Congress Passes Bill Allowing Space Tours

WASHINGTON - Outer space could become the final frontier of tourism under legislation passed Wednesday by the Senate to regulate commercial human spaceflight.

The bill, approved by voice vote in the final minutes of the 108th Congress, would authorize the Federal Aviation Administration to issue permits allowing private spacecraft operators to blast paying passengers into space.

The agency would also regulate the young industry, which was invigorated by the successful flights of a privately financed manned rocket over California's Mojave Desert in October.

While laws exist to regulate private-sector space endeavors such as satellite launches, there is no legal jurisdiction for regulating commercial human spaceflight. Even without one, entrepreneurs have announced plans to offer private space flights within several years, and wealthy thrill-seekers are plunking down deposits.

The Commercial Space Launch Amendments Act of 2004, by Rep. Dana Rohrabacher , R-Calif., passed the House last month and will now go to the president for his signature.

"This is a great victory for the future of America's space efforts," Rohrabacher said. "The people who will invest the type of big dollars necessary to make this a major new step in mankind's ascent into space have been waiting for the government to lay down the regulatory regime and set the rules of the game, and this is the first major step towards doing that."

Senate passage came only after the bill stalled several times because of disagreements over how much safety protections to offer potential space tourists and crew.

The final version allows the Federal Aviation Administration to begin issuing regulations to protect the safety of passengers and crew only eight years after the bill becomes law. Before then, the agency may restrict design features or operating practices only if they've resulted in a serious or fatal injury to passengers or crew, or caused an unsafe unplanned event.

Rohrabacher and industry lobbyists contended that space tourists must fly at their own risk, and that more stringent safety regulations would stifle innovation. Some Democrats had pushed for tougher safety regulations.

The bill requires passengers to be informed of the risks involved, and the Federal Aviation Administration may issue regulations to protect the non-flying public's health and property and the country's national security and foreign policy interests.

n the United States model rocketry is regulated by the following agencies and organizations:
U.S. Department of Transportation
Rocket engines are classified for shipping and transport. [my emphasis]
U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission
Model rocket engines complying with certain requirements have been exempted from classification as a banned hazardous substance. Engines and/or their packaging have specific labeling and instruction requirements.
Federal Aviation Agency
Has exempted model rockets weighing 16 oz. (453 g) with engine(s) or using less than 4 oz. (113 g) of propellant from regulation.
National Fire Protection Association

Developed and adopted ANSI/NFPA 1122 Code for Model Rocketry setting standards for the safety of the activity of model rocketry.

I can see where the FAA requires notification of the use of any motor exceeding 1 pound at liftoff, and "permission" for launches whose liftoff weight exceeds 3.3 pounds. I can also see that FAA regulations concern primarily launch site safety, airspace integrity, insurance, and safe disposition of launch vehicles, including any jettisoned during the flight.

I can also see that the regulations, as I had expected, are draconian formalities of dubious use and value, and that they exist largely to create an illusion of safety. I don't know the history of these regulations, but I doubt they've been around since Goddard's day. Thank goodness, or he would probably have become a dentist.

As to the Office of Commercial Space Transportation (a department of the DOT), it has regulatory authority under the Commercial Space Launch Act of 1984 [1984 ... how appropriate!]. According to the FAA:

Before the Department's Office of Commercial Space Transportation can issue a launch license, it must review an applicant s proposed operations. In order to secure approval for its safety operations, an applicant must demonstrate that it can marshall the resources needed to prepare and launch a launch vehicle safely. These resources can be assembled in a number of ways: A company can choose to conduct all safety operations itself; it may rely on government-provided property and services to support its safety operations; or it may choose to perform safety operations through some arrangement whereby private and government resources are combined. In any case, the company must demonstrate that all aspects of its proposed launch activities will be conducted safely.

Once again, the paternalist notion that supervision by some regulatory arm of the government ensures the public safety.

The suggestion that the Commercial Space Transportation Act is constitutionally valid because it complies with Article IV of the 1967 Outer Space Treaty presupposes that an international treaty can obligate a signatory to an act that is illegal or constitutionally unsupported within the signatory's country. Again, I state my reservation that the regulation of space falls under explicit constitutional provisions. Perhaps you learned men can point out what Article creates that regulatory authority. That such regulation has existed longer than I had suspected in no way validates it, except through custom and use.

While I confess my ignorance on the details of this subject, I stand staunchly by my principle, that government is best which governs least. And that this burgeoning activity is not inherently served by government intervention any more than more traditional commerce is. Since that, not the specifics of regulatory history, is the bone of contention here, I suggest we confine our "discussion" to the relative merits of the regulations themselves.

That is, if there is any point in continuing this conversation.

all attempts to define the State ...are only bare beginnings.

How would you advance those definitions? What do you see missing from previous attempts to define the State?

Are we in any position to limit the power of the State when just as many others are using the power of the State to further their own nefarious goals?

I believe We the People are ALWAYS in a position to limit the power of the State. The State has no power except what we give it. When people willingly rush to concede their liberties to the State, sometimes those liberties are hard to recover. Historically, it requires bloodshed. That's why power should be yielded up grudgingly, if at all. And that's why regulations such as these are to be feared.

Is this how we are going to move toward our destiny in outer space?

I hope not. But it will take men of vision and far more diplomacy than I have to negotiate around the bureaucrats who would strangle innovation in its cradle.

If you're going to launch 100,000 pounds of explosive fuel over my head I think I am gonna take exception to that UNLESS someone else has already checked you out.

I suspect you're being somewhat facetious, but your post demonstrates a fallacious assumption. The simple fact that "someone else has already checked [me] out" does not make the threat of 100,000 pounds of explosive fuel any less. That would be true only if the entity checking me out has some degree of expertise I lack, or has resources beyond what are available to me, or has a greater motive to discover unsafe practices. None of that is implicitly true of government bureaucracies.

The private sector has a vested financial interest in seeing that its launches are safe, economical, and productive. The LAST thing any private company wants is for that fuel tank to explode over your house.

The government doesn't want it either. But if it happens, the government isn't out anything. The private company may very well be out of business.

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		...