November 22, 2004: One Small Step Toward Space Travel For YOU

Space advocates in Congress have been trying to lighten the regulatory load on the fledgling passenger-carrying space industry. As of last week, it looked as though the bills would die in committee, due to the vagaries of a "lame duck" Congress. But compromise language was reached, and HR 5382 passed the House on Saturday morning by a vote of 269-110.

The next step is the Senate . . . and time is short. We strongly urge you to call your Senators and tell them to pass the Senate counterpart to HR 5382 before the session ends. The official title of the House bill is "Proposed Amendments to the Commercial Space Launch Act"; it will be named something similar in the Senate.

To find the office number of your Senator, go to:

www.senate.gov

Select the state, call the office number (it begins with area code 202), and tell the staffer that you strongly urge them to pass the legislation corresponding to HR 5382.

If asked for a reason, say something short -- "It's important to the success of the commercial space flight industry".

And if you're going to call, do it now -- if it doesn't get passed this session, the entire process has to start over next year!

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