Declaration for Cheap & Reliable

Access to Space (CATS)

We believe that achieving Cheap & reliable Access to Space (CATS) is one of the most important, if not the most
important, strategic objective the United States should pursue in space.

Lowering launch costs by at least an order of magnitude while significantly increasing launch reliability is the key to
fulfilling the many unrealized promises of space as a central part of a better future. We need CATS if we want to
increase the practical benefits derived from space for the American people. We need CATS if we want to:

• 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.

Perhaps most importantly, CATS is a dual-use capability that will significantly enhance the national security of the
United States. In January 2001, the bipartisan Commission to Assess United States National Security Space
Management and Organization concluded that we are in danger of suffering a “Space Pearl Harbor,” a devastating
attack on vital U.S. communications and remote sensing space assets. By allowing for the rapid replenishment of our
satellites, CATS would eliminate most of the benefit of a surprise attack in space. By thus reducing the incentive to
attack U.S. space assets in the first place, CATS would be a stabilizing deterrent to war in space and an instrument
for peace on Earth.

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.

The Declaration for CATS is supported by the Coalition for CATS, which is composed of the following
not-for-profit organizations — the Ohio Aerospace Institute, Space Florida, the California Space Authority,
the Virginia Commercial Space Port Authority, the New Mexico Spaceport Authority, the Space Frontier
Foundation, the National Space Society, the NewSpace Alliance, the Progress & Freedom Foundation, the
Space Studies Institute, the Students for the Exploration and Development of Space, the International
Association of Space Entrepreneurs, International Space University*USA Alumni, the Space Power Association,
the Spaceward Foundation, the Space Generation Advisory Council, the Sharespace Foundation, the Atlas
Society, the Wright Brothers Institute, the One Giant Leap Foundation, the Moon Society, the Space Tourism
Society, and the Committee for the Advocacy of Space Exploration.