Posted on 12/09/2004 6:03:29 AM PST by Brett66
By ERICA WERNER, Associated Press Writer
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.
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The bill is H.R. 5382.
It adds a ton of respectibility to something that has always been considered to be hardly more than a big, messy bomb.
One of the big hurdles to commercial spaceflight the idea that it is not accomplished by a transportation system, but rather by a more or less controlled explosion.
Getting to the point of being regulated by the FAA is a huge step in loosening the regulations, and has been a long time coming. It is a huge step forward that had to wait, among other things, for a republican government to happen.
How can you use the terms "respectibility" [sic] and "government" in the same thesis? Nothing the government has EVER done has been efficient or "respectable," at least not in the commercial sense of the word.
One of the big hurdles to commercial spaceflight the idea that it is not accomplished by a transportation system, but rather by a more or less controlled explosion.
Who has this notion? If a rocket is a "controlled explosion," then jet flight isn't much better. TO many people, it is even more mysterious than rockets. And in any case, how does the FAA change any of that perception? It isn't as though their involvement means that rocket flight is now somehow safer or has advanced in technology. It just means that the bureaucrats now have control over who plays the game.
Ahmmmm......what is the fee for one of the permits?
Overheard in the cloakroom....
"Let's not let the internet slip up on us again. We will preemptively regulate and tax this thing from before the beginning."
Do you want to learn something, are just looking for another dead horse to beat?
Do you really think the rest of Free Republic is ignorant of the nature of government and just needs you to straighten us out?
It just means that the bureaucrats now have control over who plays the game.
Check your assumptions. The bureaucrats have always had control over the game. The difference now is that the bureaucrats have to go on record as to when they will say yes. Before this, the answer was simply, "No, and don't bother asking."
No, the (non)mating call of the practical.
I want to get off the planet. The government isn't going to go away soon. We are going to continue to be regulated, and to think otherwise is to consign yourself to your own little cloud cuckooland (and not one that's in space). We are working on making the existing regulations more rational and less uncertain. This bill is a big step in that direction, which is why most of the space tourism entrepreneurs not only supported it, but instigated it. If you're lucky, they'll let you buy a ticket anyway, regardless of your political cluelessness.
Far from it. I just think YOU are ignorant of the nature of government, and it is beyond my humble capacity to enlighten one of such limited vision.
The bureaucrats have always had control over the game. The difference now is that the bureaucrats have to go on record as to when they will say yes. Before this, the answer was simply, "No, and don't bother asking."
Who was saying "No" before? Since no one was "in charge," there was no one to SAY no. And I'M the one who needs to "check my assumptions"???
Look, you apparently are comfortable with Big Daddy Government regulating every facet of your life. Good for you. You can sleep comfortably in your coccoon, secure in the myth that Uncle Sam is looking out for you.
Just remember that the power to license is the power to destroy (with apologies to Edmund Burke).
Ah. "Practical." Another adjective for "accommodationist," "compromiser," "appeaser."
I want to get off the planet.
Don't let ME stop you.
The government isn't going to go away soon.
Or EVER with people like you in the citizenry.
We are going to continue to be regulated, and to think otherwise is to consign yourself to your own little cloud cuckooland (and not one that's in space).
And to reconcile yourself to that so-called inevitability is to strike a bargain with the enemy.
We are working on making the existing regulations more rational and less uncertain.
Maybe you could help the guards sharpen the blade on the guillotine.
If you're lucky, they'll let you buy a ticket anyway, regardless of your political cluelessness.
If you're lucky, the bureaucrats will not tax your dream out of existence.
Why do you insist no one was saying no? Do you not believe the sun came up last Wednesday because you weren't around to see it?
Your libertarian agitprop is simply noise in an otherwise good thread. You don't know the history of commercial space, you don't know the legalities, all you know is the one song that government is always bad and you sing it for every occasion.
This place is full of conservatives and libertarians whose credentials and intellectual prowess are so far out of your league that you barely qualify as a troll here.
Go find someplace else to spew your ignorance.
What if some pioneering individual had the wherewithal to actually orbit the earth a few times in a vehicle he built in his garage?
