FAA Grants Sub-Orbital License to SpaceShipOne

abucior writes "The FAA announced today that Scaled Composites has been granted a launch licence for a series of sub-orbital flights over a one-year period for Burt Rutan's SpaceShipOne. Is X Prize finally entering the end-game? Space.com has more information on the move."

Comments

eek

[iosmart]

While the highest criteria to issue a
license is public safety, applicants
must undergo an extensive pre-
application process, demonstrate
adequate financial responsibility to
cover any potential losses, and meet
strict environmental requirements.</I>

this might put a lot of people outta the runnings

Re:eek

[simcop2387]

only if they launch out of the US (which i believe most of them actually are... correct me if i'm wrong) but i'm betting that if they need to all they have to do is make it to international waters, right where they held the secratariat v. tadum fight anyway

Re:eek

[AndroidCat]

demonstrate adequate financial responsibility to cover any potential losses

Can you imagine the call to the insurance company to get a policy? I don't think "saving a bundle" is one of the options.

Re:eek

[in7ane]

Potential financial liability is likely to be covered by insurance (which will be costly no doubt), which anything that can reasonably be expected to fly and has adequate funding to get it to outer space should be able to afford.

Keep in mind that stuff like this will not be launched form populated areas (deserts, etc. probably) so any liability only comes in if it can make it far enough to hit something, which in itself is a sign that it has potential, and so is more likely to be sufficiently safe. Think of it this way: conditional on it being able to make it as far as a populated area the probability that it will crash it low.

Re:eek

[DerekLyons]

While the highest criteria to issue a license is public safety, applicants must undergo an extensive pre-application process, demonstrate adequate financial responsibility to cover any potential losses, and meet strict environmental requirements.

this might put a lot of people outta the runnings

And frankly, that's a Good Thing. While I applaud and encourage the small company and backyard inventor, they should not be allowed to endanger the public any more than the big companies should. (In theory all are equal before the law, but sadly the size of the bankroll sometimes tips the scales a bit.)

In addition, if the thing isn't safe enough to test without endangering the public, it's nowhere safe enough to fly in actual service. The thousands of homebuilt and homebrewed aircraft flying legally every day shows that safety and experiments are not mutually exclusive requirements.

Re:eek

[weglian]

The insurance requirement is set by determining the Maximum Probable Loss (MPL). AST (the office of the FAA that licenses the launch) determines what the worst accident that has a 1 in 10,000,000 probability is, and sets the insurance requirement based on that accident. It is capped by Congress at $500M. Most are in the $100M - $250M range. The less likely you are to kill anyone (not associated with the launch - it doesn't include your own people), the less iunsurance you need.

Awesome

[TheKidWho]

At least the government isnt getting in the way. Im for one am glad to see the X-Prize might actually have a chance of revolutionizing the space industry!

Re:Awesome

[Fuzzy]

My bet is that this is the first of MANY applications that the "government" will approve. Space belongs to those who are willing/able to go there!

The Moon, the planets, and the great unknown beyond should not be 'owned" by a government. Like the unexplored world that existed in the 1400's, they should belong to those willing to make the sacrifices, and devote the resources to explore and colonize the unknown!

My bet is that the "governments" of the world will get out of the way and allow the exploration and colonization of the known and unknown universe. To do otherwise implies a vision and long range planning capability that does currently exist in ANY govenment that I know of.

Space, like the "old West" of the US [my appologies to the Native Americans], belongs to those who are willing to go there!

John [looking for Ringworld] Miller

Re:Awesome

[dspeyer]

Why does everyne think the X-prize will revolutionize space?

Just because someone's doing something for money they will necessarily do it well. Microsoft does stuff for money. It's not like the X-prize will turn space into a real industry -- real industries aren't dependant on private philanthropy.

I'm all for throwing more resources into spaceflight, but having many small teams keeping secrets from eachother doesn't sound like a big improvement on having a few large teams that work together. Having many small teams that work together might be better still, but probably not by much. Remember, improvements in spaceflight will be built by engineers -- no one else. If the engineers are serious about what they do (and any who revolutionize spaceflight would have to be) then they'll concentrate on the problem at hand and ignore where their funding comes from, be it government, corporate, private, academic or bank fraud.

