AT: Safety

Safety will not be an issue- private sectors are a safe alternative (Bretton Alexander; December 2, 2009; President, Commercial Spaceflight Federation; Statement before before
the Subcommittee on Space and Aeronautics Committee on Science and Technology U.S. House of Representatives; http://legislative.nasa.gov/hearings/2009%20hearings/12-2-09%20Alexander.pdf)

Let me now address the safety of commercial human spaceflight systems. Safety is paramount. Private companies understand that they will not be in business if the systems they develop are not safe. In fact, private industry recognizes that it must increase safety from that demonstrated in the past in order to fulfill its vision of greatly increasing human activity in space. I believe industry has a healthy respect for the limits of their knowledge when it comes to safety. They do not presume to know it all and they maintain a strict discipline of safety. At the same time, they bring fresh eyes and insights from other cultures and I believe this will ultimately enhance safety.

Private action spurs new technologies quicker than the federal government. Richard Kaufman et al. Member of the board of directors and a vice chair of Economists for Peace and Security, and Director of Bethesda Research Institute, Henry Hertzfield, Jeffrey Lewis, and Michael Intriligator, 08
Economists for Peace and Security, SPACE, SECURITY AND THE ECONOMY, 9/08, http://beta.connectusfund.org/files/spacesecurity%5B1%5D.pdf [Marcus]

In addition overall regulatory policy in the United States was rapidly shifting away from government controls on economic (i.e., price) regulations. Safety was and still is a government regulatory priority. And the government was also

strongly encouraging its agencies to outsource, that is, to become customers of private companies rather than do many activities in-house. Taken together, these changes in policy had the desired effect of providing the basis for large government purchases of space services such as remote sensing imagery, telecommunications services, and launch vehicles. This enabled a potential market large enough to warrant private investment and risk capital in space systems. With the exception of the recession in the early 2000s and the resultant temporary set-back in commercial space activity, the development of a robust private sector space economy has grown fast and is likely to continue to grow in the future. And, as mentioned above, the rapid development of competitive systems and products being produced in many other nations will add to the mix of new products and services from space. CP solves Constellation private sector can lead on project Schatz, President of Citizens Against Government Waste, 11, (Congressional testimony)

[Council for Citizens Against Government Waste, Testimony Before the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, 2-17-11, http://www.cagw.org/ccagw/government-affairs/testimony/house-committee-oversight.html // Lack] NASAs Constellation Program has come under frequent criticism, for good reason. Despite

having spent more than $10 billion on the program to date, NASA is no closer to sending an astronaut to space than it was when the program began. According to a letter from NASA Inspector General Paul K. Martin to Sens. John Rockefeller (D-W.Va.) and Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-Texas) on January 13, 2011, due to restrictive language in NASAs fiscal year (FY) 2010 appropriation, coupled with the fact that NASA and the rest of the Federal Government are currently being funded by a continuing resolution (CR) that carries over these restrictions and prohibits initiation of new projects, NASA is continuing to spend approximately $200 million each month on the Constellation Program, aspects of which both NASA and Congress have agreed not to build. Furthermore, the NASA Authorization Act of 2010 requires NASA to spend more than
$10 billion in the next three years to continue Constellation, now referred to as the Space Launch System and Multipurpose Crew Vehicle. Unfortunately, NASA delivered a report to Congress on January 12, 2011 concluding that it simply cant build a rocket that fits the projected budget profiles nor schedule goals outlined in the Authorization Act. Even so, some members of Congress are insisting that NASA move forward with the program. The private sector can

spend money more effectively than government bureaucrats. As a result, the governments role in space exploration should be minimized. No Solvency empirically, private ventures fail Foust, Editor of The Space Review, 11
[The Space Review, Commercial space skepticism, 5-9-11, http://www.thespacereview.com/article/1841/1 (Lack)]

Perhaps the biggest factor in skepticism about the commercial spaceflight industrys claims is its track record. Many remember the flowering of entrepreneurial space ventures in the latter half of the
1990s, when several companies proposed new vehicles, including fully reusable launch vehicles, to launch satellites for ventures like Iridium, Globalstar, and Teledesic at a fraction of the price of existing expendable vehicles. Most of

those ventures had trouble raising money and eventually faded away when the demand for those satellites failed to materialize. Thompson obliquely refers to this in his post last week. The last
time that California gurus predicted the era of commercial spaceflight had arrived, it turned into a disaster for the U.S. space program. Private demand evaporated in the dot.com bust. Some in the industry have expressed

caution about the new wave of enthusiasm about commercial space ventures, both orbital and suborbital, noting both that past track record and the long road ahead for current ventures. I want to preach against the sin of triumphalism, Jeff Greason, the president
of XCOR Aerospace, said at Space Access 11, an entrepreneurial space transportation conference in Phoenix last month (see Whither human spaceflight?, The Space Review, April 11, 2011). Were not there yet, and our

problems are not over.