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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, for one, welcome our legislation-passing White House overlords...oh...wait.
My Favourite Meme
Has anyone yet decided who is to oversee "air traffic control" once you pass out of the air and into space? Will each country be responsible for their own spacespace - and will a strike by the space trafic controllers of one particular country cause you to orbit in a holding pattern for 3 days?
http://www.frugle.co.uk/
Please put the tab into the buckle, and pull snug across your waist. Your seat may be used as a flotation device. No smoking in the lavatory.
Yeah? Well I think you're overrated too.
Space is still uncontrolled without authorities now is your opportunity to fast build (preferably black) space pirateship and the raid the tourist ships :)
...ofcourse, this also opens up a way for terrorists to form a covert spacebase on the moon and launch attacks from there.
Will we see a short-term invasion of the US on Mare Crisium ?
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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.
sigs, as if you care.
passed by Congress at the last minute (almost literally).
Passing a bill literally? Sounds painful.
Remember, it takes 42 muscles to frown and only 4 to pull the trigger of a sniper rifle.
So if you've got a plane in orbit does that mean it would only fall under FAA control when its over the US or would it be from which country the plane originates?
Rus
Cheap UK and US VPS
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
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... I believe Article VI is the most appropriate reference ... which includes the words
"The activities of non-governmental entities in outer space, including the Moon and other celestial bodies, shall require authorization and continuing supervision by the appropriate State Party to the Treaty."
So for US based companies, the US would be required to supervise (though they could do this by joining an international space flight control organisation).
There is wording in Article VI to cover international organisations as well.
Our pile of bureaucrats are afraid of losing a shiny toy to some other country's bureaucrats. Governments that have to compete for something can - SURPRISE - do a much better job of not mucking it up too much. If Scaled Composite's design involved specialized launch facilities instead of a flat piece of concrete, you can bet this bill would've been really restrictive... Because the control freaks in congress would've had a better opportunity to control it.
"Wow. Now THAT'S a lot of angry Indians." - Lt. Col. George Armstrong Custer
Also, the FAA will be able to regulate certain aspects of the vehicles if they prove to be dangerous.
uh, wouldn't it be in everyone's best interests if this could be regulated *before* it's "proven" to be dangerous, ie an accident's occured?
What hath Rutan brought?
Should spacecraft have to go under the spame standard as any other experimental aircraft? Should the standard be higher or lower. And should there be any regulation at all? If I were a spacecraft designer/manufacturer, and the US gov gave me too much of a headache, why wouldn't I pack my bags and go somewhere else? I'm sure there are plenty of third world countries that would love to become the capitol of intergalactic travel. Spaceport Nigeria, anyone? (Wait, I already got an email about the new spaceport in Nigeria, and if I send .........)
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.
The living have better things to do than to continue hating the dead.
If this law works out the way it looks then Congress might have gotten it just about right. Protect the public from the nutballs, but let people make their own choices about risk/reward. That's how exploration should work.
You never really know how close to the edge you can go until you fall off.
It is always a Good Thing when people get involved in the legislative and judicial processes. It's a Good Thing when they question a court's decision, or question a proposed resolution, etc.
But please, oh please oh please oh please, see what you're doing from the lawyer's perspective. If a lawyer with no training in electronics came up to you and ask you to "install Windows on his RAM", or something to that effect, you'd be laughing your ass off, might make a joke of it here on Slashdot, put it in your sig, and generally ridicule those with no knowledge whatsoever of computers.
On the other hand, lawyers go through an extra three years of school to get to where they are, and their backgrounds are diverse. Yes, there are in fact many many engineer-lawyers who know far more about either profession than people on here.
Now stop, and think for a moment, about what uninformed comments about our legislative or judicial system look like to a lawyer. You look just as dumb as a luser looks to you. Not that you probably give a rat's ass what the average lawyer thinks, but I want to believe that geeks WANT to learn, and legal knowledge is LEARNED, not bestowed upon birth. So please, everyone, take some effort to actually understand our legislative process before criticizing it, to understand our legal process before criticizing it.
I promise, if you take the time, you will find that the system works a whole lot better than people give it credit for.
Thank you.
There were no"riders" attached to the bill.
This bill actually just ammended or altered Section 70101 of title 49, United States Code.
