Suborbital Rocketeers Ask FAA For Fair Rocketry Rules

HobbySpacer writes "John Carmack, Dennis Tito, Eric Anderson of Space Adventures, Brian Chase of the National Space Society and other notables in the world of rocketry and space activism issued a call today for the FAA to cut the regulatory tangle that threatens to hold a nascent fleet of suborbital space vehicles firmly on the ground. The FAA needs to make it clear that these rocket vehicles fall under the jurisdiction of its own Office of Commercial Space Transportation (AST) and not let intra-agency bureaucratic squabbles over control and power stall the development of this promising new industry."

Comments

Re:liability concerns?

[guacamolefoo]

who's thinking that the families of the deceased* won't slap the mother of all class-action suits against, among others, the licensing body?

Two words: sovereign immunity. You can't sue the king except under certain limited circumstances where the king agrees to let you sue him.

Also, do you have any idea what a "class action" is? It's a lawsuit brought by members of a "class" that usually cannot be individually identified. In almost any case I can possibly imagine, any harm resulting from the destruction of a plane or of property on the ground would result in specifically identifiable and ascertainable victims. A mass tort would not be an appropriate remedy in such a situation.

In the event that there is a pollution release-type event that causes some minimal level of harm to a large number of people, a class action may be a realistic possibility.

In any case, I don't see why the government would be involved in any of this. Giving someone a license hardly subjects you to liability when a third party is harmed by the licensee. For instance, do you see victims in auto accident cases suing states when they are hit by careless drivers? Do you see victims suing state licensing authorities (successfully) when doctors commit malpractice?

If you're going to bitch about lawyers and some nebulous fear of lawsuits, at least understand what you are bitching about. /. is a great place for reading about clueless tech users. Let me be the first to inform you: you are equally clueless about the legal system. So are the people who modded your clueless post up to +5, so you need not feel as though you are alone here.

If there's one thing tech people do not understand, it is tort law.

GF.