FAA Grants Sub-Orbital License to SpaceShipOne

abucior writes "The FAA announced today that Scaled Composites has been granted a launch licence for a series of sub-orbital flights over a one-year period for Burt Rutan's SpaceShipOne. Is X Prize finally entering the end-game? Space.com has more information on the move."

what happens?

[hellmarch]

what happens if i were to build a big rocket and launch myself into space without telling anyone? would i get shot down by the military when they pick me up on radar?

Check the approval date!

[RobertB-DC]

Interesting difference in dates:

Press Release
Contact: Henry J. Price
Date Posted: April 7, 2004

But further down:

The license was issued April 1 by the
Federal Aviation Administration's
Office of Commercial Space
Transportation to Scaled Composites of
Mojave, Calif., headed by aviation
record-holder Burt Rutan, for a
sequence of sub-orbital flights
spanning a one-year period.

As fun as it is to slam "the government", somebody was very much on the ball to realize that it would be a bad idea to release this news on April Fool's Day!

Throwing stuff into space ... legally.

[j_cavera]

> what happens if i were to build a big rocket and launch myself into space without telling anyone? would i get shot down by the military when they pick me up on radar?

Yes. Having worked with a (unmanned) launch services firm, getting permission can be the most difficult part of the process. Building the rocket and payload is just rocket science. Getting permission is *legal-stuff* .

Six years ago, we had estimated that launching a satellite required permits, lawyers and insurance in excess of twice the cost of the launch vehicle. The gov't is truly being kind to Mr. Rutan.

Fiction: "Net Assets"

[Mad Man]

A fictional novel of a privately built launch vehicle, and what the government does to stop it.

Available for free at http://netassetsbook.com/ [netassetsbook.com]. I'd suggest the PDF version (1 MB), since some of the formatting in the HTML version is screwed up, and makes reading some parts difficult (mainly forgetting /I tags).

"Once upon a time, there was an agency of the American government called the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. NASA was tasked with the exploration and development of space. Being a government agency, it was very bad at the job. But also, being a government agency, NASA made damned sure that no one else would do a better job.

"And then the bureacrats' world came to an end."

Re:what happens?

[Richthofen80]

No. after you came down, you'd be fined by the FAA.

Remember that story [snopes.com] about the guy who rode a lawn chair with weather balloons into the sky? He was fined something like $4000 for his unauthorized flight. I think they'd hardly take military action, and they could hardly intercept in the time the flight would take place. (from what I've read all these X-Prize style trips would be less than thirty minutes, I could be wrong)

Anyways, I'm glad the FAA did this. Go SpaceShipOne!

This is how space will become cheap

[Anonymous Coward]

This is how space will become cheap.. Check this out, boys, creative engineering at work:
http://www.scaled.com/projects/tierone/New_ Index/p hotos/images/800/wind_tunnel_800.jpg

Re:what happens?

[El Cubano]

No. after you came down, you'd be fined by the FAA.

No disrespect to the FAA, but shouldn't something like this that potentially affects other countries involve the ICAO [icao.org] or another internationally recognized body?

Please, no flames. I am American and am in no way saying that we should subordinate to others. But something that could impact others really should involve those others. Really, anything (especially not military) approaching orbital altitudes should not be done unilaterally.

Re:what happens?

[the pickle]

This happened pretty recently [9news.com] in Colorado, too. Some genius in a hot-air balloon decided it would be fun to try to set an altitude record without bothering to tell the FAA he would be drifting through Denver International Airport restricted airspace.

Assuming you (grandparent poster) *had* a pilot's licence that would make it legal for you to operate a manned rocket, you *wouldn't* have it after you got done with that little stunt.

p

Agree....

[vwjeff]

We are at the beginning of a new revolution. Space travel for the average person is now within reason. Sadly I will never have the opportunity to travel to a distant planet but I may get to experience space travel :)

Re:Lloyd's of London

[Fnkmaster]

So they say. However, I have a friend (also a Slashdot reader) who recently started a business in New York, and Lloyds actually refused to provide him with liability insurance for his business. Mind you, this business is somewhat risky, but it is a legitimate business, and he's making quite a bit of money now.

The thing is that Lloyds is actually a marketplace of "syndicates", not exactly a monolithic institution (at least, this is how he explained it to me). So you have to have a broker who really knows Lloyd's to figure out who the right people to approach are. And as far as I can tell, they may like taking fairly crazy sounding but actually low risk bets on actresses thighs or singer's voices, but they don't like taking higher stake bets on businesses that are hard to assess or known to be risky.

What about Canada?

[temporalillusion]

Since there's no FAA up here, I wonder what licenses the Canadian entries will have to get.. if any! Considering our government hasn't launched its own rocket into space... Do they go to the CSA? Transport Canada? Do Canadian Content Laws apply in space? ;-)

Cool, private citizens might get into space before their government does!

Re:Come on

[extra the woos]

"Consider the long step between the Wright Flyer and the Ford Tri-Motor or the DC-3. That's how far the X-prize vehicles are from useful and cheap space transports."

