Slashdot Mirror
Regulations Could Delay or Prevent Space Tourism
schwit1 writes "This report explains how Virgin Galactic space tourists could be grounded by federal regulations. From the article: 'Virgin Galactic submitted an application to the FAA's Office of Commercial Space Transportation in late August 2013, says Attenborough. The office, which goes by the acronym AST, has six months to review the application, meaning an approval may come as early as February. Industry experts, however, say that may be an overly optimistic projection. "An application will inevitably be approved, but it definitely remains uncertain exactly when it will happen," says Dirk Gibson, an associate professor of communication at the University of New Mexico and author of multiple books on space tourism. "This is extremely dangerous and unchartered territory. It's space travel. AST has to be very prudent," he says. "They don't want to endanger the space-farers or the public, and they can't let the industry get started and then have a Titanic-like scenario that puts an end to it all in the eyes of the public.""
I mean, after all, they did a great job with the first civilian they sent to space.
Oh, like the Titanic stopped boat traveling, right ?
The French launch their satellites from French Polynesian island off a high tech raft launch platform. So can Virgin Atlantic.
They can't even get their own name right.
"FAA's Office of Commercial Space Transportation [...] which goes by the acronym AST"
Science is all about firing a drunk pig out of a cannon just to see what happens.
Who's going to pull me over, seriously?
Yeah maybe after wasting billions of dollars and it taking years to go into space
Sounds like a good way to drive privatized space travel to another country.
Do not question your government's financial interest in preventing you from leaving Earth. Now pay your taxes and pay no attention to the boot stomping on your face forever.
"space travel"? Uncharted? We've been doing it since 1961. Big whoop."
"We" ? Got a space race based out of an arms race in your pocket? "We" spent BILLIONS to get to this point. It's not for fucking TOURISTS.
"WE" can't even manage cruise ships in the ocean on EARTH very well considering... "we", pfft.
The shuttle program lost 40% of it's fleet and the chance of dying on a flight was %1.48 -- yeah, they know all about safety.
Just like cruise ships are registered all over the world, typically in countries with fewer regulations, whats to stop these space tourism companies from doing the same thing. If you can pay $100,000 or whatever for a quick trip into space, kicking in another $700 for airfare shouldn't be a deal breaker.
"Hey guys! I just went to Paris! I stayed in the plane the whole time and flew over it and came back!
People take balloon and helicopter rides, cruises, etc, just to sight-see. There are routine 747 flights over Antarctica which never land there, sight-seeing only through little airliner windows.
Science is all about firing a drunk pig out of a cannon just to see what happens.
As much as I think "space tourism" is an overhyped amusement park ride for jaded rich white people"
Why white people? You can't bring crack into space?
"They don't want to endanger the space-farers or the public, and they can't let the industry get started and then have a Titanic-like scenario that puts an end to it all in the eyes of the public."
??? WTF ??? What business of theirs is it AT ALL, except to make sure that rockets don't crash into airplanes? It's private business, the government isn't doing shit to "ensure" the safety of passengers or anybody else... THEY aren't to blame if a "Titanic" event were to happen... and even if it did, people would probably take it in stride just like they did the goddamned Challenger Disaster, which WAS government's fault.
Who the hell do they think they are? And what world are they living in?
Yeah the day I consider it safe is the day people stop clapping their hands just because the spacecraft takes off without blowing up on the launchpad.
;)
After that it becomes a mature tech when commercial passengers start complaining about the in-flight options and other petty stuff.
They live in the nanny state where it's the job of the government to make sure you don't miss a step and get a boo-boo.
Does Obamacare cover craterification?
Table-ized A.I.
An empty deadly vacuum is not that much of a destination, you know?
It is when it's a gallery that holds one singularly fine blue object on full display.
Plus, weightlessness.
Frankly I don't agree with anything you are saying.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
I think anyone paying $200,000 dollars to reach the edge of space knows the risk they take. I know I would. I would never hold it against them if something went wrong and I died. If nothing else, you would be remembered for a long long time.
(Qualifier: Yes, we know that Morton Thiokol designed the system and made the O-rings, but NASA administrators were familiar with the situation and approved the launch anyway.)
No fried chicken or watermelon served on Virgin Galactic, apparently.
The "Ship Of Fools" from Australia (http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2014/01/12/ship_of_fools_in_the_antarctic_121200.html) provides a very good reason to stop "Space Tourism" before the "Fools" get to launch!
