US Draw Up Rules for Space Tourism

AsiNisiMasa writes "The BBC reports that the United States Federal Aviation Administration has drafted a report proposing some regulations regarding space tourism. Among the rules is a set of guidelines to prevent terrorists from gaining access to the space ships in order to use them as weapons. Many of the other regulations are similar to those regarding regular commercial flights, including safety advice precluding the flights. From the article: 'Space tourists should also be given pre-flight training to handle emergency situations such as a loss of cabin pressure or fire. However, the FAA has so far left any medical requirements in the hands of the tourist, who should decide themselves if they are fit to fly.' The final report will affect enterprises such as Sir Richard Branson's SpaceShipOne."

Comments

Easier to screen

[dannytaggart]

The good thing is that it's much easier to screen space travelers, since there will be so few. It's unlikely that terrorists would bother going through such scrutiny.

Re:Easier to screen

[eclectic4]

It has always been interesting to me to see how invasive the fear of "terrorists" have been installed into the minds of most. Terrorist, the current bogeyman. No more communists to be afraid of (really?), bring in terrorists. Next it will be asteroids, and then space aliens. Whatever it takes to breed consent via fear. It's worked wonders so far...

A story about space tourism, and how easy it's going to be to screen people to make sure we're "safe" getting an instant 5 Insightful is hillarious to me, sorry.

Useless

[d_strand]

I fail to see the relevance of the US drawing up rules for this. It's not like the passengers care where they launch *from*, hopefully the important thing is where they end up (say, in space). Thus any space tourism entrepreneur who dont like the US rules can just launch from another country.

Seriously...

[danro]

Among the rules is a set of guidelines to prevent terrorists from gaining access to the space ships in order to use them as weapons.

Do anyone else think this terrorist hysteria is getting a bit overboard?
What kind of terrorist would this protect against? Dr Evil?

Could the slashdot editors please refrain from mentioning teh terrorists in just about every piece of totally unrelated news. (I know, I know the BBC did it too, but I would much rather have news for nerds, or stuff that matters. Mentioning terrorism here is neither.)

Re:Seriously...

[RexRhino]

Terrorism is revelant here... not because there is any likelyhood whatsoever about terrorists hijacking spacecraft and doing a lot of harm (at least not anywhere in the near future), but it is relevant because it is an politically acceptable excuse for doing things. People will accept any sort of government intervnetion into society, if it is to "stop terrorists". Terrorism, therefore, is worth mentioning in the context of civilian space flight - even if only as a political concept and not as a practicle concern.

Re: You have to ask yourself.

[Anonymous Coward]

The funny thing is people get more worked up about terrorism which kills relatively few people worldwide then they do about barelling down the highway at 100 mph while drunk and not wearing a seatbelt. Last year car accidents killed about 40,000 Americans, about 13 times the number that died on September 11th, but I don't see the government rushing to make cars safer(hell, they are doing the opposite with lax fuel economy standards that don't punish the mammoths that cause a lot of these fatalities)
However, that number is rarely mentioned in the news, but if Zarqawi sneezes the media is all over it. The media has seriously distorted people's sense of reality...

Thank Goodness For Government Regulations

[Anonymous Coward]

Leave it to the government to put their tentacles into something that was only able to grow out of nothing because of the lack of government regulations in the first place. New regulations on space tourism and privately built spacecraft will likely mean no spacecraft can be built without wheelchair access, without headlights and taillights, without flush toilets with the government regulated amount of power and flush, without seperate and secured pilot cabins, without air marshalls, without a whole system of spacecraft licencing and regulation paperwork to be filled out/ security background checks for pilots/passengers/investors and without government approval for every time they run a test all the way to blasting off. Yes indeed, thank goodness for government. At least those pioneers and inventors have been able to get this far because the eye of Sauron was elsewhere. Thank goodness the Wright Brothers didn't have this government on their asses or there wouldn't even be airplanes now. Geez.

See I told you so.

[/dev/trash]

Everyone was "NASA needs to get out of the way, private corps will do it for them." Yeah, if the Feds don't regulate it so much that it's more expensive than NASA.

Remarkably able terrorists

[Flying pig]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but exactly how is a terrorist going to hijack a spacecraft and crash it into even the approximate neighbourhood of Pennsylvania Avenue? It's not quite like 'oh there's the White House, change course', is it? You have to know where in the orbital path to fire the engines in order to land rather a lot further round the world, and once you are committed, major course changes are not exactly an option as burning up on re-entry doesn't achieve the objective. Given where a spacecraft is likely to be allowed to land, i.e. lots of water or desert, minor course changes won't achieve much. Well, they might hit the next lot of space tourists if they impact the departure lounge, but something tells me a commercial spaceport won't look much like O'Hare or Heathrow.

Looks like some people in Government think that Futurama is a documentary. That, or they have to be seen to be "doing something" to protect us, since the things that might actually achieve that - fixing the resurgent Taliban in Afghanistan, peace in Iraq and Chechnya, and solving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict - don't seem to be happening.

"regulation to prevent terrorists"

[nurb432]

Anyone else sick of hearing the excuse 'its beacuse of the terrorists' to regulate yet another ascpect of our life..

They wanted to change the world and make us more like them.. welp, in may ways they did..