"Space Entrepreneurs Worry About Fed Rules"

Wednesday, February 9, 2005

Space Entrepreneurs Worry About Fed Rules
BY LESLIE MILLER
The Associated Press


WASHINGTON - Space entrepreneurs say they believe they are on the brink of
developing a vibrant tourism industry, but worry that government regulation
may stifle it before it can take off.

To prevent that, they have formed a group, the Industry Consensus Standards
Organization, to set standards for space flyers.

"If government regulates safety aspects of space flyers themselves, it would
be tantamount to killing the industry," a group member, Michael Kelly, said
at a hearing Wednesday of the House Infrastructure and Transportation's
subcommittee on aviation.

While acknowledging the entrepreneurial space flight will be deadly, Kelly
said the industry needs the chance to learn from its mistakes.

He predicted the safety standards set by space entrepreneurs for rocket
ships will work as well as the Underwriters Laboratories' stamp of approval
on electrical devices.

"We believe the same stamp of approval will provide the same level of
safety," said Kelley, who also is chairman of the Reusable Launch Vehicles
Working Group of the Transportation Department's space advisory committee.

A law signed by President Bush in December requires that the government
license launches of privately built spacecraft. It also says the Federal
Aviation Administration may not issue safety regulations for passengers and
crew for eight years unless specific design features or operating practices
result in a serious or fatal injury.

Rep. James Oberstar, D-Minn., objects to that approach, which he said
amounts to a "tombstone mentality." Oberstar has introduced a bill requiring
that the FAA include in its licenses minimum safety and health standards for
spacecraft passengers and crew.

"We need at least a framework of safety around commercial space travel,"
Oberstar said during the hearing.

Bush has called for NASA to return to the moon and eventually to send a
spacecraft to Mars. Entrepreneurs, meantime, are working to develop
spacecraft that can take regular citizens into space.

A watershed event was Burt Rutan's winning the $10 million Ansari X Prize in
October, which he accomplished by sending his SpaceShipOne rocket plane to
the edge of space twice in five days.

"The genie is out of the bottle, the fuse has been lit," Peter Diamandis, X
Prize founder, said in a telephone interview. "We are really at the birth of
the personal space flight revolution."

Elon Musk, chairman of SpaceX, said in a telephone interview that government
needs to respect the human spirit.

"If somebody understands the risks and puts their life on the line because
they think it's worth it, we should applaud that," said Musk.

The company in El Segundo, Calif., plans to send a $30 million Navy
satellite into space using a small launch vehicle within the next few
months.

FAA chief Marion Blakey agreed that government oversight of commercial space
enterprises - "astropreneurs," she calls them - must evolve along with the
industry.

"It was more than 20 years after the Wright brothers' first flight before
government regulations concerning aviation were put into place," Blakey told
the subcommittee, noting that modern airlines began with barnstorming
aviators.

Last year, the FAA licensed the Mojave Airport in California as a launch
site as a prelude to the historic SpaceShipOne flight. Blakey said the
agency also is talking with Oklahoma, Texas and New Mexico about their
license applications for launch sites.

Starting in 2007, New Mexico's White Sands Missile Range will be the site of
the X Prize's successor, the annual X Prize Cup, which will be awarded to
the winners of five categories of rocket races.

Diamandis predicts a golden age of space tourism, where hundreds and
possibly thousands of paying passengers will fly to the edge of space every
year.

Four months after Rutan's rocket darted into space, British entrepreneur
Richard Branson's Virgin Galactic company boasts that thousands of
reservations already have been made for a ride on a spaceship modeled after
SpaceShipOne - at $200,000 a pop.

Diamandis said the cost of a personal space flight will fall because today's
space entrepreneurs run such lean operations. It took 20 people to support
Rutan's flight, he said, compared with the 100,000 needed for the Space
Shuttle.

What's needed for the industry to flourish, he said, is balance.

"We need reasonable guidelines with the understanding that this is risky
business," he said.

ON THE NET

Federal Aviation Administration: http://www.faa.gov

X Prize: http://www.xprize.org

SpaceX: http://www.spacex.com


 Do you have an opinion about this story?
Share it with other readers in our CAA Discussion Forums

http://www.californiaaviation.org/dcfp/dcboard.php


*****************************************