However, Bon Ki Moon, distant relative of the Reverend Sun Young Moon, remember him [?], loves Space Tourism! Why. "Big Whitey!" You see, Reverend Bon Ki Moon is racist, i.e. he hates Caucasians, i.e. "Big Whitey." And he has a dilemma to solve in "Global Human Warming."
His Wolfenstein High Command the International Panel On Climate Change (IPCC) has for decades identified the sole cause of "climate change" as due to "Global Human Warming." In the Reverend Moon's mind, "Global Human Warming" = Caucasians i.e. "BIG WHITEY!"
In order to stop "Global Human Warming" the UN Reverend Moon needs to kill "BIG WHITEY!" How to kill "BIG WHITEY" the famous Reverend Moon UN High Command asks himself? Answer!: Space Tourism Fool Whitey! Only 'BIG WHITEY" can pay for such a lavish thrill! Therefore, sending bus loads of "BIG WHITEY" into near-Earth orbit to die will kill "Global Human Warming!" Brilliant! As the Great Reverend Moon of the UN tells himself in the mirror every morning and day and night.
Ha ha
So they are worried that a not-top-of-the-line space plane will crash into an asteroid and kill almost everyone. The media will be horrified at the disaster, with the designers calling it (in hindsight only) un-asteroid-collisionable. The public won't care because in the end space planes are still the most luxurious and cost-effective way to travel in space. Eventually some big-shot director will make a movie out of it starring some actor who never gets an oscar.
Russia, China, and a dozen other countries have air forces and ex air force officers who have flown MIGs .
Did you have an actual point?
Staying in the plane is kind of expected in space. But when that thrill dies out, and Virgin's next model can reach something approximating an orbit they can sell space walks. You'll no doubt be around to say it doesn't count if you wear a space suit.
Tell you what, you just go ahead and move the goal posts any where you want. We'll all know tow to your wisdom.
Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
"They don't want to endanger the space-farers or the public, and they can't let the industry get started and then have a Titanic-like scenario that puts an end to it all in the eyes of the public."
Right, because after the Titanic, there's never been another cruise ship. The very idea of sea travel came to an end in the eyes of the public!
Liberty in your lifetime
You're going to die of old age, QA. You're going to live a long and mostly-happy life, but then you're going to die of old age.
Puts and end to all of what? Did we stop ocean-faring after Titanic sunk? What is this guy talking about?
Much as the Titanic happened on its own, the Lusitania disaster was caused by the government . . . both actions that created the situation and inaction when those in the government knew full well what would happen.
Never trust the government - especially when it claims that it is helping or protecting.
I wonder if they are going to mandate chest x-rays for anyone coming back to space in order to look for any "abnormalities" they may have picked up out there.
Monstar L
The governement ensure with a lot of regulation that your ass is safe. What do you think those 3 letters agency like FDA are for ? Or EPA regulations ? In this precise case that governement would set a minimum standard of safety for travel to space, where it can be done (to ensure a returning space ship does not crash in a city), at what time, under which conditions and so forth. Only a 3rd world hell hole would not put any conditions whatsoever to space flight.
"It really comes down to two words: informed consent. AST will likely say to a company like Virgin Galactic, 'if you let people know to the best of your current knowledge what the risks are, then it is their decision to make and that's fine with us',"
Actually, many similarities: airships float in a sea of air, using buoyancy just as a ship does. Perhaps more like a submarine, but those are boats too. :)
And the loss of the Hindenburg certainly put a crimp in airship travel!
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
Please raise your hand if you are planning on using a large controlled explosion to propel yourself into the oxygenless, -270 Celsius medium of space, return by crashing back down hundreds of miles, and your plan to do so is rooted in the belief that this is all fantastically safe and unlikely to result in your death.
I think the government space program has had an overall fatality rate of something not quite 10%. It's reasonable considering just what they've been doing, but even if commercial space flight is 10 X more safe than the program NASA developed, that's still going to be some guaranteed casualties for any widely implemented program. It's certainly nothing you would tolerate coming from an air liner. Anyone going up is going to have to be acknowledging the not-utterly-unlikely possibility of their death
That said, some oversight isn't bad -- as long it's reasonable and not based on the stupid and unquantifiable "We have the prevent the next Titanic" metric -- but what the government should *really* be offering is direct assistance. The program is still small enough that it's entirely reasonable to help out all the viable startups, and nothing is going to promote success and safety so much as direct cooperation with experienced persons at NASA.
When things get complex, multiply by the complex conjugate.