It seems to be an article of faith among many slashdotters that anything the government does it will automatically mess up. It might be worth remembering that all achievements in space flight so far have been government-funded, and that the so-called commercial airlines exist only because of government supsidies.

Re:Awesome

[gfody]

I'm all for throwing more resources into spaceflight, but having many small teams keeping secrets from eachother doesn't sound like a big improvement on having a few large teams that work together.

You don't know much about engineering do you? The more people that work together, the less likely it is that anything gets accomplished. Read up on competitive learning, competition in general and its role in society. Then think about where we would be today if nobody had a competitive spirit and just shared secrets with eachother.

Re:Awesome

[JesseL]

You actually believe that governments will simly 'get out of the way' of anything just because it's the right thing to do? When was the last time any government failed to attempt to grasp somthing just because it was beyond their competency to to anything with it? Governments exist to perpetuate themselves and are terrified by the idea of people being able to slip comletely beond their reach.

I do believe that ulitimatley space will belong to those who go there, but no government will let them go without a fight.

what happens?

[hellmarch]

what happens if i were to build a big rocket and launch myself into space without telling anyone? would i get shot down by the military when they pick me up on radar?

Re:what happens?

[Jjeff1]

After reading about the problems Carmack and Armadillo Aerospace encountered trying to get H2O2, I don't think you'd be able to get enough fuel or parts to build anything un-noticed.

Re:what happens?

[Richthofen80]

No. after you came down, you'd be fined by the FAA.

Remember that story about the guy who rode a lawn chair with weather balloons into the sky? He was fined something like $4000 for his unauthorized flight. I think they'd hardly take military action, and they could hardly intercept in the time the flight would take place. (from what I've read all these X-Prize style trips would be less than thirty minutes, I could be wrong)

Anyways, I'm glad the FAA did this. Go SpaceShipOne!

Re:what happens?

[the pickle]

This happened pretty recently in Colorado, too. Some genius in a hot-air balloon decided it would be fun to try to set an altitude record without bothering to tell the FAA he would be drifting through Denver International Airport restricted airspace.

Assuming you (grandparent poster) *had* a pilot's licence that would make it legal for you to operate a manned rocket, you *wouldn't* have it after you got done with that little stunt.

p

Re:what happens?

[voidptr]

We're talking about a flight soley in US airspace, which extends up to the orbital threshold, even if we don't routinely send aircraft that high right now. Why would it be in international jurisdiction?

A good thing.

[Anonymous Coward]

Corporate and private interest in space is always a good thing. The driving force behind alot of innovation in the last half of the 20th century has been, for better or worse, corporate greed. Innovation in space travel is A GOOD THING, and so this IS A GOOD THING.

Check the approval date!

[RobertB-DC]

Interesting difference in dates:

Press Release
Contact: Henry J. Price
Date Posted: April 7, 2004

But further down:

The license was issued April 1 by the
Federal Aviation Administration's
Office of Commercial Space
Transportation to Scaled Composites of
Mojave, Calif., headed by aviation
record-holder Burt Rutan, for a
sequence of sub-orbital flights
spanning a one-year period.

As fun as it is to slam "the government", somebody was very much on the ball to realize that it would be a bad idea to release this news on April Fool's Day!

License Requirements

[mauthbaux]

I was kinda wondering; what are the requirements for a launch licence for a series of sub-orbital flights over a one-year period? Other than the obvious: being able to get it up that high, and promising not to mess with anything on the way there and back.

Re:License Requirements

[Lazyhound]

You have to be able to sing "Rocket Man" from memory.

Re:License Requirements

[fucksl4shd0t]

You have to be able to sing "Rocket Man" from memory.

So does William Shatner have such a license, then?

Re:License Requirements

[No. 24601]

So does William Shatner have such a license, then?

The man says you gotta be able to sing... what part of that do you not understand?

Re:License Requirements

[weglian]

There are many requirements, but it boils down to a few big parts: You must be able to complete the launch through landing with a risk to the uninvolved public (you can kill yourself) of less than or equal to 30 in a million. You must have financial responsibility (e.g. insurance) in an amount set by the FAA (AST - Commercial Space Transportation) based on the worst accident with a 1 in 10 million chance of occurring (capped at $500M) You must undergo an environmental review since the license is a "Major Federal Action" and therefore subject to NEPA. This takes a long time and costs a lot of money. For an RLV (Reusable Launch Vehicle), you must use a "System Safety Process" to ensure safety. And you have to convince AST that it is sufficient. Expendable Launch Vehicle (ELVs) typically have to be able to blow up the vehicle if it goes off course, but vehilces with pilots don't really want to do that for some reason...

