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.""
Oh, like the Titanic stopped boat traveling, right ?
Sounds like a good way to drive privatized space travel to another country.
Ahh, in true AC style, you get pretty much everything wrong...
ESA launches their satellites from Kourou, in French Guiana, South America.
...si hoc legere nimium eruditionis habes...
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.
"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
(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.)
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.
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.
"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.
Ahh, in true AC style, you get pretty much everything wrong...
ESA launches their satellites from Kourou, in French Guiana, South America.
Which is also politically and culturally a part of France itself. People in French Guiana vote in all national elections. Essentially think of it more like the relationship that Hawaii has with America and you get a pretty good idea what the relationship is between French Guiana and the rest of France. It is even considered a part of the European Union.
Yeah, that is some backward 3rd world nation, unless you think France is that backward nation itself.
Rich people (and their families) also tend to have expensive law firms on retainer. In the event of a mishap leading to injury or death, they might try to sue VG anyway, despite whatever sort of "waiver" they make you sign. Large estates sometimes get tied up in courts for years by heirs and creditors. It's not hard to imagine a scenario where VG could get caught up in such a dispute.
OTOH, Richard Branson also has expensive law firms on retainer, and I'm sure they've evaluated the risks and prepared as well as possible.
Anyway, I agree with you. If I had that much "disposable" cash, I'd definitely take that ride.
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve your problem, you're not using enough of it. --AC
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."
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.
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.
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.
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.