If we're going to make an exhaustive list of theoretical obstacles, we're going to need a bigger internet.
These bureaucrats have no ability to enable space travel, no idea of what it entails in terms of engineering. But they have put themselves in charge of blocking it. Right.
Get the fuck out of the way, bureaucrat, and let the people who can, get on with it.
"jaded rich white people"? Do you think non-white people might be interested in traveling into space? Are only rich white people jaded? Can a brown person be rich and jaded? Or just jaded?
You could use your same "logic" to argue against the FDA. It's a private business selling the food and the medicine, and the government isn't to blame if its poisonous.
But we're much better off when we come together as a country and put some safety measures in place. That's what government is for. Doing things that would be impossible for loosely organized individuals, but which are beneficial to the public.
In the case of space flight, a "boo boo" can mean:
Your craft comes down on a populated area. (range-saftey should have a destruct system on board).
Your craft could collide with another craft (should at least have a transponder).
Your craft could break up and pose a threat to orbital craft (unlikely for suborbital flights).
etc.
I'll take my range-safety, thanks.
http://www.supersonicclub.co.z...
I have determined that my sig is indeterminate.
??? WTF ??? What business of theirs is it AT ALL, except to make sure that rockets don't crash into airplanes?
There's two basic things in play here:
1. Private space travel has potential to be a very profitable business.
2. Private space travel is going to produce a lot of R&D that NASA can put to use.
In both instances, it's very much in the government's interest to see that this nascent industry gets off the ground smoothly and without a high profile disaster.
Nobody in NASA or the FAA wants private space travel to head off to another country.
Who the hell do they think they are? And what world are they living in
They think they're the people who are granted authority under law to regulate space travel.
They live in a world where tolerance for risk is not what it was 30 years ago, or even 10 years ago.
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
The Hindenburg. But I don't buy it. If anything's holding up space tourism, it's cheaper ways of leaving the surface.
PS: I don't reply to ACs.
Regulations could delay or prevent .
That's, like, the whole point of regulations in the first place.
*yawn*
Maybe we deserve this world ?
AST is "Administrator for Space Transportation".
Part of that is due to its earlier history when it was directly under the Secretary of Transportation, but instead it is now a part of the Federal Aviation Administration.
accidents do happen (see how many accidents have happened during the spacerace by the goverment), restricting the ammount of passengers in the first place is a good step. But just let the industry do, with high reliability if something happens (that'll hopefully make sure they don't cut corners to make a buck). But just grant the commercial parties the permissions, as NASA isn't going anywhere, and spacetravel is heavily needed as resources on the earth are getting less and less, we need to travel to other planets, and the only way that can happen is if we let the industry do their job, and not let it be held back by some f-ing bureaucrats or NASA..
Sure, and all this could easily be covered under existing regulations of the FAA. Maybe some minor tweaks. Want to bet what happens? I bet we get at least a couple of new agencies, maybe 20 thousand new government jobs. Just what we need another bureaucracy. The stuff you listed are good ideas. Lets not stop there though. Have to have at least 200 thousand new regulations so we can make sure the price for putting someone in orbit triples. It's the way things work. I like safety as much as the next guy but the typical way things are done now include enough overkill to stifle any chance at making a profit. US corporations didn't flee to overseas production just for lower wages. The place they really save is avoiding the EPA, FLA, and OSHA. I'd bet anything commercial orbital companies end up offshore as well.
Pft, like you ever get out of the basement.
There are routine 747 flights over Antarctica which never land there, sight-seeing only through little airliner windows.
Might be, but the goal of the these flights is not to fly over Antarctica, but to link cities between Australia and South America or Africa. Special regulations apply for those flights, along with operational limitations.
If you are on a Virgin Galactic space ship and look out a window and see a giant piece of ice... you are not in space.
Agrisea Tsunami - Epyc Servers... https://agrisea.net/products
There are routine 747 flights over Antarctica which never land there, sight-seeing only through little airliner windows.
[citation needed].
There *were* DC-10 flights weekly out of New Zealand, until one day they drove the DC-10 into the side of a mountain.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A...
Whether there still are any, and if any have ever used a 747, I think are very open questions.
AC
Same old AC here with a correction: According to http://www.erebus.co.nz/ there have been at least two chartered 747 flights over Antarctica, although 'chartered for that flight only' is hardly 'routine', and it was in 1977.
AC
As much as I think "space tourism" is an overhyped amusement park ride for jaded rich white people,...
