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Suborbital Rocketeers Ask FAA For Fair Rocketry Rules

Posted by timothy on from the buggy-whip-bureaucrats dept.

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."

2 of 257 comments (clear)

  1. Range Safety by Detritus · · Score: 5, Insightful
    While I don't think regulations should be more intrusive than needed, there is a definite need for government regulation of space launches.

    Range safety is an integral part of government and commercial launch vehicle operations in the United States. Range safety ensures that the launch vehicle, or its components, impact in a safe area if there is a problem with the launch vehicle. This involves redundant systems to monitor the velocity, position and health of the launch vehicle, impact prediction systems (where do the pieces land if it blows up), and thrust termination systems (the big red button). The operator of the launch vehicle has to provide a high degree of assurance that no failure mode will result in injury, death or property damage in areas outside the range. This is not a trivial task, and not something to be built from bubble gum and bailing wire.

    --
    Mea navis aericumbens anguillis abundat
  2. Proliferation... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful
    One reason that private rocket programs have always hit lots of bureaucratic tangles may be behind-the-scenes interference by the DoW^HD. There is no difference between an ICBM and a suborbital rocket, except maybe what you put in the cargo compartment.

    Interesting though it may be, commercial space flight is a nuclear proliferation nightmare: what if anyone with (say) $50M to spend could put any payload he wanted, anywhere on the planet, reliably?

    As Gen. Pete Worden (former head of U.S Command) used to say, "We're more concerned about people sending surprise packages...".