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Space Science

Draft Guidelines for Space Tourists 177

Posted by Zonk from the i'm-looking-forward-to-intra-orbit-takeout dept.
IZ Reloaded writes "Draft guidelines for space tourists have already been written in the United States." From the article: "A paying customer will now be able to fly into space once he has been informed and accepts the risks of space travel. There are several factors to take into account, depending on whether a passenger is taking a speedy "pop top," up-and-down, suborbital voyage, versus climbing onboard space machinery to roar off into orbit for an extended stay."
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Draft Guidelines for Space Tourists More

Draft Guidelines for Space Tourists

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  • U.S. Behind Russia? (Score:4, Funny)

    by bigtallmofo ( 695287 ) on Monday March 28, 2005 @07:45AM (#12065120)
    Russia has had guidelines for their paying space tourists for a number of years:

    1. You must have a pulse (optional)
    2. Your check for $20,000,000 must clear before you launch whether you are a popstar or not.

    • Space is overrated anyways.

      I mean like whats there seriously... Ohh wait, when we start running low on oils and other hydrocarbons on Earth(the ones we use to manufacture plastics and other industrial goods), we got a nice big giant "Hydrocarbon Planet" named Titan to visit for all of our plastics need.

      Now to figure out how to get our ships to go at least .1c in a reasonable amount of time, VASIMR? Gas Dynamic Mirror Fusion? Or Fission Fragment Rocket? Or those lovely but slow Ion Drives?

      • Re:U.S. Behind Russia? (Score:2, Informative)

        by Anonymous Coward
        I mean like whats there seriously... Ohh wait, when we start running low on oils and other hydrocarbons on Earth(the ones we use to manufacture plastics and other industrial goods), we got a nice big giant "Hydrocarbon Planet" named Titan to visit for all of our plastics need.

        Plastics and other petroleum products can be synthesized using other sources of hydrocarbons. It is more complicated, energy intensive, of course more expensive; that is why petroleum is currently used. So when oil reserves are dep
      • Why do we need to go .1c for most tasks in the solar system?
    • 1. You must have a pulse (optional)

      I know you were probably joking, but:

      http://www.spacetoday.net/Summary/2475

      "Polonsky reportedly is in negotiations to fly at a bargain price of $8 million, reportedly because the seat opened up on short notice last month when Russian officials rejected American businessman Gregory Olsen on medical grounds."

      Incidentally, 'tourists' without a pulse are a perfectly legitimate business, there's been some launches for the space burial business.

  • Guideline (Score:3, Funny)

    by elgatozorbas ( 783538 ) on Monday March 28, 2005 @07:45AM (#12065121)
    1) take enough clean underwear with you...

  • classy (Score:5, Insightful)

    by aendeuryu ( 844048 ) on Monday March 28, 2005 @07:50AM (#12065134)
    For one, if you are in a critical crew position, your health problem could endanger the life of others. Secondly, on an orbital mission, your health problem could cause the mission director to have to make a difficult choice, Diamandis said, between your possible death or ending a billion dollar mission early, presuming that returning to Earth could save your life.

    Good to know the lawyers are getting a head start writing their closing arguments.

  • Some SOUND advice... (Score:4, Funny)

    by nighty5 ( 615965 ) on Monday March 28, 2005 @07:53AM (#12065144)
    Don't Fart.

  • Passenger Licenses? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Tekgno ( 321071 ) on Monday March 28, 2005 @07:54AM (#12065149)
    What would be the best way to manage the medical requirements for travel?

    Would a sort of license work? This would save being rechecked for frequent flights.

    Wake me in a few years, until then, I'm going back to playing EVE online.
    • The best way would most likely be to have a Doctor of sorts, or at least someone who is well qualified on the ISS doing research. When an emergency comes, bam the doctor is there to save the day.

      EVE hah! *TheKidWho swings his nerfbat of doom doing infinite damage to Tekgno*
      *Tekgno's megapulse laser strikes TheKidWho's Imperial nerfbat thingie healing for 3000"

    • Re:Passenger Licenses? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by igrp ( 732252 ) on Monday March 28, 2005 @08:15AM (#12065230)
      Would a sort of license work? This would save being rechecked for frequent flights.

      To be honest, I don't quite see why would should impose any licensing restrictions for passengers.