As a jaded poor white person, it doesn't make sense to me how race plays into this. I don't know you or your beliefs, but there are racist who would use a phrase like that. If we ever want to have a color-blind society, we're all going to need to practice it.
I won't join Slashcott. OTOH, If Beta goes live, I just won't be back until it's fixed. Sorry Dice.
If a bunch of rich people want to act a guinea pigs, that's fine by me. No need for regulation - the less safe it is, the better.
the day people stop clapping their hands just because the spacecraft takes off without blowing up on the launchpad.
People clap because its fucking awesome.
"His name was James Damore."
Well, they got her into space in one piece. It's the whole "getting them back down in one piece" that was tricky.
I think what's holding up space travel is the ability to stay up there (and not in the ISS...). Reduced gravity isn't great for humans, we haven't established large permanent structures (the ISS does not count) for colonization. We also haven't worked out how to mine useful resources up there and sustain life with them. Until we do, gravity wells will be an issue (short of sufficiently advanced technology/magic). If you want people to inhabit a new environment, you have to figure out how to keep them alive without bringing them back all the time. The first permanent inhabitants are likely to be miners operating ROVs. All of this should be taken with a healthy grain of IMHO.
It's space travel, it's not a pleasure cruise. It is inherently dangerous. The Federal government has royally stuffed up space exploration with NASA, it is time to get out of the way. Don't just get out of the way, get the fuck out of the way NOW.
Like torches in the aeon flow
Even suns flicker and die
Forgotten as the ages grow
Eternity is not for you
Thanks for that.
[Even though this is slashdot, I did actually look it up on the FAA website, but even they just say "Office of Commercial Space Transportation (AST)..." over and over without explanation.]
Science is all about firing a drunk pig out of a cannon just to see what happens.
Whether there still are any, and if any have ever used a 747, I think are very open questions.
Googled "antarctic flights" and clicked the first link. http://www.antarcticaflights.com.au/ Flights every two weeks during southern summer. Qantas 747. Operating since 1994. Next flight leaves in 4 days.
I know this is slashdot, but for fuck's sake.
Science is all about firing a drunk pig out of a cannon just to see what happens.
but to link cities between Australia and South America or Africa.
Oh for...
http://www.antarcticaflights.com.au/ Tourist flights. Flies out of an Australian city every two weeks, returns to that same city 12-14 hours later. Doesn't land anywhere else. Has Antarctic experts on board to explain what the tourists are seeing. Has nothing to do with Sth America or Africa.
If you don't know what you are talking about, okay fine, but don't just make shit up.
Science is all about firing a drunk pig out of a cannon just to see what happens.
The only regulation should be a stupid amount of "you realize this is super high tech dangerous shit and if you dont explode on takeoff, or burn up on re-entry, or get hit by space debris there is still an impossible to calculate number of things that might go wrong even if the company or group has taken all responsibility". regulation in this respect is good. but if i know full well that a planned flight on a probe to see jupiter means i am not coming back, who should tell me i cant do it?
Regulation is impending on my rights to make money!
Well, regulation is preventing me seeing Game of Thrones as soon as it is released, so boo-hoo... /sorry about the rant...
Too soon.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
I don't think he is refering to military personal when he talks about flying in a MiG, I think he means something like this:
http://www.incredible-adventures.com/edge-of-space-intro.html
Doesn't really matter - there's a few years to sort this mess out and in the meantime the Russians, Chinese and probably even Iranians will be getting many people into space before the small company launchers are ready.
No it's the will to put the resources to use to do it. Kennedy had it. Nixon didn't (although he had an expensive war dumped on him as a pretty good excuse). Nobody since has had the will to do much. Private enterprise can (and did) build the stuff but funding it is a different story - something without an obvious financial return is not the role of private enterprise.
Also - why doesn't ISS, Mir, Skylab etc count? There have been some people up there for very long periods of time. The sort of time spans that compare to polar expeditions.
The first civilian was Niel Armstrong.
Private space flight is a glaring indication of the incompetence of our government, which for 100 years has been beating the drum that "only we can solve world problems."
When private companies start solving problems like space flight, which I might add our own government is at this time completely incapable of, it's embarrassing.
How many billions do we pour down the rat hole of NASA incompetence every year only to have nothing to show for it? Now, Virgin Galactic achieves consumer-level space flight on 1/100th the budget.
There's no way government allows this.
I have passed by more dead bodies than you have astronauts. Luck you I dont need a license.
