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Space Access '04 Conference Review

Posted by timothy on from the space-is-no-place-for-bureaucrats dept.

savuporo writes "The annual Space Access Society conference was held last week, with most of all the alt.space heavyweights being present. Speakers included people from XCOR, X-Prize, Armadillo Aerospace and even NASA. The review is available at HobbySpace. In contrast to last years conference, private space transportation is now literally off the ground and the focus of discussion has gradually shifted from hardware designs to regulation, liability and legislation which remain the roadblocks to be cleared on path to outer space."

2 of 12 comments (clear)

  1. some more by savuporo · · Score: 4, Informative

    A couple more SA'04 trip reports from attendees:
    Michael Mealling blogged the conference almost live over at RocketForge
    Alan Boyle at MSNBC's Cosmic Log writes about both the conference and whats yet to come this summer. In a followup post he also mentions an X-Prize team that has has made some significant progress while remaining under the media radar.
    Rand Simberg at Transterrestrial Musings also has a short post on SA'04 first and then some significant insights into legislative aspects.

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  2. Re:Interesting Article by georgewilliamherbert · · Score: 3, Interesting
    When I think of difficulties faced by these companies, I think of engineering hurdles. Getting insurance is one of those things that I didn't think about,
    It's nice that things have progressed to the point that insurance is now a major problem in comparison.

    Our previous problems were a lot harder...

    ...but imagine it from the insurance companies perspective.
    Insurance is a barrier, but it's one manageable either with time, location, or money.
    • Time: Work with insurers in depth to make them familiar with the environment
    • Location: Fly out of the Mojave airport, which already has civilian supersonic aircraft and rocket activities (or, somewhere else which is pushing to open up to such activities, such as the spaceport opening up in Oklahoma)
    • Money: Other insurers will give you a million in third party liability for ten times what Xcor paid, without too much hassle. It took me about 5 hours work over 3 weeks to get an insurance quote for a commercial rocket development program elsewhere in California.

    If you are poor and far from Mojave, however, it can get hard.

    I imagine that meeting OSHA standards alone would be a non-trivial barrier to starting such a company
    I don't know of anyone in the industry who's working with seriously toxic materials or propellants.

    We're just crazy, not insane.