Come on

[seanmcelroy]

I heard this story on NPR driving home just a few hours ago. They headlined it as "bringing space flight into the reach of ordinary Americans". Come on... considering raw costs alone, it'll be decades before 'ordinary Americans' can afford this kind of luxury travel.

(Especially if they're all out of work because their jobs went overseas! ;P jk)

Re:Come on

[Coryoth]

I heard this story on NPR driving home just a few hours ago. They headlined it as "bringing space flight into the reach of ordinary Americans". Come on... considering raw costs alone, it'll be decades before 'ordinary Americans' can afford this kind of luxury travel.

You might be surprised. One of the main points of the X-Prize is not that it is done by private companies instead of the government, but rather that the craft be highly reusable. You can only change 10% of the non fuel mass of the craft between the 2 launches required to claim the X-Prize, and those 2 launches have to have a quick turnaround time (matter of weeks).

Basically that means once you've built a winning X-Prize craft, the only real relaunch costs are fuel. Compare that to the massive cost of each shuttle launch (between 3 and 5 hundred million dollars per launch), and you're talking about reduing launch costs by a factor of 100 or more.

If they can pull that off, I suspect they can quickly get plenty of funding to push the technology further and make it more efficient. I really do believe basic space travel could be affordable by ordinary Americans (expensive, yes, but affordable) inside of a decade - 2 at the most.

Don't underestimate what a leap an efficiency the X-Prize represents.

Jedidiah.

Re:Come on

[fucksl4shd0t]

Don't underestimate what a leap an efficiency the X-Prize represents.

Not that I disagree with you, just keep one foot in the part of reality that remembers that X-prize isn't going to LEO, and isn't even getting close to LEO. Unless you hit LEO, your reusable spacecraft is just a great ride. :)

Don't get me wrong, though. After they've hit the low target they've set with the reusable requirements they've got I expect the design to be pushed to LEO pretty quickly, pretty much as soon as it gets covered up with funding from both the X-prize itself and all the VCs and other investors that learn by virtue of the X-prize that you have a viable technology.

Re:Come on

[DerekLyons]

Basically that means once you've built a winning X-Prize craft, the only real relaunch costs are fuel. Compare that to the massive cost of each shuttle launch (between 3 and 5 hundred million dollars per launch), and you're talking about reduing launch costs by a factor of 100 or more.

You are also reducing the capabilities you get for your money by a thousand times or more. The Shuttle is orbital (with all the problems that all orbital craft have), an X-prize vehicle is suborbital. The Shuttle has 60,000lbs of cargo capacity and up to 9 passengers/crew, an X-prize vehicle has essentially no cargo capacity and up to 4 passengers/crew.

Not to mention the fact that the Shuttle launch costs you note covers more than fuel, it also covers all the maintenance, prepation, testing, etc. that a craft in service must have, while a vehicle that only has to fly twice can get away with far, far less infrastructure. (The key to reducing costs isn't reducing vehicle costs as many believe, but in flying the hell out of the vehicle and spreading the costs across many vehicles and flights. Ask the airlines.)

Don't underestimate what a leap an efficiency the X-Prize represents.

Don't overestimate it either. The X-Prize vehicles are highly specialized test and experimental vehicles, it's a long leap from there to vehicles capable of routine operations. (Not just in general concept, but in raw performance.) Consider the long step between the Wright Flyer and the Ford Tri-Motor or the DC-3. That's how far the X-prize vehicles are from useful and cheap space transports.

Re:Come on

[extra the woos]

"Consider the long step between the Wright Flyer and the Ford Tri-Motor or the DC-3. That's how far the X-prize vehicles are from useful and cheap space transports."

That's what excites me. Look at how cheap and safe air travel is now. Wright brother's flight was in 1903, right? In less than 20 years you had airplanes EVERYWHERE. In less than 40 years there were jets. (July '42 for the first real jet fighter, yes yes I know there were actually jet engines in the 30's but come on).

Today, 100 years later, I can buy an airplane ticket for a couple day's worth of barely-better-than minimum wage barely-part-time college work.