That's what excites me. Look at how cheap and safe air travel is now. Wright brother's flight was in 1903, right? In less than 20 years you had airplanes EVERYWHERE. In less than 40 years there were jets. (July '42 for the first real jet fighter, yes yes I know there were actually jet engines in the 30's but come on).

Today, 100 years later, I can buy an airplane ticket for a couple day's worth of barely-better-than minimum wage barely-part-time college work.

If this is like the Wright brother's flight, then we're in for one hell of a century, and it's gonna be a good one.

Re:Kinda Disappointed...

[codegen]

There are. There was a recent slashdot story [slashdot.org] about the da vinci group. They are about to announce thier launch date and are in the final stages of approval from Transport Canada. The launch site is only a couple of hundred miles from where I grew up (very close in Canadian terms).

Re:what happens?

[voidptr]

We're talking about a flight soley in US airspace, which extends up to the orbital threshold, even if we don't routinely send aircraft that high right now. Why would it be in international jurisdiction?

Re:eek

[Anonymous Coward]

The key legal principle is that licenses are only needed if you're doing something that's otherwise illegal. Launching rockets into space isn't illegal, so a license is quite unnecessary. In countries with restricted freedoms (eg. US of A) the opposite might be true, however.. haven't looked into that one.

Good luck to Rutan with getting into orbit :)

er..

[rebelcool]

you would think that the guy (burt rutan) who has devoted his life to novel aeronautic designs that challenge notions of what can be done regarding flight would be "more deserving" to win a space race than a guy who has programmed 3D graphics engines for just over a decade...

Re:FAA authority

[jovlinger]

soo.

what is us airspace? How far up? radial or linear spokes?

Re:Burt Rutan

[bwy]

Yeah, you're exactly right. Cessna almost went out of business because of law suits and if you see a Cessna today chances are probably 9 out of 10 that its a 152 or 172 that is decades old.

And it is truely a god-damned shame. The fact that all these aircraft are around today and flying after 50 years ought to say something. I mean, you don't see a lot of Ford Pintos on the road anymore, do you? It amazes me how long something can last when it is designed correctly and cared for by professionals. Look at the fleet of B-52s... Anyway, now you can't pick up a new single engine Cessna for less than 158K [cessna.com]

another example

[Anonymous Coward]

I know a jeweler who has his hands insured (you have to have good dexterity to make jewelry)

Single Engine planes

[Nick Driver]

Anyway, now you can't pick up a new single engine Cessna for less than 158K

And you can still pick up a decent used, older single-engine plane that has decades more life left in it for under $30K. A brand new GMC pickup truck costs more than I paid for my Piper Cherokee. Why people shell out over an eighth of a million dollars for a new C172, I don't understand. If I had ~$160K to spend on an airplane, I'd much rather buy an older, bigger, plane like a T210 or perhaps even a Skymaster 337 inline twin in that price range.

Re:More paper mass to lift than payload!

[Thagg]

Actually, according to this week's Aviation Weke, Burt is lobbying the FAA to allow him to carry passengers. There would be a list of disclaimers a mile long, but if the passengers sign a waiver that "Yes, I fully expect this rocket to blow up and kill me", they'd be allowed to fly.

Apparently the FAA is looking favorably on this proposal, as a way to stimulate private space travel. It's amazing to see government working for innovation, for a change.

Burt Rutan, in some ways, has the same kind of reality distortion field that Steve Jobs is legendary for. The thing is, it's not a joke -- reality is different after these guys get done.

Thad

Re:Awesome

[JesseL]

You actually believe that governments will simly 'get out of the way' of anything just because it's the right thing to do? When was the last time any government failed to attempt to grasp somthing just because it was beyond their competency to to anything with it? Governments exist to perpetuate themselves and are terrified by the idea of people being able to slip comletely beond their reach.

I do believe that ulitimatley space will belong to those who go there, but no government will let them go without a fight.

Actually, yes.

[tm2b]

Historically, much of the United States' expansion was preceded by individuals homesteading land before the government had legal sovereignty of that land.

Look at the history of the westward expansion of the US, especially the way in which the Texas became a state (the land was first "colonized" by US-friendly ranchers against Mexican sovereignty), and also the annexing of Hawaii (preceded by American sugar and pineapple interests in the kingdom).

The fact is that governments will happily allow their citizens to go out and be productive elsewhere, and then step in to rule over (and tax!) the new enterprise.

The place this will really get tricky is concern over terrorism. Look at the damage done by a few pathetic subsonic jets that were hijacked, loafing along at several hundred knots.

Now imagine the damage that can be done by a suborbital (or orbital!) craft flying into a nuclear power plant.

who owns this?

[JeremyALogan]

so for all the arguing I've seen on here so far I'm really surprised/impressed that noone mentioned this (from the article):

Last December it was formally announced that multi-billionaire Paul Allen -- the co-founder of Microsoft -- is footing the bill on the SpaceShipOne project.

so my question now is... who owns this technology?