      I mean we don't require a people to be certified to drive a race car - you don't even need a driver's license to do so. And you can certainly injure or kill yourself in a race car. And even when there are restrictions on who can perform a given sport (eg. you need a certification to go scuba diving in most places), that's usually a self-imposed rule. As far as I know, there is nothing illegal about scuba diving without such a certification (I could very well be wrong though).

      Requiring mandatory medical check ups for crew members - sure, I'm all for that. But if you're a passenger and you decide you want to shell out the money for a space flight, even though you're not really in good shape, then, well, that's your problem. As long as you understand what you're getting yourself into (and I'm quite sure they will make your sign a waiver), I don't see why the state or the federal government should get involved in that.

      Look at it this way: if I'm an 80-year-old guy with a heart problem, I probably shouldn't ride any rollercoasters. But the government certainly isn't stepping in to prevent me from doing it (yet).

      • Race Car licences ARE required. (Score:4, Insightful)

        by jimbro2k ( 800351 ) on Monday March 28, 2005 @08:44AM (#12065353)
        The (US) government does not (YET) require licences for race cars [thanks for bringing this oversight to our attention], but the various racing associations (Formula One, NASCAR) certainly do.

        That being said, I certainly agree with the rest of your comments. The trouble is, your comments are reasonable and thoughtful, governments rarely so.
      • Right. License was pretty poor wording on my behalf, certification is better.
        I wasn't exactly referring to a need for this, just that it could assist in removing some overhead for the companies involved in providing such services.
      • we don't require a people to be certified to drive a race car
        Yes we do - at least for organized races in the US. The SCCA, NASCAR, CART/IRL, NHRA and AHRA all take licensing and qualification (and safety inspections) very seriously. I heard this one story about a racecar builder who got out of a major speeding ticket by, when the cop asked see his racing license, produced one.
        • I've known several people, first hand, who had that happen. Its even easier if the car is decked out with SCCA numbers and sponsor decals.

          Its a *big* deal getting licensed by any of those organizations.

          Safety inspections are similar. The inspections I have to have on my car to get on a track are FAR more detailed than a state inspection... getting my inspection sticker from the state is easy -- drive up, the wrench at the inspection station takes one look at the car, and asks me to drive it into the bay f

      • Re:Passenger Licenses? (Score:2, Informative)

        by Fjornir ( 516960 )
        As far as I know, there is nothing illegal about scuba diving without such a certification (I could very well be wrong though).

        In my state I'm pretty sure that although it is legal to dive without a cert, no dive shop will fill your tanks -- too much liability risk?

        But really there's no reason not to get a scuba certification if you want to dive. They're cheap, not time consuming, and offer incredible value for the money. Note: the PADI Open Water Diver certification is, in the words of my instructor, a

      • Huh? (Score:2)

        by tgd ( 2822 )
        What race organization doesn't have strict licensing and certification requirements?

        I can't think of one. SCCA certainly does, as does PCA and all the other club-level organizations I know of. FIA certainly does. NASCAR does. I don't know, but I have to assume CART does as well.

        Seriously... car racing is probably one of the most strictly restricted sports out there... not only do you need the appropriate credentials, you have to meet minimum race requirements to keep your certification.
    • EVE-Online?

      Sounds intresting. Whatisit? Link?
  • ..A paying customer..

    Unless space travel gets REALLY cheap, I don't think anyone but the wealthy will be able to actually go into space.

    Most people can barely afford house notes, car notes, insurance, etc...

    • Re:Money (Score:1, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Unless space travel gets REALLY cheap, I don't think anyone but the wealthy will be able to actually go into space.

      Wow, you are smart.
    • Unless space travel gets REALLY cheap, I don't think anyone but the wealthy will be able to actually go into space.

      You may have noticed a little project called SpaceShipOne [scaled.com], and Richard Branson's company Virgin Galactic [virgingalactic.com]. They got quite a bit of coverage a few months back (and in the real press as well, not just on here).

      There intent (at least in part) is to make it really cheap.
      • It is all relative though. Compared to a billion dollars (or whatever the number is) for one shuttle launch, a million dollars for an orbit or two would be cheap.

        I had to laugh when I saw a poster state recently that, though he wasn't rich, he would be willing to spend thousands to get into orbit and even tens of thousands to go to the moon someday. Apparently he never looked into how much it would cost to fly around the world in a conventional airplane, or even across the Atlantic in the now defunct Con

        • A skyhook could make it come down several orders of magnitude from the cost of a rocket.