If this is like the Wright brother's flight, then we're in for one hell of a century, and it's gonna be a good one.

Re:Come on

[GileadGreene]

The Shuttle has 60,000lbs of cargo capacity and up to 9 passengers/crew

The shuttle's 60,000 lb cargo capacity is wasteful and useless. It costs more per pound (even accounting for inflation) to launch on the shuttle than it did to launch on the Saturn V. It'd be fine if the shuttle provided an economical way to launch bulk cargo, but it doesn't. Better to stick with unmanned expendables for that kind of stuff - at least for the time being. As for the 9 passengers/crew, they cost so much per person to launch that only a small elite are permitted to fly. The 4 passengers on an X-Prize vehicle may only be going suborbital (for now), but at least they're going.

The key to reducing costs isn't reducing vehicle costs as many believe, but in flying the hell out of the vehicle and spreading the costs across many vehicles and flights.

True. But that's part of the point of the X-Prize. The shuttle design simply cannot support a flight rate sufficient to make its costs reasonable. Plus it requires a standing army of several thousand just to operate it. The shuttle is not capable of operating in an airline mode. The X-Prize is encouraging designs that are capable of rapid turn-around (and thus high flight rate), and require minimal infrastructure. The X-Prize designs will (hopefully) be capable of airline-like operations.

Consider the long step between the Wright Flyer and the Ford Tri-Motor or the DC-3. That's how far the X-prize vehicles are from useful and cheap space transports.

The first flight of the Wright Flyer involved a mere 12 seconds of flying time (the third and longest flight of the day attained a whopping 59 seconds). Only 10 years later the airplane was a major player in the Great War. Ok, the world had to wait another ~20 years for the DC-3. But commercial aviation was already well-established before the DC-3 came along. Useful and cheap are relative terms. The X-Prize vehicles may be closer to both of them than you think.

Re:Come on

[DerekLyons]

That's what excites me. Look at how cheap and safe air travel is now. Wright brother's flight was in 1903, right? In less than 20 years you had airplanes EVERYWHERE.

Certainly you had airplanes 'everywhere', but great deal of them were barnstormers or air mail. Travel by air was limited to major cities and wealthy individuals. Air travel for the masses didn't become common until the mid-late 1960's and didn't really become affordable until deregulation in the 1980's.

Today, 100 years later, I can buy an airplane ticket for a couple day's worth of barely-better-than minimum wage barely-part-time college work.

That's because of the great demand, intense competition, and decades of the air lines honing and polishing their operations. And it's only in the last few years that prices have really dropped.

If this is like the Wright brother's flight, then we're in for one hell of a century, and it's gonna be a good one.

There is absolutely no reason to believe that. It took WWI and II to push technological development, and decades of engineering experience after, and some fairly unique economic circumstances for air travel to become as cheap and ubiquitous as it is today. (Not to mention the fact that air travel is popular because it links *places*, which space travel does not.)

Re:Come on

[DerekLyons]

Yeah, but the Shuttle is a crappy design. The ceramic tiles are widely recognised to be a big mistake.

Not by professionals in the field. For re-useables the only other option is metallic TPS, which is not without significant problems.

I think the X-prize vehicles are about 1/3 of the way to orbit. Not in terms of delta-v; but in terms of sheer mind share. It opens people's eyes to the fact that this rocketry stuff really isn't that hard; that the underlying costs are potentially pretty low, and that businesses really can sensibly tackle it, not just governments.

Well, when you are going to orbit, delta-V matters, as do many other things. Between the X-prize and orbit are a lot of significant technical and operational problems. The X-prize proves little about the expense of orbital flight because it doesn't adress any of the real problems, for the same reason it proves little about the cost of orbital flight.

The X-Prize provides hope, but thats a long from reality.

Re:Come on

[GileadGreene]

Most S-V costings don't account for the overhead and infrastructure cost, while every Shuttle one does.

I'd be willing to debate both of those assertions. However, I do agree that it depends a lot on what you include in your launch cost roll-up (and what you define as "overhead" and "infrastructure cost")

The reality is that the marginal cost for a Shuttle flight is around 150 million a flight, but the overhead kills it when spread across so few flights.

The reality is that the shuttle cannot support a higher flight rate, so the marginal cost is somewhat meaningless (and is dominated by the fixed costs anyway).