Next time they need a space station resupplied sent it to the sun.
A nice way to bias and frame the debate before it even starts. A real "Fair and Balanced" headline. All Virgin is being asked to do is meet a standard like the airline industry.
putting the 'B' in LGBTQ+
They need the people.
With all the NSA spying, mistrust of their own citizens and ecological issues I yearn for the day when I can leave the planet and become a true, free nomad in space.
Sadly it seems that the same people who messed this planet up want to keep us here
For Spaceship 1, the FAA spent more resources trying to oversee the flight than Bert spent building and flying the missions. FOrtunately all ended well.
For Spaceship 2, the FAA direction appears to be informed consent. Which sounds like a realization that it will not be completely safe, but as long as the paying public knows the risks, then they can choose. If this is the case, it may be the best path to getting more data before making a bunch of rules based on what they think might happen. This matches the written in blood regulation plan that allowed the creation of and currently regulates a successful airplane industry. Seems a reasonable balance. Since it applies to the FAA, it kind of puts me off balance. It will be interesting to see if it plays out as the article suggests.
But flying in an airliner is awesome too: https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
That most people in the modern world now take it for granted is the point.
Yeah, sort of like how all those private job creators got to the Moon in 1969! Yeah! Fuck that Fox News chicken you retard!
"Those private jobs creators" *were* the ones who got us to the moon. It certainly wasn't NASA bean-counters and administrative wonks. I know, I was there and worked for some of those companies. Don't try to rewrite history.
NASA would put out a contract for a launch system/rocket engine/capsule/etc to accomplish "X" goals with certain requirements, private companies and their engineers and scientists went to work to research, design, test, and build it. Engineers and scientists who likely would have gone to school for something else if there was little demand for private sector science and engineering jobs.
Capitalism has lifted more people out of poverty and made more people self-sufficient than any other system ever devised, as well as spurred and funded the greatest and most rapid advances in science and technology the human race has ever known.
It's not perfect. It's messy. Individual freedom and the individual responsibilities that come with it are likewise messy. People will disagree and argue. But capitalism and the individual freedom & self-sufficiency it empowers has through history, and still does, the most good for the largest number of the poorest people compared to anything else ever tried on a national or global scale, by orders of magnitude.
There's simply no other system that's even in the same league when it comes to empowering the poor and raising their standard of living.
Socialism, fascism, communism, and nearly all other ideologies/political systems put the individual secondary to a sovereign State/Collective. The US Constitution is unique in being the first time a nation was built on the basis of the State being secondary to the citizen.
Strat
Progressivism (aka US 'Liberalism'): Ideas so good they need a police/surveillance-state to enforce.
Well, they got her into space in one piece. It's the whole "getting them back down in one piece" that was tricky.
No, they didn't (although she technically wasn't the first US civilian to be sent to space, they sent up a Senator before her).
"None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license." --John Milton
This has nothing to do with safety, the government hasn't yet figured out how to tax these excursions so they are delaying their approval.
I was going to log in and rebut you, but you're right. Armstrong was a veteran, but was a civilian when he went up on Apollo 8 and Apollo 11.
"There's two basic things in play here:"
No, there's a third basic thing in play here:
Government regulation is unlikely to make anything better. Hell, they couldn't even manage their OWN space program, which is why a private one was needed in the first place.
The first civilian was Valentina Tereshkova
Fuck the US Government and the micromanaging nanny state jerkwads we've voted into office. Offer flights overseas then maybe it will scare our politicians into supporting science, innovation and manufacturing once again.
but to link cities between Australia and South America or Africa.
Oh for...
http://www.antarcticaflights.com.au/ Tourist flights. Flies out of an Australian city every two weeks, returns to that same city 12-14 hours later. Doesn't land anywhere else. Has Antarctic experts on board to explain what the tourists are seeing. Has nothing to do with Sth America or Africa.
If you don't know what you are talking about, okay fine, but don't just make shit up.
And an Antarctic Sight-Seeing Flight has crashed.
There are routine 747 flights over Antarctica which never land there, sight-seeing only through little airliner windows.
Technically speaking, one of the Antarctica sight-seeing flights landed there. It just didn't intend to.
There is too much space junk floating around the planet which no one takes responsibility for to feel safe in immediate space. When something comes crashing down, I don't hear anyone yelling, "that's mine." Sorry, Virgin G, I'll just have to stick that $200.000.00 ticket on my refrigerator and dream.
PS: I don't reply to ACs.
