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:It's no wonder...

[deman1985]

Forgot to add the rest of my message..

Why is it that the FAA can't create designated no-fly zones for general public research purposes? Seems like they could easily spare some airspace in several locations across the country-- just a couple square miles worth here and there.. That would be more than adequate for a good bit of lower end rocketry research and testing. Just make sure any test craft are equipped with self-destruct mechanisms in case they go off course and endanger commercial aircraft.

In other news

[BabyDave]

The FAA needs to make it clear that these rocket vehicles fall under the jurisdiction of its own Office of Commercial Space Transportation (AST)...

In other news, they're also searching for a suitable 'A' word so that the acronym doesn't look so stupid.

Range Safety

[Detritus]

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.

Proliferation...

[Anonymous Coward]

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...".

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.