Slashdot Mirror
Private Spaceflight Law Passes Senate
Neil Halelamien writes "HR 5382, the commercial spaceflight bill which has been previously mentioned on Slashdot, has been passed by Congress at the last minute (almost literally). The bill had previously been stalled several times due to disagreements about how much the FAA should regulate crew and passenger safety. It's now headed to the White House to be signed into law. Under this legislation, the FAA's role until 2012 will be to protect the uninvolved public on the ground, and allow passengers to ride as long as they've been properly informed of the related dangers. Also, the FAA will be able to regulate certain aspects of the vehicles if they prove to be dangerous."
I couldn't find the exact height during a short google, but according to American law, the US government owns everything between (either 1,000 or 2,000) feet to just below low Earth orbit.
That allows for skyscrapers to be built, allows for government control of aircraft above those skyscrapers and gives us the "legal" ability to orbit spy satellites over other nations without "officially" breaching their airspace.
That last one pretty much was settled between the USA and USSR when we started orbiting satellites over one another.
I don't know how far up an individual's property rights go, but I believe it is right below the lower limit of what the government claims for itself.
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