That is an incredibly ill-informed post. Robots are nowhere near ready to do any mining, ad hoc exploration, construction or any other damned thing past rolling around and pointing instruments a few inches away.
"How about private funding?" It's being done. That's what the article is *about*.
Actually, anyone referring to humans as waterbags is probably not to be taken as a harbinger of humanity's advancement.
Good point, I confused it with that other disaster. Mea culpa.
Senator's don't count as civilians.
Just another day in Paradise
Technically, no. She was commissioned as a Junior Lt before the flight.
"but what the government should *really* be offering is direct assistance."
Space tourism is an incredible waste of resources, and unless we come up with a far more efficient way of attaining orbit it will never scale to the point that an average person will get to experience it. If there are enough rich folk with money to literally burn, fine, let the free market do its thing, but there's no reason to blow public funds to launch hedge fund managers into space.
Although if we're talking about a one-way trip, I might be willing to change my mind on that...
Never let a lack of data get in the way of a good rant.
>Robots are nowhere near ready to do any mining, ad hoc
> exploration, construction or any other damned thing past rolling
*If* we had the spaceships that could take humans, safely, to places where they could do these advanced things then I'd agree with you. But human space travel tech is *way* (no, it's WAAAAAAYYYYYYYY) behind where robot exploration tech is. The reason we haven't gone back to the moon is that it's damned expensive, and we wouldn't learn much from it. The reason we sent those rovers to Mars is that we don't have snowflake's chance in hell of getting a human there and back safely any time soon. (And yes, "back" is essential. If you seriously think it isn't then you're insane, and I don't mean that metaphorically.) While we're wasting money on failed fantasies from Robert Heinlein's juvenile fiction, we could be sending dozens or hundreds of useful robot probes. Robotics is advancing far FAR faster than space travel tech. We can *start* talking about sending people to Mars after we've sent a mouse colony there and back safely. Before that, it's just childish fantasy, and a waste of good science research funding.
>"How about private funding?" It's being done. That's what the article is *about*.
Please read "but the private interests should bear the full costs," That's what the parent was about.
>anyone referring to humans as waterbags is probably not
> to be taken as a harbinger of humanity's advancement.
Anyone who doesn't is merely a false prophet. Real advancement starts when we acknowledge reality. That's not to say we shouldn't take some risks, but stupid-ass risks are not what I'd call "advancement," they're what I'd call a Darwin Award winner.
Science FICTION is cheap and easy. Science FACT is hard and expensive.
Guess I'm just a jaded rich (depending upon your definition, definitely not 1% though) white guy. I haven't done a MiG yet, but might. Some things I have ridden just for the experience:
Submarine
Bullet train to Kyoto
Helicopter(s) over Alcatraz, and up to an Alaskan glacier
Hot air balloon
Glider
Olympic Bobsled (Park City, Utah)
NASCAR (Richard Petty Experience, Las Vegas Motor Speedway)
Private planes to Nagasaki and Hiroshima
Just another day in Paradise
Fluid dynamics describes, and buoyancy is effective in, both gasses and liquids.
You can dream all ya want but there is no way in hell space tourism will NOT be regulated in the USA. That said They will do what all corporations do to get out of regulations..take it off us soil.
Jack of all trades,master of none
People need to stop falling for this crap
The FAA wants to regulate space travel, even though they have nothing to do with space, no expertise in it, and are so technologically backward these days that they've wasted BILLIONS on repeated efforts to re-do the national air traffic control system yet still have some tube-based systems. There's prestige (and more tax dollars to hire more employees and hold more "conferences" at resorts) associated with spaceflight. Like typical government flunkies, they claim that they must regulate us all for our own safety, or else we'll all become so upset with them that we'll demand an end to an agency or industry after it has an accident. We are not supposed to notice that [a] "we the people" (rather than a handful of noisy activists and nervous politicians) are NEVER the ones who call for abandoning ANYTHING after a disaster (WE live in the REAL world and understand that we are all mortal and everything carries SOME risk) and [b] all that regulating they do doesn't stop the disasters. The FAA was there when DC-10 cargo doors were falling off and fatally wounding those aircraft. The FAA did not keep Boeing from rolling-out the 787 with battery issues. What ACTUALLY drives the safety improvements are the airlines and their insurers who cannot afford the lawsuits that follow a crash, and the unbiased and clinical dissection of wreckage that the oft-overlooked NTSB performs after each crash. The FAA will just use their "expanded responsibilities" to request more money from congress, which they'll spend on disguised vacations for managers, pensions for retired employees (NO government agency has fully-funded all those pensions they've promised over the past decades) and so-on but nothing that actually benefits commercial spaceflight... oh, and they'll dream-up some regulatory hurdles which will suppress new innovation and new companies (using guidance from the early entrants who will have gotten into the market and done THEIR innovation without the burden of those regulations) .