The passengers on an X-Prize vehicle are no more going somewhere than are the riders of a roller coaster.

Cute analogy. But you are conveniently missing the point. The X-Prize passengers will be going into space, a realm that has, until now, been restricted to hand-picked astronauts, self-made multi-millionaires, and congressmen on junkets. So what if it's only sub-orbital for now. That at least puts them on a par with the early Mercury flights. The Wright Flyer flew only a few hundred feet to begin with. That doesn't detract from the fact that it flew.

Like every aviation prize before it, the X-prize is encouraging vehicles designed specifically to win the prize.

And the prize is specifically designed to encourage vehicles that support fast-turnaround with minimal infrastructure. Those two features are essentially what the launch vehicle community is referring to when they talk about "airline-like" operations (and relative to the way launch vehicles are currently operated they do represent something much more like the way an airline operates). Ok, so you won't be using an X-Prize competitor like an actual modern airliner. But as you say "It took the airlines and manufacturers decades to achieve those levels." They did it by trying lots of different stuff, discarding what failed, and keeping what worked. The beauty of the X-Prize is that we're finally getting away from NASA's stale "one true way" of doing manned launch, and experimenting with a variety of approaches. All of these approaches must, as a result of the competition rules, give at least some consideration to reusability and operability. Some will work. Some will fail. We'll learn from them all, and probably learn a lot more than we would from the endless paper studies that characterize NASA's attempts at manned launch. The current crop of X-Prize contenders may not be the equivalent of a space-going DC-3, but they sow the seeds from which such a craft can eventually emerge.

Re:Come on

[AGMW]

The shuttle's 60,000 lb cargo capacity is wasteful and useless.

In my book we'd be looking at two distinct types of craft. Lets build something specifically for shifting stuff into orbit as cheaply as possible, and then lets build something else for shifting people.

I'd wondered about a massive rail gun that could fire small-ish canisters into orbit, where they could be caught by a space station somehow. This setup could potentially fire a canister every few minutes containing unbreakable commodities - oxygen, water, pies, that sort of thing - and do so very cheaply (once you've build the rail gun!). The bodies of the canisters would also be a source of raw material for orbital construction projects.

Throwing stuff into space ... legally.

[j_cavera]

> what happens if i were to build a big rocket and launch myself into space without telling anyone? would i get shot down by the military when they pick me up on radar?

Yes. Having worked with a (unmanned) launch services firm, getting permission can be the most difficult part of the process. Building the rocket and payload is just rocket science. Getting permission is *legal-stuff* .

Six years ago, we had estimated that launching a satellite required permits, lawyers and insurance in excess of twice the cost of the launch vehicle. The gov't is truly being kind to Mr. Rutan.

Re:Throwing stuff into space ... legally.

[Anonymous Coward]

Keep the rocket, launch the lawyers.

Re:Throwing stuff into space ... legally.

[DerekLyons]

Six years ago, we had estimated that launching a satellite required permits, lawyers and insurance in excess of twice the cost of the launch vehicle. The gov't is truly being kind to Mr. Rutan.

No, the goverment is changing the rules slightly to allow for easier acess to licensing for smaller organizations. The X-prize and lobbying work is slowly but surely starting to change and level the playing field.

Some links:

• Office of the Associate Administrator for Commercial Space Transportation (FAA/DOT)
• Office of Space Commercialization (Department of Commerce)

There's also been a variety of Congressional acts supporting space commercialization and competiveness.

Re:Throwing stuff into space ... legally.

[Kenshin]

Of course, in alot of cases, it may just be easier to launch from a country that isn't so uptight.

Re:Throwing stuff into space ... legally.

[WolfWithoutAClause]

If you're an American, it doesn't actually matter. The US government claims jurisdiction over you; wherever you launch from; and that means the FAA (unless you are part of a government department.)

The underlying reason is, is that under international law the country that you are a citizen of is responsible for any damage you do; irrespective of your launch site.

Vanity plates?

[falken0905]

Gee, i wonder if the FAA issues 'vanity plates'? I also wonder if the license plate will be made of low-drag material. Do they have to display inspection stickers on the windshield? So many questions come to mind. Ponderous.

Re:Vanity plates?

[voidptr]

Yes, they do.

Re:Crock of Shit

[Tatarize]

The Department of Energy banned larger bowled toilets so frankly we need government approval for more than the skies.

