Ed asks for support of H. R. 3245, and while I would normally not wish to
challenge anyone seeking to help open the space frontier, I have serious doubts
about the wisdom and timeliness of this particular piece of legislation. The
argument for and against AST is too long to go into here, and I will shortly
address it in another public print forum, but setting that aside (suffice to
say that I think AVR is a better choice) I would like to draw attention to the
following proposed provisions of the Act:


`(c) COMPLIANCE WITH SPACEFLIGHT PARTICIPANT REQUIREMENTS- The holder
of a license under this chapter may launch or reenter a spaceflight
participant only if--

`(1) the spaceflight participant has received training and met medical
or other standards specified in the license;

`(2) the spaceflight participant is informed of the safety record of
the launch or reentry vehicle type; and

`(3) the launch or reentry vehicle is marked in a manner specified by
the Secretary of Transportation which identifies it as a launch or
reentry vehicle rather than an aircraft.'


I submit that this is nothing more than the "Space Precautionary Act" mentioned
by Heinlein in his short story 'Requiem.' AST cannot be trusted this the power
to restrict human access to space on "medical or other" grounds. I speak as
someone who had supported AST for fifteen years -- I was in the East Room of
the White House when President Reagan signed the Executive Order establishing
the predecessor office. But I can stay that I rue the day I made the argument
for their existence and I call upon our community to seriously debate the
wisdom of supporting this legislation.

Let me be clear that I have no problem with informed consent as provided for in
(2) and (3) but (1) means the end of both the suborbital and orbital
spaceflight "participant" industry before it begins.

Gary C Hudson