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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."
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.
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'Space tourists should also be given pre-flight training to handle emergency situations such as a loss of cabin pressure or fire.'
...Hold your breath?
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.
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...
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.
No kidding, just ask John Young on Apollo 16:
[In the following, John doesn't realize he still has a hot mike. Charlie is only faintly audible through John's mike and the following undoubtedly contains transcription errors.]
128:50:37 Young: I have the farts, again. I got them again, Charlie. I don't know what the hell gives them to me. Certainly not...I think it's acid stomach. I really do.
128:50:44 Duke: It probably is.
128:50:45 Young: (Laughing) I mean, I haven't eaten this much citrus fruit in 20 years! And I'll tell you one thing, in another 12 fucking days, I ain't never eating any more. And if they offer to sup(plement) me potassium with my breakfast, I'm going to throw up! (Pause) I like an occasional orange. Really do. (Laughs) But I'll be durned if I'm going to be buried in oranges.
From http://www.history.nasa.gov/alsj/a16/a16.debrief1. html
The third most important thing I have learned in life: Squeeze anything hard enough and it eventually makes a noise.
Just where does US jurisdiction end? I plan on traveling to the belt of Orion next summer, will US law apply there?
I have nothing to hide. So, why are you spying on me?
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.
Pining for the fjords
What will they try to do, blow up the orbiter? Given how many airplanes terrorists have destroyed -vs- how many they haven't, even if they managed to double their efficiency for spacecraft I think their average will still be below NASA's.
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.