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FAA Releases Requirements for Space Tourism
An anonymous reader writes "Due to companies such as Virgin Galactic, SpaceX, and Benson Space (SpaceDev) announcing their commercial spaceflight ambitions, the FAA has just released space flight requirements for safety and experimental permits. Virgin Galactic has already received nearly 200 bookings while Benson Space just recently started accepting reservations, although they plan to be first. The companies desire to have tourists in space as early as 2008 or 2009. All that it takes is a spare two hundred thousand dollars, and maybe a little courage."
Something I noticed while skimming the document is that they're not entirely ruling out vehicles guided entirely from "the ground" via telemetry, stating that redundant links should be safe enough, citing UAVs as an example.
Boy, they have a lot of misplaced faith.
Similarly, it's much cheaper to go diving in certain countries. But when you're 80 ft down and realize you're swimming in dangerous shark-infested waters and you're not even sure if your rasta pilot is going to wait for you to resurface before he heads back to the beach for more weed... was the money-saved worth it?
In the case of the original topic, the regulations don't appear that they would be much different than those imposed on airlines with flights entering/leaving the US. The purpose is not to restrict industry or even to pork-barrel a niche industry of space-travel-safety-consultants, but to create a safety standard for the carriers & crew conducting these flights. Yes, the free market would eventually level the playing field but the artificial restrictions created by the government in this scenario attempt to level this playing field without sacrificing peoples' lives in unnecessary crashes first.
Do these regulations cause a slightly higher operating cost for the carriers? Perhaps. Is it worth it to make sure that when you spend $200k to fly to space your craft won't be manned by a drug-addicted geriatric with heart problems and no flight experience? I think so.
Civil aviation was well on its way before the original FAA type organisation was constituted and it took years before it learned how to be come a red tape type organization. In that case of space filght, no learning curve is required.
1924 - regular scheduled flights are started along the Transcontinental Route.
1925 - The Kelly Air Mail Act puts the Post Office out of the flying business. Specific segments of the air mail routes are put out for bid. The early airlines are formed as contract mail carriers.
1936 - The airlines establish three en route centers in Newark, Cleveland, and Chicago.
1938 - The Civil Aeronautics Act creates the first CAA - Civil Aeronautics Authority. Airport and Airway Traffic Control Sections are established.
1940 - The CAA is reorganized into the Civil Aeronautics Administration. Airport Towers are taken into federal service. The CAA receives support and guidance from the War Department to expand and improve the air traffic system.
Undetectable Steganography? Yep, there's an app fo
So, at least for this first generation of vehicles, there's no real worry about space collisions. These rules are more aimed at dealing with things like participant awareness of the risks, and protecting the uninvolved public. Both very important things, and fortunately AST (the branch of the FAA in charge of space flight stuff) is taking a very sane and reasonable approach to most of this.