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."

Comments

Wrong paradigm

[RealProgrammer]

Space is much more analogous to our experience with ocean travel than air travel. You can stay in space until your supplies run out, not just while your fuel does. That means a lot more interaction between people, and more need for regulation of that interaction.

It always strikes me as a bit luddite when the surface-dwellers arrogate for themselves the right to govern those outside the atmosphere, or on another planet.

I expect one of the first court cases to result in the principle that a space Captain has all the rights of a maritime Captain.

I wonder when we'll see the first marriage performed by a Captain in space?

And I wonder how long before the first space battle over control of a "celestial object", or over something else?

Whatever happens, we'll probably have seen it before.

Re:Wrong paradigm

[Eric Giguere]

This, of course, is why most SF stories in space use a naval system when discussing the military. Star Trek does it that way, for example. And in most cases, when the ship is out of communication range then what the captain generally says is the law. Particularly in stories like Midshipman's Hope and its sequels.

Eric
Why Vioxx is the new Prozac for lawyers

Let the market decide

[Nine Tenths of The W]

Government regulation is un-American and inefficient. Let the market decide. Those companies whose flights don't end in smoking craters will get more business.

Er, on a serious note, isn't pollution of space a fairly important issue as well? Left alone, companies will just dump their crap up there, and in 20 years time every launch will run the risk of being hit by orbiting junk

Battle over control of "celestial object"

[dpilot]

Even funnier will be the idea of a battle over an orbital position. ie: nothing at all. This isn't quite as funny as it sounds, when you consider Lagrange points. The Lagrange points are mathematical fictions, but can be nifty places indeed for many purposes, possibly worth fighting over.

For the obligatory science fiction reference, read Poul Anderson's "Tales of the Flying Mountains," a series of short stories framed in the setting of the first interstellar flight. The officers are trying to build their history to help educate their young and prevent the culture loss that seems to plague just about every "generation ship" in fiction. One story is about some orbital shenanigans around the Trojan asteroids. To say any more would be a spoiler.