary issues besides their concerns. However, his dilemma was that he was an expert in the traditional items requiring export approval, such as munitions, arms, and other categories the State Department controls with the Export License. Even with other Agencies saying they were satisfied with the launch proposal based on their areas of authority, Steve Koumanelis realized that if this launch failed and caused a catastrophic event, the responsibility was his and his alone.
Thus, even after all the other Agencies gave their clearances, there was no assurance that the State Department would give the final approval. Because, when all was said and done, the Office of Export Licenses was still on the hook in the event of a catastrophic accident. So to facilitate the process, I took on the role of being the person from the Department of Transportation who would assure Steve that once all the “OK’s” were in, he could be confident that all was going to be safe.
How could Starstruck be caught up in the regulatory processes without the Administration knowing? The answer is because most government approval processes are managed at relative low bureaucratic levels. To illustrate, celebrities are always seeking driving licenses or renewals in their respective states, and the governors of those states don’t have a clue. The power of the bureaucrat in their positions is that they typically are not visible when they perform their assigned role.
How does one move bureaucratic agencies when the approvals take place deep inside the agency? Among the options I had to encourage fellow bureaucrats accelerate their processes was: take away the risk of their decision; or, make them feel uncomfortable about the possible consequences of their decision if they held things up, or to take away the anonymity of their position.
Often the most effective approach was to apply a combination of carrot and stick. I would inform the respective agency contacts that this was a Reagan initiative, and Starstruck’s attempt would have to be approved regardless of how complicated it would be to make that possible. I would assist them in any way I could. If they perceived any problems, they needed to let me know because then I would get the Secretary of Transportation to call the head of the agency.
As each respective Agency gave its approval or clearance, I either visited or called Steve to discuss the concerns he had. Finally, the FAA and US Navy worked out a time where international air traffic could be alerted in conjunction with a time when the Navy would not be conducting operations, and I got the go-ahead from both Agencies.
Mr. Koumanelis and I spent an afternoon talking about the launch, its conditions, and its risks. His biggest concern was that, although the US Government and State Department had declared this as an export for purposes of controlling private sector launches, this was not a typical export and nothing in the experience of the State Department or his office gave him any expertise on which to base a conclusion that the launch was safe. His question, “Could someone get killed just because he issued the export license?” was valid because he had no control over the factors of the launch that could go wrong and result in an accident. Because of the backdrop of this Administration’s priority for creating a private launch industry, and my assurances that the launch would be safe, he finally approved the Export License. However, he added the disclaimer, “I do not feel comfortable with this”.
The Starstruck launch did not go well. After all the coordination with all the Agencies, and Neil’s effort to clear the airspace and work with the Navy to get a clear window for the launch, the launch got cancelled because of rough seas. In fact, Starstruck headed out to sea with its rocket ready to launch, but we had failed to coordinate with Mother Nature, and the Starstruck crew got seasick in the rough seas on the way to the chosen launch area.
This took us back to the drawing board for a launch date. Again, Neil and the Navy had to come up with a time where international traffic could be closed and the Navy could guarantee it would not have classified operations underway. Finally a date was chosen, and again Starstruck headed out to sea. This time the crew made it out to the launch site, but an anomaly on the rocket forced the crew to push the rocket overboard in order to “save” the rocket.
The same process between the FAA and Navy occurred again, and on August 3, 1984 the company made it out to the launch site. The rocket was lowered into the water, and Starstruck attempted its launch. The rocket fired but rose less than 1000 meters before it started to veer off course and the flight terminated. At least the company had its opportunity. However, the repeated delays and waiting for approval were costly for the company, and the downsides of their launch strategy were apparent. Starstruck gave up on the ocean launch concept.