          Given that skyhooks could actually also generate extra income by tapping the electrical difference between the ground and their top, a simple up-and-down could eventually end up cheaper than a trans-atlantic trip.

          • The physics don't work out. First off, skyhooks (as opposed to space elevators) rotate. While the further down you go, the slower their effective rotation compared to the atmosphere, the total drag is still staggering, and could never be compensated by electromagnetic propulsion. Serious skyhook designs for planets with atmospheres don't involve the hooks touching down. Secondly, unless your skyhook is a superconductor, you'll get little charge; there's just too much resistance.

            • First off, skyhooks (as opposed to space elevators) rotate

              Space elevators ARE skyhooks http://www.frc.ri.cmu.edu/~hpm/project.archive/197 6.skyhook/1982.articles/elevate.800322 [cmu.edu],

              Two major types of earth orbital cable (sometimes called skyhook) have been investigated in the literature. The simplest, but also largest, has a filament dropped to the surface from synchronous orbit, counterbalanced by one extending outwards.

              ... so not all skyhooks rotate vis. the surface.

              ... and could never be compensated

              • Linear electric motors are weaker than the power expected from electromagnetic propulsion. And if you meant space elevator, why not simply say it?

                I have a python script that will run the numbers for the drag on a rotavator, if you'd like to see it. It gets staggering, fast, if you dip even into the upper atmosphere. Entering the troposphere is right-out.
                • The drag would be SO high that I don't see why people don't realize this instinctively. Then there's the heating effects ...

                  What WOULD be cool would be a way to "lob" a payload to the height required such that, even if it ended up with zero relative motion at the end, you could "snag" it, and pull it the rest of the way up.

                  Unfortunately, maybe the laws of physics are the real reason for the Fermi paradox. There may be others out there, but "you can't get there from here".

                  • Now that actually is doable. And in fact, NASA is working on a new tether experiment as we speak to implement a small-scale magnetodynamic tether to test out the whole process. I submitted an article to Slashdot a couple months ago, and it was really interesting, but for some reason they rejected it, and now I can't find it.
                    • and it was really interesting, but for some reason they rejected it
                      if you do find it, re-submit it. It has less chance of being accepted, because it's NOT a dupe, but you never know ...
      • I don't know about you, but I don't have a spare 100,000$ (their ultimate target price) lying around for a mere 3 minutes of weightlessness and a good view. I'd hardly call that 'really cheap'.

        I can't picture why your average person would want to pay that kind of money for such a short trip (short because SS1's design is unscalable due to its relatively high tank mass and inherently low ISP, and only gets a tiny fraction of orbital delta-V, thus not having to deal with most of the serious engineering prob
    • They'll have a sign at the entrance: "You must be this rich to get on this ride."

      I'm not sure how they'll represent the this. Perhaps fractional parts of Bill Gates? "You must be Bill Gates' Big Toe rich to get on this ride."

    • Re:Money (Score:2, Insightful)

      by GSAlien ( 547456 )
      The same was the case when aeroplanes first came on the scene. The people who could not afford to fly (who were in the vast majority) simply were religated to much cheaper forms of transportations such as buses and trains. The same will happen here. As technology gets refined and more companies are competing in the marketplace, things will get cheaper.

  • Research boon (Score:5, Insightful)

    by FidelCatsro ( 861135 ) <fidelcatsro AT gmail DOT com> on Monday March 28, 2005 @07:58AM (#12065164) Journal
    I can strongly imagine that a major beneficiary of said services will be the Universitys and privately funded research projects .
    Once this has properly taken off (bad pun) with regular orbit or sub orbital flights, the benefits of having cheap reqular orbital research opertunitys is grand for smaller projects who could not afford to pay for time on one of the NASA missions or simmilar.
    This could herald in a new era in more than just rich recreation , if this is as sucesful as i can only imagine it will be , then im sure we will now begin to progress at a far greater rate in these areas.

    ps: this joke just writes itself here on slashdot "virgins in space "
    That was quickly followed by Sir Richard Branson, owner of Virgin Airlines, taking the wraps off Virgin Galactic. He plans to fly patrons into suborbital space within the next two or three years aboard a fleet of five passenger spaceships now under design by Scaled Composites. In licensing SpaceShipOne's technology, Branson wants to build the world's first private spaceship to go into commercial operating service.
    • This is a well written comment; worthy of 5+ insightful wihtout that "virgins in space" stuff!