After Titanic, the people did not demand an end to ocean liners travel. After Hindenburg, the people did not demand an end to airships (the German govt ended it in the runup to WWII, recycling the aluminum in all those airship frames into Messerschmitts, etc). After Challenger, the people did not demand an end to shuttles (Reagan even called for a replacement and the American people supported its construction). After Columbia, the American people did not demand an end to shuttles and even turned-out en-masse to see them as they were retired (it was politicians, and bureaucrats at OMB who'd long wanted to kill the manned spaceflight budget item who drove the cancellation). No car or airliner crash has caused the public to abandon cars or airliners. The Losses of USS Thresher and USS Scorpion did not drive the public to demand an end to nuclear submarines. Heck, even with all the anti-gun propaganda and the mass-shooter-porn that left-wing news people run everytime there's a shooting, the majority of Americans are not for banning guns.
If people want commercial spaceflight to succeed, they need to demand that the only Federal agencies involved are the three that are needed: [1] NASA (which has all the experience with humans in space and should be tasked with ADVICE and HELP but not regulation) [2] The USAF (which has the systems NASA relies on to make sure nothing is in the path of a spacecraft, and which runs some of the launch ranges and "range safety" - and that should be their limited role in commercial) and [3] the NTSB (which is the very thorough and techincally competent accident investigation agency that is the TRUE source of America's aviation safety - they should have the same function for commercial spaceflight). You could eliminate the FAA, turn the air traffic control system over to a non-profit non-governmental corporation, and as long as you kept the NTSB there'd probably be no impact on aviation safety.
This is how it always goes.
1. "We, the government, will have no/easy rules at first (so we do not kill off a new industry in its infancy)"
2. "After the first few companies are established (and making enough money to have enough lawyers accountants and lobbysis to deal with piles of government regulations (and enough profits to spend on "campaign sontributions")) we, the government will increase safety by imposing new regulations (that just happen to be favorable to our campaign contributors, and MIGHT even require new entrants to license patents from, buy training and testing from, or pass certification by those campaign contributors)"
3. "We, the government will keep you safe by adding more regulations with each passing year. Nobody will be accountable for the new regs, because they will not be reviewed by, or passed through, the congress where there might be at least oversight by elected representatives of the people. Oh, and we'll need new taxes and fees to pay for all the expenses that this industry is forcing onto us."
4. "This industry is stagnant and in trouble, it needs a bailout and possibly subsidies from the taxpayers - in exchange, of course, we will demand more accountability from the irresponsible big companies we are having to bail out..... in the form of new regulations and fees.
5. "This part of our economy needs incentives and regulatory relief. We, the government, propose "tax-free" periods or "enterprise zones" for those companies in this industry that do exactly what our planners say needs doing and for doing it in the locations our experts say in needs to be done in. The loss of tax revenue will need to be made-up somewhere eventually but for now we'll either borrow it from China, or shut down the national parks and monuments..."
The only way "the people" can win at this game is to learn not to play it; Get the government OUT of anything it does not absolutely NEED to be in and demand that it justify (with completely open cost-benefit analysis) any and all regulations. EVERY industry the US Federal government regulates has followed the above cycle.
So how is private enterprise alone even going to find out if a space sling or an elevator is remotely feasible, let along build one? Such a thing requires an effort of will from a body that does not need an immediate return on investment.
Mars one type candidates with cash to go. Really, I wouldn't let anyone travel on these ships unless they waive any right of insurance. But the show must go on. We need space travel do we not?
But the private companies did not go there because of pure capitalism but because of government spending and social will. Therefore, the "job creators" were not the ones actually doing that advancing but were instead the actual workers, not the ones who held the capital. It's a fine example of socialism. Other idealogies do not put people second to the state any more than democracy (pure majority rule). They are all just ideals that are used by people for their own purposes which vary from person to person. I will give you that I think the US Constitution was put together by a group that was generally idealistic and enlightened, as so much that the individual couldn't get as good of a deal if it were rewritten in the current day.