That section, I believe, came from the Commercial Space Act of 1998.
It's pretty straightforward stuff. No money is attached to it as far as I can tell, but I recall seeing something in it which requires the FAA to partner with a private industry organization to study feasibility or somesuch thing.
But they probably won't go to Scaled Composites. They'll probably engage a consulting firm like Mitre or something.
Read any good sonnets lately?
I laughed and blew off what he said, but lo and behold, here comes the government just like dad predicted.
Sad.
One thing we can all agree on is the need to require adult citizens abide by the laws claiming jurisdiction over them. Fine. So how much "law" can every citizen be expected to learn by the time they are 18 years of age?
That should set the limit on the amount of "law" permitted at any given time. You want to pass a new law? Get rid of an old one.
It's called refactoring.
PS: Who knows, if it catches on even Microsoft might start doing it.
Seastead this.
Quote: According to English common law, your ownership of your law extends to the center of the Earth and upwards infinitely.
You are factually wrong.
That was the test used by the English common law (as well as in the U.S. because, with the exception of Louisiana, we adopted their common law). However, I know that test has since been abandoned as absurd.
The English case that I found was Bernstein v Skyviews & General.
Specifically, Bernstein said that a land-owner's rights extended to as high as they would reasonably and ordinarily use. You can find a little bit about the case from this Australian law school professor's page. (Scroll down the table a little ways.)
I know the corresponding U.S. case came to a similar conclusion, although I don't have the time this morning to find that case.
In regards to the article topic, these land-use tests would probably not give someone carte blanche to engage in private space flight over their property. After all, private space flight is not "reasonable and ordinary" (or whatever the exact legal phrase would be).
- Neil Wehneman
Note: See my sig for disclaimer.
My legal education, in nifty podcast format
Done that, seen the paperwork..
Back in the 70's when Ultralight aircraft first hit the scene with powered hang gliders, the FAA pretty much did the same thing.
Those laws were fair and just for the classification of that type of aircraft. And look where those planes went! We got paraplanes, ultralights that look like real homebuilt planes, we got law enforcement ultralights, even cropdusters built on the cheap!
This is just a paper tiger that congress grinds out whenever a new invention really shows its potential.
I got my two tickets to The Ride, wanna come?
First rule of holes; When in one, stop digging.
BTW, NASA did it with only 32kb of memory.
Bill Clinton: Pimp we can believe in. - The Shirt!!!
Hey, I'm the guy who submitted the story. I should've made this more explicit in my submission, but this bill is mostly a good thing, as it was required to open the door to launching paying passengers.
That said, I'm somewhat uncertain about the provisions for unrestrained FAA regulation after 8 years, and the regulation of certain aspects after they prove to be dangerous. That could potentially be misused to unfairly restrict the budding industry, but so far the FAA has been quite supportive of private spaceflight.
Anyways, I'd like to give kudos to Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-Calif) for proposing this bill (which was originally much less restrictive on private spaceflight) and keeping pressure on it. Frownie faces go to Rep. James Oberstar (D-Minn) and a few other House Democrats for trying to kill off the bill, referring to it as having a "tombstone mentality" because it didn't have enough provisions for regulation, and being largely responsible for the 8-year compromise and the provision for regulation after an accident has occurred.
Yes, all well and good, but you don't go to prison for not understanding what an IRQ is.
If corporations are people, aren't stockholders guilty of slavery?
And it's utterly absurd to let people forbid others from using property in a way that doesn't hurt it at all if the property owner physically cannot use it. It doesn't use up your sky when an airplane crosses your slice of it. They can't harrass you, they don't make off with stuff you left hovering in midair, they don't mess up your nice tidy air.
If you don't like this, the only thing you have to do to keep people from using it is to put something there. Build a giant 'no trespassing' sign or a giant disco ball or a middle digit upthrust to heaven. At which point not only will they avoid your sky, they'll avoid nearby sky, too.
Of course, it's illegal to do that, because of the danger it presents to others around you when your stupid mile-high sign falls over. But that's not the Federal government doing that, that's local zoning code.
For other examples of this, look up 'easements', which is when 'land-locked' property owners are given the legal right to cross someone else's land to get to the public roads.
If corporations are people, aren't stockholders guilty of slavery?