Upon his return, would he have been arrested?
For what?
No one in authority could have been saying no because THERE WAS NO AUTHORITY!!! By your very own words, you dimwit!!
Do you not believe the sun came up last Wednesday because you weren't around to see it?
Actually, I do, because I was. You, on the other hand, believe it came up at 3 in the morning because some government agency told you so.
Your libertarian agitprop is simply noise in an otherwise good thread.
Your blind faith in government stirs me to nausea.
You don't know the history of commercial space, you don't know the legalities,
You don't know what I know.
... all you know is the one song that government is always bad and you sing it for every occasion.
Uh huh. And how do you know that? You on the other hand seem to believe that government can do no wrong, and has the right to regulate every facet of our existence. So sorry if I disagree.
This place is full of conservatives and libertarians whose credentials and intellectual prowess are so far out of your league
Surely you don't consider yourself in that league ...
that you barely qualify as a troll here.
Yeah, I just stopped by from DU to stampede your sacred cows. Idiot.
Go find someplace else to spew your ignorance.
Nah, I think I'll stick around to see you in the throes of apoplexy.
Upon his return, would he have been arrested?
If he was an American, perhaps. I'm not sure what the penalties are for launching without a license. There would almost certainly be a fine, if he failed to get one.
Wrong. Post my own words that said there was no authority. I dare you. And call off the personal insults.
Your very own words. If this development is "a whole new paradigm" and that paradigm entails governmental regulation, then how could the old paradigm have entailed governmental regulation?
If the old paradigm DID entail regulation, by whom? And under what constitutional authority? You see, just because the government assumes (with support from such bovines as yourself) that it has the right to regulate every form of commerce, that regulation is not necessarily defensible constitutionally. Sometimes -- often -- it is wise to demand some justification for the expansion of bureaucratic power. That's all I'm doing.
And I'll call off the personal insults when you retract your "intellectual prowess" and "spewing ignorance" slurs.
That points out one of the really big problems these days. The Comprehensive Theory of the State has not been developed. There have been a handfull of partial attempts dating back to the 18th cent., but we still have no scolarly, philosophically correct, thorough and complete Theory. It is something that needs doing, and until it is done we are capable of doing no more than flinging incomprehensible slogans at each other.
Though it's straying somewhat from the subject of this thread, I would support the classical Burkeian definition of the State as a body whose sole justification is its ability to do better for the People certain things they cannot or will not do themselves. The simple fact that government intervention occasionally evolves to the public benefit is not adequate justification for that intervention. The benefit must be consistent, demonstrable, and parsimonious in its demands on individual liberties.
When did you stop beating your wife?
For crying out loud, your ignorance on this subject is complete, and yet you feel qualified to hand out personal insults? You can't even launch a model rocket over a certain size without government approval, and you think launchers capable were free and clear of government regulation before this?
The government has been issuing launch licenses for as long as private companies have been in the business, but you assume that must not have been the case and heap abuse on anyone who isn't as ignorant as you are.
Sure, but the Modern State has arrived everywhere on earth and it is all that and more. At the same time it has arrived with all power and that includes the power of unchecked evil and the sole right to administer justice. There is no comprehensive Theory of the State; all attempts to define the State, including Rousseau, Burke, and Hegel, are only bare beginnings. 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? It's here, and we are just beginning to see it at work. Is this how we are going to move toward our destiny in outer space?
There's a broken syllogism here. No one said that the new paradigm only entailed government regulation. It entails thinking differently about how to regulate. The old paradigm entailed government regulation as well, just a more worse kind.
If the old paradigm DID entail regulation, by whom? And under what constitutional authority?
This has been explained to you several times, but I'll type it more slowly this time so that perhaps even you will understand. It has been regulated by the Department of Transportation since 1984. It was done because the United States signed a treaty, ratified by the Senate per the Constitution obligating us to be responsible for all launch activities originating in the United States. In order to satisfy that obligation, it was necessary to establish a regulatory authority. This was done in 1984 via the Commercial Space Transportation Launch Act.
Sorry, that's the Commercial Space Launch Act. A law pushed by Ronald Reagan, by the way.
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