A Nearly 20-Year Ban on Human Spaceflight Regulations Set To Expire (arstechnica.com) 25
An anonymous reader shares a report: In 2004, Congress passed a law that established a moratorium on federal safety regulations for commercial astronauts and space tourists riding to space on new privately owned rockets and spacecraft. The idea was to allow time for new space companies to establish themselves before falling under the burden of regulations, an eventuality that spaceflight startups argued could impede the industry's development. The moratorium is also known as a "learning period," a term that describes the purpose of the provision. It's supposed to give companies and the Federal Aviation Administration -- the agency tasked with overseeing commercial human spaceflight, launch, and re-entry operations -- time to learn how to safely fly in space and develop smart regulations, those that make spaceflight safer but don't restrict innovation. Without action from Congress, by the end of September, the moratorium on human spaceflight regulations will expire. That has many in the commercial space industry concerned.
The House Science Committee is considering a commercial space bill that might extend the learning period, but the content of the bill hasn't been released yet. Rep. Frank Lucas (R-Okla.), chair of the House Science Committee, said one of his priorities in developing the space bill is ensuring a "thoughtful regulatory environment that supports innovation." Given the hotly partisan tenor of Capitol Hill and a range of other priorities, it's not clear if the bill -- whatever it says -- can be passed before October 1. "Things are sort of moving, but... how do you deal with the moratorium? Can you get that by October 1 and get something passed? Is that something everyone can agree to, or is that going to get bogged down? You just don't know right now, and that's just a bad place to be," said Allen Cutler, president of the Coalition for Deep Space Exploration, in a panel discussion at the John Glenn Memorial Symposium earlier this month.
The House Science Committee is considering a commercial space bill that might extend the learning period, but the content of the bill hasn't been released yet. Rep. Frank Lucas (R-Okla.), chair of the House Science Committee, said one of his priorities in developing the space bill is ensuring a "thoughtful regulatory environment that supports innovation." Given the hotly partisan tenor of Capitol Hill and a range of other priorities, it's not clear if the bill -- whatever it says -- can be passed before October 1. "Things are sort of moving, but... how do you deal with the moratorium? Can you get that by October 1 and get something passed? Is that something everyone can agree to, or is that going to get bogged down? You just don't know right now, and that's just a bad place to be," said Allen Cutler, president of the Coalition for Deep Space Exploration, in a panel discussion at the John Glenn Memorial Symposium earlier this month.
Re: (Score:3)
This describes the first forty years of automobile manufacturing.
I'm glad they did.
Getting to the moon may turn out to be harder than getting to the next county.
Which would be the least surprising engineering assumption in human history.
Re:Learning Period (Score:5, Insightful)
Anytime you have paying customers you have to have some sort of regulatory framework for redress due to negligent failure.
Sure, I can sign over that skiing is inherently dangerous.. but that doesn't absolve the operator if they aren't maintaining the lift equipment and my chair falls off the cable.
Same goes for the Oceangate fiasco.
There's a limit to the liability that can be signed away. Otherwise no one would get out of our tents in the AM as cars, elevators, and buildings would all be shoddy death traps.
People forget - cars, airplanes, buildings, ships, etc. are safer *because* of regulation. Not in spite of it.
Re: (Score:2)
you have to have some sort of regulatory framework for redress due to negligent failure.
You don't have to have a regulatory framework, especially not for a nascent industry that is only selling service to less than 1% of the population. There are a ton of things which DONT have a regulatory framework.
Arguably these wealthy elites can negotiate their terms, and regulations for the time being could be focused solely on keeping the earthbound public safe. (Make sure commercial spaceflight are operated
Re: (Score:2)
we have leaky submersibles to fix that issue.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: Learning Period (Score:3)
Actually they're currently getting 16 uses of each, which is now being pushed to 20. It's a fully reusable first stage, which is what it was always intended to be. And it's been an incredible success. The goal always was to lower the cost of spaceflight, and that's exactly what happened. Enough so that nobody else comes close to competing with SpaceX.
Re: (Score:2)
It's people like this AC that want to see any and all innovation fail. Regardless of your personal feelings for Musk, SpaceX is undoubtedly a huge success and will only improve over time. Sitting in your basement and trying to burn the world down with your words of doom and gloom is just sad. /. needs to get rid of the ability to post AC.
Re: (Score:2)
Ultra wealthy people actually spending their money is great, specially in things that create a lot of jobs etc..
The venue of em investing into companies that actually do stuff etc is already pretty good, but if you convince one to burn let's say a whole billion in something that took a lot of people to make, it's the gears actually spinning.
Get a clue.... (Score:1)
The next time an argument is started on how the US forgot how to get a vehicle in orbit think of the 20 year plan to let the private sector catch up.....
Re: (Score:2)
We never forgot how to get a vehicle into orbit. We just used Russian engines becuase the Russians could supply very good engines cheap. Some of them were even surplus engines sitting around in the infamous "forest of engines".
In the late 90s early 2000s, there were reasonable security arguments for throwing the Russian rocket industry a bone. Russia was not the international pariah it is today, and it had a lot of valuable Soviet era rocket engine knowledge we'd rather stay in Russia rather than to go to
Subsidized knowledge AND lax regulations? (Score:2)
I knew all these vanity projects got all the free R&D NASA's provided, decades of research they didn't have to do. But they've also been operating under lax regulations? (I know, shocker.)
Fuck that, let the learning period expire. They're throwing food at the kid's table, make them sit up straight with the grown ups.
Re: (Score:2)
This is the dumbest thing I've read today. The last 20 years have seen exceptional innovation in space flight. Take your noxious self somewhere else please.
This seems like a no-brainer (Score:3)
The commercial space flight industry has made huge strides in the past 20 years and has been delivering on its promise to reduce costs. Yet the whole industry is still in its infancy, space is hard, and it still takes time. Does anyone really want to further slow that progress down?
This should simply be extended another couple decades. I know some have had fun painting Musk as a libertarian cowboy to bury the real headline of SpaceX crushing the performance of the public sector but pushing this PR image doesn't seem especially critical and most of the people they are pushing this message to will never know about extending this either way.
What happens when government gets out of the way (Score:3)
We're seeing what happens when the private sector isn't burdened by excessive government regulation that does nothing except a) slow the private sector down especially companies that aren't old-guard aerospace b) makes it more expensive and c) fuels more bureaucracy. It's important to note that any federal regulations are only going to apply to US companies. Other countries aren't affected and are likely to be lobbying for it.
Re: (Score:2)
We're seeing what happens when the private sector isn't burdened by excessive government regulation that does nothing except a) slow the private sector down especially companies that aren't old-guard
I have one word for you: OceanGate.
Re: (Score:2)
Wow, five people died because an amateur built a crappy submersible. Let's write a new law.
We are talking about commercial tourism here. I'm all for amateurs being responsible for their own safety.
But if you are going to sell dangerous trips to tourists, then yes, the civilised world wants regulation. The same with airlines, bungee-jumping, or visits to active volcanoes.
They will now have to pay astronauts minimum wage (Score:2)
Pressure Suits (Score:2)