In a practical sense, you don't need there stupid aircraft hitting another aircraft, so it really is best to check. Without governement regulation on the sky it might be a little more difficult to get from point A to point B, because idiot C has a hot air balloon, near an airport and causes plane D to be flameball E.

Fiction: "Net Assets"

[Mad Man]

A fictional novel of a privately built launch vehicle, and what the government does to stop it.

Available for free at http://netassetsbook.com/. I'd suggest the PDF version (1 MB), since some of the formatting in the HTML version is screwed up, and makes reading some parts difficult (mainly forgetting /I tags).

"Once upon a time, there was an agency of the American government called the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. NASA was tasked with the exploration and development of space. Being a government agency, it was very bad at the job. But also, being a government agency, NASA made damned sure that no one else would do a better job.

"And then the bureacrats' world came to an end."

Lloyd's of London

[Chmcginn]

would probably be the underwriter of choice, not Geico. They have insured almost anything. For instance, some examples .

Re:Lloyd's of London

[Fnkmaster]

So they say. However, I have a friend (also a Slashdot reader) who recently started a business in New York, and Lloyds actually refused to provide him with liability insurance for his business. Mind you, this business is somewhat risky, but it is a legitimate business, and he's making quite a bit of money now.

The thing is that Lloyds is actually a marketplace of "syndicates", not exactly a monolithic institution (at least, this is how he explained it to me). So you have to have a broker who really knows Lloyd's to figure out who the right people to approach are. And as far as I can tell, they may like taking fairly crazy sounding but actually low risk bets on actresses thighs or singer's voices, but they don't like taking higher stake bets on businesses that are hard to assess or known to be risky.

This is how space will become cheap

[Anonymous Coward]

This is how space will become cheap.. Check this out, boys, creative engineering at work:
http://www.scaled.com/projects/tierone/New_ Index/p hotos/images/800/wind_tunnel_800.jpg

Bush doesn't want us on the moon

[Anonymous Coward]

Bush doesn't want us on the moon. Why? Think of the evening news stories: "Today, Apollo 59 landed on the moon again, costing taxpayers $155 trillion dollars, drilled some tiny holes in rocks, took several pictures, discovered NO WEAPONS of mass distruction and found 6 more votes for Al Gore."

Burt Rutan

[Anonymous Coward]

I first noticed Burt Rutan because of a homebuilt plane that he designed. It was composite construction (fiberglass and foam) and extremely strong. It was a canard (it had a lifting surface on the nose) and therefore very stable. Some time later he built the first plane to fly around the world without refueling.

The guy is a genius and an innovator in a field that does its best to discourage innovation.

If I have understood correctly, lawsuits have basically killed innovation in general aviation. Check it out the next time you are airside: most of the designs of small aircraft are fifty years old. I wonder if we will be saying the same thing about software in fifty years.

www.centennialofflight.gov/essay/GENERAL_AVIATIO N/ rutan/GA15.htm

Re:Burt Rutan

[Anonymous Coward]

This url gives some details of Rutan's problems:

http://www.dailyobjectivist.com/
Heroes/BurtRut an.asp

"In 1972, he founded Rutan Aircraft Factory, which sold plans and kits for Rutan-designed aircraft. His science-fiction-like aircraft designs were considered "risky" by established aircraft manufacturers, who made sure that the regulators of the Federal Aviation Administration were aware of their "concerns."

He successfully sold a number of different unique designs. Then, frustrated by the litigious regulatory environment and absurd liability claims which had put many private aircraft manufacturers out of business, Rutan chose to leave the homebuilt industry and do larger-scale designs for companies. His new firm, founded in 1982, was Scaled Composites.

One of Rutan's new contracts called for him to build a business jet for Beechcraft. Though the performance of the Beech Starship far excelled anything yet seen in business jets, Rutan came under fire from regulators. FAA regulations have focused on conventional designs, and are mind-deadeningly specific: an aluminum spar here, a certain number of rivets there. The Starship, on the other hand, was an all-composite aircraft that used neither rivets nor spars. Non-regulation. Rutan tried to explain this to regulators, but without luck. So the Starship was freighted with conventional design features that hampered its performance, making it little better than conventional aircraft.

