h (Rand Simberg) wrote in message . ..

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.

It may or may not. It depends on what "received training and met
medical or other standards specified in the license" means. That is,
what are the training and medical standards? I agree that there is a
danger that they could be overly stringent, but there's a potential
upside, in that it could be a means of implementing Pat Collins' and
Peter Diamandis' concept of "certified space traveler," which could
obviate the liability issues, if implemented properly. And I suspect
that that's the intent.

Note that the wording is not yet set in stone. This bill was only
recently introduced (and will have to be reintroduced next term). It
is still possible to tweak the language. For Gary and anyone else who
has concerns: here is your chance to speak directly to Congressional
offices about those concerns. While the Suborbital Institute is
supporting this bill, that does not mean we wouldn't support
improvements.

In fact, even if this bill never passes, it might provide a useful
opportunity for public debate and discussion on what would be proper
training and medical standards for spaceflight participants. (It seems
unrealistic to expect that AST wouldn't take that into account when
deciding whether to grant a launch license for a crewed vehicle, and
while there might be some merit to Gary's idea of removing authority
from AST, that is beyond the scope of our activities at the present
time.)

At this point, I should add a few disclaimers:

1) I had nothing to do with the drafting of this bill or any of its
contents, which I only saw for the first time last week.

2) I have some fairly well developed ideas of what I think training
and medical standards might be, since my company intends to sell those
services.

3) That said, I had nothing to do with the drafting of this bill or
any of its contents, which I only saw for the first time last week.