      Space tourism is reality today and this guideline means well for our safety. Just like a guideline for you to jump off a plane for skydiving. A ship for the space tourism basically exists; as for the research use (launching another satellite into sub-orbital or orbital trajectory), I think it is not implausible to view someday that all the small missions being canceled by NASA today can be done cheaply with privat
      • Heehee i do apoligise about the Virgins in space joke but Ive been on a Mel Brooks marathon past couple of days and since its easter holidays here that has been backed up with liquer .

        It would be grand to let space tourism become as easy as air travel , however let us hope off bat we get this right and dont let it become the nightmare that airports are in this day and age.
        Im a sci-fi geek and i really cant wait till the day we can get our own Space ships , kind of brings out the kid in me ( and the legos t

    • Re:Research boon (Score:3, Informative)

      by StupendousMan ( 69768 )
      There are already relatively cheap launch vehicles for sub-orbital and orbital missions. Orbital Sciences Corporation [orbital.com] offers several vehicles; the Pegasus places a payload in LEO for about $30 million. Eurockot [eurockot.com] (no, that's not a typo) uses Russian SS-19 ballistic missiles to send objects into LEO; the Canadian MOST satellite, for example. In the near future, the SpaceX Corp. [slashdot.org] will offer vehicles with launch costs between $6 and $20 million.

      For sub-orbital flights, NASA (and others) offer sounding r

  • Safety vs. Privacy? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by PornMaster ( 749461 ) on Monday March 28, 2005 @08:04AM (#12065184) Homepage
    It'll be interesting to see how far the operators will go when performing the physical. Imagine the liability implications if they send a pregnant woman up into orbit and she later has a child with birth defects...
    • I'm pretty sure they won't be sending any pregnant women into space until the building of a space elevator or the development of a nuclear-powered rocket that can take off and land on its own thrust, and at low G forces. As for the physical, I would assume that they will want to perform some tests themselves and in general make sure that people are in decent health, aren't carrying easily communicable diseases which are all the more likely to be spread in a small volume, and so on.

  • Please Keep: (Score:4, Funny)

    by raynet11 ( 844558 ) on Monday March 28, 2005 @08:05AM (#12065187)
    Notice you must be at least 4ft 5in tall to ride. 1. Please keep your arms and legs in the vehical at all times 2. There is no eating, drinknig , or smoking while the ride is in operation. 3. Remain seated until the ride has come to a complete stop. 4. Exit to the left, thank you for riding space mountain.

  • What is "space," anyway? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by fronthead ( 866898 ) on Monday March 28, 2005 @08:06AM (#12065188)
    Doesn't it seem a little bit pointless to just do one of those "pop top" flights into "space" since "space" is kind of an arbitrary thing? I would think it kind of an expensive indulgence just for some dubious bragging rights. Orbit I can understand; really really high and back down, not so much.

  • Ah the land of free.. (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 28, 2005 @08:08AM (#12065201)
    ..wants to take over space too eh?

    Anyway the rules:

    Rule 1: Please don't take photographs of the spy satellites.
    Rule 2: No one is to visit the moon landing place, until NASA checks out the first flight to there.
    Rule 3: There will be no sex in space thanks.
    Rule 4: All taxes must be fully paid before departing.
    Rule 5: No snack food is to be released into zero G.
    Rule 6: No smoking near the hydrogen gas.
    Rule 7: Intoxicated individuals will be flushed out the airlock.
    Rule 8: Please shake carefully when using the toliet facilities
    Rule 9: Any use of the Klingon language will result in a severe beating
    Rule 10: One way tickets shall no be sold, even to cult members.

  • One questions remains (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Nevtje(hr ( 869571 ) on Monday March 28, 2005 @08:11AM (#12065217)
    Which country would the guidelines be tied to by law? The country that launched the spacecraft, or some "Internation space law"?
  • "Me ihmiset emme regeneroidu."

    "Hvor er det naermeste taenkende pattedyr?"

    "Det her er min kammerat, ikke drikkepenge."

    "Ceci ne peut pas être ma chambre, puisque je ne respire pas de l'ammoniac."

    "Tjener, denne ret er stadig levende."

