Cheap & Reliable Access to Space (CATS)

Please Sign this Petition by clicking here.

About this Petition:

We need CATS if we want to:
• Enhance the national security of the United States, deter war in space and foster peace on Earth by reducing the incentive to
attack U.S. space assets in the first place - since allowing for the rapid replenishment of our satellites, CATS would eliminate most of the benefit of a surprise attack in space.
• Accelerate the growth of the existing $250 billion/year space economy, potentially to over $1 trillion/year, creating millions of new high-wage jobs for Americans;
• Inspire millions of American children with the tantalizing possibility that they might one day live and work in space — thus motivating them to study science, technology, engineering and math;
• Tap the unlimited clean and renewable, solar energy available in space to enable a modern standard of living for all 6 billion people on Earth and for the rapidly growing global economy that
is lifting billions out of poverty;
• Increase the amount of environmental research and monitoring of planet Earth with a larger number of cheaper and more powerful remote sensing satellites;
• Enable the birth of new space industries like satellite servicing and refueling; commercial human spaceflight of thousands of people per year; point-to-point global transportation in a few
hours; on-orbit tourism, research and manufacturing; and the mining of asteroid and Lunar resources;
• Open the “space frontier” by making human activity, presence and settlement in space economically self-supporting and starting a virtuous cycle of economic development;
• Enhance our ability to study the Universe and to search for life beyond Earth with many more scientific missions and a new generation of larger space-based telescopes; and
• Achieve “all of the above” within our constrained
Federal budget environment.

The Desired Outcome of this Petition:

CATS cuts across all space agendas, all space agencies, and all space programs. It is a clear national imperative.

We urge the new President of the United States and the U.S. Congress to:
• Establish CATS as a national strategic priority;
• Learn from, and avoid, the failures from previous attempts to achieve CATS, all of which tasked a government agency to pick “The Solution”;
• Focus instead on promoting the growth of a competitive private CATS industry by encouraging private
investment, development and innovation while also drawing on proven examples of government support for technological and industrial development — e.g., NACA, DARPA, NSF, focused X-vehicles, Space Act agreements, the Kelly Airmail Act, tax incentives, and prizes;
• Undertake a review of current U.S. policies that may hinder the achievement of CATS; and
• Re-establish the National Space Council to help implement CATS as a top national priority.

This petition is sponsored by the Space Frontier Foundation.