The FAA To Facilitate American Commercial Participation In the ESA Moon Village (examiner.com)

MarkWhittington writes: While NASA remains fixated on its Journey to Mars, quietly, the FAA is positioning itself as the lead United States Government agency for a return to the moon. According to a story in Space News, "FAA's Commercial Space Transportation Advisory Committee (COMSTAC) unanimously approved a recommendation that the FAA's Office of Commercial Space Transportation begin discussions with ESA on ways American companies could participate in what's known as 'Moon Village.'" The "Moon Village" is a European concept for an international moon base where various countries and private entities would collocate habitats for mutual support and benefit.

Comments

Bureaucrats know no bounds

[Anonymous Coward]

From your back yard to the moon the FAA wants to stick it's finger in the pie. Are they going to start regulating mining and deep sea exploration next?

Re:Bureaucrats know no bounds

[TWX]

No, their concerns are strictly crust-up.

Re:Bureaucrats know no bounds

[Coren22]

So deep sea exploration than?

Re:Bureaucrats know no bounds

[Teancum]

The Administrator for Space Transportation actually started in another agency, and was transferred to the FAA about a decade ago when members of Congress were trying to figure out what part of the government ought to be regulating commercial space transportation systems. To be honest, the whole debate over even creating this agency started when Burt Rutan built Space Ship One, and members of Congress were trying to figure out who could give approval for the flight.

This isn't all that new of a thing, other than perhaps people like you have been living under a rock and clueless about how the government works. Every single private commercial space launch (like for telecommunications satellites.... a multi-billion dollar per year industry even today) that launches from the USA has been for years regulated and received licenses for those launches as well as flight worthiness certificates granted for every kind of rocket and other launch vehicle which has flown more than six inches off the ground unteathered (with exceptions for hobby rockets like the stuff Estes makes).

This isn't the FAA stikcing its finger in this pie, they've been involved here for a long, long time already.

Re:Bureaucrats know no bounds

[Elbonian_Uprising]

The Office of Commercial Space Transportation (AST) was established in 1984, and moved to the FAA in 1995 -- 20 years ago.

Re:Bureaucrats know no bounds

[Teancum]

Precisely. The Administrator for Space Transportation (AST) works in the Office for Commercial Space Transportation.

Treating it as if this is a new thing or a recent power grab is just a play of ignorance.

Hey I'm all for it

[Anonymous Coward]

As long as they use comlocks, it's gonna be great!

Re:Hey I'm all for it

[Anonymous Coward]

As long as they use comlocks, it's gonna be great!

I agree, also females should be required to dress in bawdy off white, tight fitting spandex bell-bottoms with their department denoted by the color of one arm of their shirt.

If we can't see nipples from across the room, they are doing it wrong!

Thanks Obama

[Anonymous Coward]

This is all because Obama and his enforcer at NASA, Charles Bolden, have made any discussion of the moon verboten.
So now the FAA has to do what NASA should be doing. It's all because people seem to think we have to go to Mars or the Moon, but not both.
WE NEED TO COLONIZE BOTH THESE BODIES FOR THE WELFARE OF OUR RACE!
Thanks Obama!

Re:Thanks Obama

[Teancum]

This is all because Obama and his enforcer at NASA, Charles Bolden, have made any discussion of the moon verboten.

Hardly. Obama simply cancelled the Constellation program and the billions of dollars that were projected (but never appropriated) to be spent on basically re-creating the Apollo "J" missions and perhaps even the "K" missions that might have happened with Apollo missions 18-21 had funding continued back then. Boldly redoing stuff from the past isn't really colonizing.

WE NEED TO COLONIZE BOTH THESE BODIES FOR THE WELFARE OF OUR RACE!

I agree with the notion, but there has yet to be any major presidential candidate besides Newt Gingrich to even suggest colonizing anything off of the Earth. Even Mr. Gingrich was so ridiculed by all of the other candidates (including Obama I might add) that the idea died a very quick death and hasn't been brought up since.

Blame doesn't belong with just Obama here but with literally everybody.

Re:FAA also facilitates this

[TWX]

I don't think that they do anymore- they don't dump the black water tanks at altitude anymore, so no more Joe-Dirt-esque frozen excrement balls bombing the planet anymore.

Re:real question

[TWX]

Is there some condition of the Moon that would be different than Earth? After all, it doesn't work here yet...

Competing government agencies?

[mi]

While NASA remains fixated on its Journey to Mars, quietly, the FAA is positioning itself as the lead United States Government agency for a return to the moon.

When you see government agencies competing with each other, you know, you have too many of them.

Re:Competing government agencies?

[mi]

in this case the government agencies are exactly not competing with each other

The write-up (and, likely, TFA as well) clearly implies, travel to Moon is NASA's prerogative, which FAA took over. There is obviously competition — at least, in the perception of the two agencies' missions.

FAA? NASA?

[PPH]

Forget it. I'll build my own, with blackjack and hookers.

Re:FAA? NASA?

[sconeu]

We can send all of Japan's whalers there!

Re:real question

[Teancum]

Is there some condition of the Moon that would be different than Earth?

A bunch of die-hard communists want to make everything in space "a common heritage for all mankind" and get rid of the concept of extra-terrestrial real estate ownership. I really think that idea is going to die as a miserable failure, but that won't happen until a bunch of people who aren't government employees show up at places like the Moon or Mars to pull out a gun to defend territory that they don't want others occupying.

These same people think the conditions on the Moon are somehow different in that regard. I think they are full of crap.

The Moon Village is a *concept*

[slew]

The Moon Village is simply name coined by newly minted ESA Director-General Johann-Dietrich Woerner. He has selected this as his stretch goal as something he has discussed prior to become the head of the agency. It is in the *concept* stage right now. As of yet, there are no partners, no money, no plan, etc. It also doesn't yet have the actual ESA as backer as he made this whole thing simply in a speech at the 31st Space Symposium in Colorado Springs in April.

The concept he was pitching was a manned base on the far side of the moon which should have opportunities for astronomy and planetary science, learning resource management.

Some of NASA administrator Charles Bolden' comments on this so called "Moon Village"...

“The US does not have to be the country that says, ‘We’re going, follow us,’” he said. “We’re all going back to the surface of the Moon. But, it’s just that the United States has no intention of leading that effort. We will support and be along with anybody that goes.”

“It will be critical for industry, both in the United States and elsewhere, but most importantly for our international partners to finally step up” and take the lead on lunar landing plans, he said. “Unfortunately, nobody’s stepped up yet.”

The FAA seem to be simply just trying to grab some turf in the commercial angle of this, but there's nothing really to grab yet.