This url shows some of the governments efforts to fix the problem. A lot of people think all the suing is killing the economy. This link is from 1997 and I'm not sure if these hearings have actually had any effect.

http://commdocs.house.gov/committees/judiciary/h ju 42154.000/hju42154_0.htm

Re:Burt Rutan

[bwy]

Yeah, you're exactly right. Cessna almost went out of business because of law suits and if you see a Cessna today chances are probably 9 out of 10 that its a 152 or 172 that is decades old.

And it is truely a god-damned shame. The fact that all these aircraft are around today and flying after 50 years ought to say something. I mean, you don't see a lot of Ford Pintos on the road anymore, do you? It amazes me how long something can last when it is designed correctly and cared for by professionals. Look at the fleet of B-52s... Anyway, now you can't pick up a new single engine Cessna for less than 158K

Agree....

[vwjeff]

We are at the beginning of a new revolution. Space travel for the average person is now within reason. Sadly I will never have the opportunity to travel to a distant planet but I may get to experience space travel :)

Re:The Man Who Sold the Moon

[fucksl4shd0t]

Um, sorry to burst your bubble, but this has absolutely no comparison to DD Harriman and company. See, DD Harriman was the guy at the top of the power conglomerate, and as such had much more power than the government itself. Be thankful we don't have that kind of world--yet. He was also an idealist, so I have a real hard time believing he got to be where he was in the story in any fashion that resembles real life corporate politics. ;)

What about Canada?

[temporalillusion]

Since there's no FAA up here, I wonder what licenses the Canadian entries will have to get.. if any! Considering our government hasn't launched its own rocket into space... Do they go to the CSA? Transport Canada? Do Canadian Content Laws apply in space? ;-)

Cool, private citizens might get into space before their government does!

Re:Kinda Disappointed...

[codegen]

There are. There was a recent slashdot story about the da vinci group. They are about to announce thier launch date and are in the final stages of approval from Transport Canada. The launch site is only a couple of hundred miles from where I grew up (very close in Canadian terms).

Deja vu all over again...

[jemenake]

Is X Prize finally entering the end-game?

Well, seeing as how we're also trying to recruit people who talk like chimps, the "payload" is being taken care of as we speak.

Of course, the American chimp-speakers will undoubtedly demand too high of a salary, so they'll probably just teach someone from an Indian call center how to speak chimp as well as they speak English and save a bundle.

license for 312,000 ft?

[kevlar]

My understanding is that anything above 60,000 ft the FAA doesn't care about (nor should they even be bothered with).

I wonder how much money they dished out for a license that they never needed in the first place...

Re:license for 312,000 ft?

[voidptr]

How do you get to 60,001 feet without climbing through the first sixty thousand? If we could just magically apear above restricted (and everything from 1200 feet to 60,000 is restricted to some degree) airspace, it'd be kind of a moot contest.

Re:FAA authority

[Sergeant Beavis]

No, Congress have them the authority late last year. If they are flying in US airspace, they can be regulated by the feds.

Ah yes...

[fireman sam]

... but is it compatible with the GPL, if not, we cannot support it.

Range Safety

[Detritus]

A critical part of any effort to launch rockets is range safety. This ensures that the rocket either follows a safe trajectory or the flight is terminated (boom). Part of getting a license is convincing the government that your launch operations are not going to be a hazard to your fellow human beings. The more powerful the rocket, the more danger it poses to other people.

X-Prize and space

[robert.broome]

Remember though that the X-Prize is for suborbital flight. The height isn't important-it is the speed. Spaceship 1 won't have to deal with reentry temperatures, making it MUCH simpler to build and fly. If X-Prize was for an orbital flight, or any Mach 25 flight, there wouldn't be any entries. Is it the first step to cheap flight or just a cheap flight? Only a real reentry system will tell.

Lawsuits, was: Re:Burt Rutan

[lenski]

The lawsuit problem is slowly becoming less problematic. The new problem is "security". After 9/11/2001, general aviatioon simply got more difficult to get past government authorities. But general aviation is still present: A co-worker of mine flies a homebuilt aircraft. It's a fabulous hobby, but like anyone whose life is on the line, he takes safety way seriously. (paraphrasing his commentary) Airplanes, even the "little ones" in general aviation, balance many variables. Get one or a few wrong, and you become a Darwin award winner. That's an important reason designs tend to be 50+ years old: They are proven.