    "ore no hovercraft ha unagi de ippai."

    (apologies to Joanna Russ)

  • EASY! (Score:2, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Take any medical disclaimer form and replace the medical terms with space terms.

    You may die. This procedure could kill you. We may break your teeth. We may destroy or remove the wrong organ. The doctor may have to take a crap and distracted by /. on his PDA while in the WC may forget you exist. By signing here you waive our liability.

  • get bent? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Turn-X Alphonse ( 789240 ) on Monday March 28, 2005 @08:21AM (#12065252) Journal
    Why is it now "officially" allowed. Last time I checked the US was NOT the world and no one but them has to stick to any rules they make unless supported by an international agreement or group.
    • Where in the article does it say that it was Congress' intention to apply these guidelines to anyone other than Americans?
    • The launch needs to be taken place somewhere, I assume that these regulations are to cover craft leaving from American soil or those belonging to companies registered in the US.
    • All ships and aircraft are registered in a particular jurisdiction which impacts on the law when in international waters or airspace. It may even be relevant when the craft is physically in another jurisdiction (where both sets of regulations could apply) - not sure about that though and IANAL.

      I don't see any reason why the US can't institute regulations in the very similar situation of space craft registered in the USA.

  • Hmmm (Score:4, Funny)

    by Bad to the Ben ( 871357 ) on Monday March 28, 2005 @08:22AM (#12065257)
    I wonder what the inflight movie will be? How bout "Apollo 13"?

  • No but I... (Score:4, Funny)

    by raynet11 ( 844558 ) on Monday March 28, 2005 @08:23AM (#12065261)
    Flight Eng: System failure level 2 switching to main aux for overide.
    Passenger: No its just a faulty sensor , shutdown tank three no overide needed.
    Flight Eng: Are you sure?
    Passenger: Yes proceed with the shutdown.
    Flight Eng: Check , shutting down tank three
    Whew, they didn't tell us you were an AE
    Passenger: I'm not , but I stayed in a Holiday Inn Express last night..
  • Any information on how much fossil fuel a suborbital shots will burn per passenger?
  • I knew the army were desperate, but I didn't know they were having problems finding astronauts

  • Death (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Lord_Dweomer ( 648696 ) on Monday March 28, 2005 @08:41AM (#12065337) Homepage
    I really hope this doesn't all get shut down prematurely after the first person dies. I mean, I don't mean to be a Negative Nancy, but when this is first getting off the ground (no pun intended), there WILL be deaths, and they most likely will be very gruesome (think explosion, suffocation, or decompression).

    This is one time though that I hope the lawyers DO get heavily involved just so that one lawsuit doesn't bring this whole fledgling industry down in one fell swoop.

    • If the small aircraft manufacturing industry is any indicator, the odds are not good for the industry surviving much past the first fatality.

  • Don't panic! (Score:3, Funny)

    by kkumer ( 36175 ) on Monday March 28, 2005 @08:50AM (#12065381) Homepage
    I just hope they've put "Don't Panic!" in a large friendly letters on a cover.
  • What was preventing us doing that before?

  • In the wider context of Adventure Tourism (Score:5, Insightful)

    by the packrat ( 721656 ) on Monday March 28, 2005 @09:30AM (#12065582) Homepage

    I wonder whether this was put together taking into account the recent, varyingly successful, lawsuits against earth-bound adventure tourism operators who provided white water rafting and rock climbing and who, despite all the no-liability clauses in their paperwork, manage to surprise the world by killing their customers periodically?

    Given that at least some of those lawsuits were successful (if memory serves), one wonders how much value escape-from-liability contracts really have, unless the US signs a bill similar to the no-lawsuits-of-fast-food-providers into law. Even then, they'd still be taunted by various international courts.

  • Do they require disclosure that the trip is "one way"? If not, I've got a list of "tourists" I'd like to sponsor.
  • This weekend at NorWesCon [norwescon.org] I attended some presentations by LiftPort [liftport.com], the company that plans to implement a space elevator as envisioned by Arthur C. Clarke. The electric elevator, receiving power from ground based lasers, would climb up a ribbon made of carbon nanotubes anchored between an ocean platform and a space station. Their goal is to have it operational by 2018. As far-fetched as that idea seems, I found their presentations very intriguing. The small scale climber prototype they demo'd was pretty co

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