Jun. 1—Since its founding nearly four years ago in June 2020, Houston-based Venus Aerospace has been focused on building a hypersonic spaceplane that can take passengers across the world in only a few hours.

Chief Techincal Officer Andrew Duggleby, who founded the company with his wife and company CEO Sassie Duggleby, said there are a few key milestones that come to mind as he reflects on these first four years. The passing of the Federal Aviation Administration reauthorization bill earlier this month, which includes new language designed to help regulate and design policies in the field of hypersonic and supersonic aircraft development and implementation, is one of them.

"I now feel like the message is finally getting out," Andrew Duggleby said. "We have done enough things to be real. We've flown things. We've fired engines. This bill highlights and doing the celebration here kind of highlights that this is coming, and it's one of the big moments."

The celebration he mentioned was a gathering Friday at the Venus Aerospace headquarters at Ellington Airport attended by U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz, U.S. Rep. Brian Babin, Houston Airports Director of Aviation Jim Szczesniak and others.

The Dugglebys took Cruz, Babin and state Rep. Dennis Paul on a quick tour of the company's workspace before addressing reporters about the new legislation, which Babin noted will make hypersonic aircraft a top priority for the FAA.

Andrew Duggleby said the bill will help push innovation for high-speed flight in the United States by establishing protocols for testing their high-speed prototypes and helping make sure testing and implementation can be done safely.

There are very few test corridors available for organizations to test these hypersonic and supersonic spacecraft, and it can take a while to receive the necessary permission to do them. Cruz said the legislation allows for the creation of more testing sites and opportunities for companies like Venus Aerospace, and he wants one to be in Texas.

"You have my word I will fight ferociously for it to be in Texas," Cruz said.

Cruz co-authored the bill in the Senate with Democrat Maria Cantwell of Washington. Cantwell is chair of the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation while Cruz is the ranking member.

In addition to touting the FAA bill's aspects that will hopefully establish those high-speed aircraft protocols, Cruz also highlighted establishing one-way flights between San Antonio and Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport outside the nation's capital and hiring the maximum number of air traffic controllers as major wins of getting the bill passed.

Duggleby said he loved to hear Cruz mention his desire for a test corridor in Texas and noted he thinks there are spots over the Gulf of Mexico or even in Texas that would be good fits as test corridors.

The bill will also help establish new parameters for high-speed flight that wouldn't be feasible under current laws.

He highlighted the 45-minute rule, which requires planes to have fuel to cover at least an extra 45 minutes in the air in case they need to land elsewhere. That would be impractical for a hypersonic plane that can cover great distances in a short amount of time. The new bill, Duggleby said, sets up administrators to allow separate safety standards for high-speed crafts.

"Our standard joke would be like, well, I'm gonna go San Francisco to Tokyo. And if the runways close, you want me to carry in to Moscow? London?" Duggleby said.

Duggleby said an advisor to Venus Aerospace recently told him this is "the most exciting decade in aviation in 100 years" with the innovations regarding hyper-speed flight, drones and more.

The FAA bill appears to be helping move that forward.

"There's an excitement here," Duggleby said. "It's a hopeful feeling."

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