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."

Comments

Re:Limited competition

[SonicSpike]

Airlines are going bankrupt because they were "protected" and "propped-up" by the Gov for decades. Now that they are in the free market, those that are not profitable, are being forced to close their doors. That's how the free market works, but in the end, the consumer DOES win due to lower prices.

I think what you mean is that there are 1/3rd as many MAJOR carriers, and that might be true. However the amount of smaller airlines and regionals have increased exponentially. And of course there are many more choices of airlines overall and tickets are much cheaper.

And regarding the ashtray comment, the FAA bans smoking on all flights in/within the US. I don't think all countries do that. In other words, I think it is still perfectly legal to smoke on flights in and out of the UK for example, or some other European countries perhaps. Either way, why make planes without ashtrays if it is possible that they will be sold to an airline that allows smoking? Therefore, your comment equating the age of the aircraft to whether or not it has ashtrays is nonsense.