There's a simple solution: get the hell out of the US and launch from French Guiana. Build up infrastructure and investment there instead. Create jobs there instead. Launch there instead.
Of course, this only further destroys the US economically but people making these regulations don't really care nor are smart enough to understand the consequences of their nanny-state idiocy.
But the private companies did not go there because of pure capitalism but because of government spending and social will
Wrong on it's face.
Here's why. The private sector industries & businesses sold their products and services to the government. They could provide those products and services because they had invested private capital into the necessary land, facilities, machines, labor, etc, etc with which to perform such tasks and provide such products The government was and is simply another customer.
The government does not have capital nor wealth, nor can it create or grow them. All government ever has is what it takes from the labor of the people trying to make a life and from the very industries and businesses it turns around with the other hand and pays for products and services from.
All government can do is take wealth from some to give to others, at a cost for the bureaucracy and a hit to liberty to enable monitoring, detection & enforcement. Do that enough, and the "some" stop or vastly reduce their generation of wealth, if they cannot flee or otherwise escape. If you want less of something, tax it. If you want fewer small players, regulate it.
It's a fine example of socialism. Other idealogies do not put people second to the state any more than democracy (pure majority rule).
Are we still talking about the US or about some hypothetical "pure democracy"? Pure democracy is tyranny of the majority. It's two wolves and a lamb voting on what's for dinner. There is no nation that is a pure democracy. A "pure democracy" only works for very small and homogeneous groups of individuals.
"Socialism is a philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance, and the gospel of envy, its inherent virtue is the equal sharing of misery." - Winston Churchill
"The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people's money." - Margaret Thatcher
"To take from one, because it is thought his own industry and that of his fathers has acquired too much, in order to spare to others, who, or whose fathers, have not exercised equal industry and skill, is to violate arbitrarily the first principle of association, the guarantee to everyone the free exercise of his industry and the fruits acquired by it." - Thomas Jefferson, letter to Joseph Milligan, April 6, 1816
Socialism kills people's spirit and hope. They can never rise above their station. They can never use genius, hard work, and innovative ideas to build a business out of a garage, and get rich and fund charities, etc while opening whole new technology horizons for millions.
It's that spirit, that drive to achieve your dreams that socialism kills. Where exceeding expectations only raises the expected quotas without any meaningful increased benefit in return.
Ronald Reagan understood this.
"Socialists ignore the side of man that is the spirit. They can provide you shelter, fill your belly with bacon and beans, treat you when you're ill, all the things guaranteed to a prisoner or a slave. They don't understand that we also dream."
Strat
Progressivism (aka US 'Liberalism'): Ideas so good they need a police/surveillance-state to enforce.
Wrong on it's face.
Here's why. The private sector industries & businesses sold their products and services to the government. They could provide those products and services because they had invested private capital into the necessary land, facilities, machines, labor, etc, etc with which to perform such tasks and provide such products The government was and is simply another customer.
No, you're wrong. Those are not "private sector industries and businesses"
NASA put out the contract. All that capital and research wouldn't have been done, or would have been done differently, if the government didn't create the demand.
Government is not "just another customer". You said it yourself. Government has no wealth or capital. It only takes from some to give to others.
Those so called private companies are those "others". They didn't earn money by performing work that fulfills free market demand. They accepted money from government to fulfill artificially inflated demand. They're not private companies. They're accomplices to government. At best, they're willing slaves who answered "how high" when government said "jump"
Socialism kills people's spirit and hope. They can never rise above their station. They can never use genius, hard work, and innovative ideas to build a business out of a garage, and get rich and fund charities, etc while opening whole new technology horizons for millions.
Wrong on its face, and appealing to authorities and quotes won't help you.
People can rise under socialism. It just requires different and additional skills to advance in a socialism economy. Yes, I'm talking about sucking up to The Party members. I'm talking about bribing. You may have moral objections to them, but from a practical standpoint, they're merely another set of tools and skills that work. They work even in capitalist societies.
That too is part of the human spirit. Again, you may think those qualities are undesirable, but because these qualities exist, human spirit is much more resilient than you portray
I will borrow one of your quotes simply to show how the human spirit is more than you portrayed. Why yes, we do dream. We dream of empire. We dream of conquest (veni, vidi, vici). We dream of subjugation (vae victis). We dream of glory, which can be as simple as being better than the other guy at moving a ball down the field, to making the other guy die for his country.
I'm not saying this to spite the human spirit or praise socialism. I am actually praising the human spirit as being stronger than any -ism to kill.