Burt Rutan is an amazing engineer surrounded by amazing engineers, and is that rare person who has a demonstrated ability to think outside the box successfully.

Re:More paper mass to lift than payload!

[WolfWithoutAClause]

Well, normal aircraft can't fly until the mass of paper outweighs the aircraft. What makes you think rockets are any different? :-)

Actually, I think that the FAA regulatory process for suborbitals is very lightweight compared to aircraft. It's not like the general public can just step on board; and they are currently cutting them some slack.

The problem is that if they don't do this, then spaceflight can never, ever get going. Reliability of entirely new classes of vehicles is simply not going to be like a 777. The regulatory authorities (particularly the FAA people who work on suborbitals, and whose jobs depend on it succeeding), know this and are actually on the side of the embryonic industry.

er..

[rebelcool]

you would think that the guy (burt rutan) who has devoted his life to novel aeronautic designs that challenge notions of what can be done regarding flight would be "more deserving" to win a space race than a guy who has programmed 3D graphics engines for just over a decade...

Re:FAA authority

[jovlinger]

soo.

what is us airspace? How far up? radial or linear spokes?

Re:FAA authority

[falcon5768]

now THAT would be a good question.. since we have pretty much made the case that while a US craft would be "US territory" space is not owned by any country.. my guess is once you pass what nasa considers the threshhold of space.. your not under US authority

Single Engine planes

[Nick Driver]

Anyway, now you can't pick up a new single engine Cessna for less than 158K

And you can still pick up a decent used, older single-engine plane that has decades more life left in it for under $30K. A brand new GMC pickup truck costs more than I paid for my Piper Cherokee. Why people shell out over an eighth of a million dollars for a new C172, I don't understand. If I had ~$160K to spend on an airplane, I'd much rather buy an older, bigger, plane like a T210 or perhaps even a Skymaster 337 inline twin in that price range.

Re:More paper mass to lift than payload!

[Thagg]

Actually, according to this week's Aviation Weke, Burt is lobbying the FAA to allow him to carry passengers. There would be a list of disclaimers a mile long, but if the passengers sign a waiver that "Yes, I fully expect this rocket to blow up and kill me", they'd be allowed to fly.

Apparently the FAA is looking favorably on this proposal, as a way to stimulate private space travel. It's amazing to see government working for innovation, for a change.

Burt Rutan, in some ways, has the same kind of reality distortion field that Steve Jobs is legendary for. The thing is, it's not a joke -- reality is different after these guys get done.

Thad

hmmm...

[fantomas]

speak for yourself, but I really wouldn't want to be underneath a 50kg lump of metal that has fallen 40,000 metres / feet from an exploding rocket, however it was powered... I think people would still die... there could be a fair spread of debris colliding with people if such an explosion meant the fallout path was across an urban area.

Actually, yes.

[tm2b]

Historically, much of the United States' expansion was preceded by individuals homesteading land before the government had legal sovereignty of that land.

Look at the history of the westward expansion of the US, especially the way in which the Texas became a state (the land was first "colonized" by US-friendly ranchers against Mexican sovereignty), and also the annexing of Hawaii (preceded by American sugar and pineapple interests in the kingdom).

The fact is that governments will happily allow their citizens to go out and be productive elsewhere, and then step in to rule over (and tax!) the new enterprise.

The place this will really get tricky is concern over terrorism. Look at the damage done by a few pathetic subsonic jets that were hijacked, loafing along at several hundred knots.

Now imagine the damage that can be done by a suborbital (or orbital!) craft flying into a nuclear power plant.

Re:Actually, yes.

[tm2b]

Well, that's technically impossible. Homesteading is a specific activity, I.E. taking land granted by the goverment and earning the right to buy the land (or to be granted it outright) by proving and developing the land.

Actually, no. You're right only about one sense of the word. In the more general english sense [see definition 1 of homestead and the transitive definition of homesteading], it also refers to any sort of permanent settling of a home.

Did you think that they invented the word homestead when they started granting land? No, it came from the older english meaning.

I wish there were a (-1, Illiterate) moderation option.

who owns this?

[JeremyALogan]

so for all the arguing I've seen on here so far I'm really surprised/impressed that noone mentioned this (from the article):

Last December it was formally announced that multi-billionaire Paul Allen -- the co-founder of Microsoft -- is footing the bill on the SpaceShipOne project.

so my question now is... who owns this technology?