Certifiable

That's the title of my latest Fox column, on the chilling effect that
regulatory uncertainty may have on investment in private space. I
suggest taking AST out of the FAA:

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,92840,00.html

And to prove my point, here's a story about Dennis Tito's testimony to
Congress yesterday, saying that he's ready to write a check, but not
until this issue is resolved:

http://www.space.com/missionlaunches...ns_030724.html

--
simberg.interglobal.org * 310 372-7963 (CA) 307 739-1296 (Jackson Hole)
interglobal space lines * 307 733-1715 (Fax) http://www.interglobal.org

"Extraordinary launch vehicles require extraordinary markets..."
Swap the first . and @ and throw out the ".trash" to email me.
Here's my email address for autospammers:

Ironic thing is that FAA regulations won't be enough to stop a coming space
toruism market. They'll just be enough to make the industry stillborn in
America, while other countries get a toehold on an emerging market.

"Rand Simberg" wrote in message
...
That's the title of my latest Fox column, on the chilling effect that
regulatory uncertainty may have on investment in private space. I
suggest taking AST out of the FAA:

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,92840,00.html

And to prove my point, here's a story about Dennis Tito's testimony to
Congress yesterday, saying that he's ready to write a check, but not
until this issue is resolved:

http://www.space.com/missionlaunches...ns_030724.html

--
simberg.interglobal.org * 310 372-7963 (CA) 307 739-1296 (Jackson Hole)
interglobal space lines * 307 733-1715 (Fax) http://www.interglobal.org

"Extraordinary launch vehicles require extraordinary markets..."
Swap the first . and @ and throw out the ".trash" to email me.
Here's my email address for autospammers:


A very good article. Thank's for telling it like it is. How sad that it
would take an Act of Congress (I know. I know... corny) to get the AST back
out of the FAA. I almost believe that Lockmart may have aleady been
thinkingahead about cornering the launch vehicle market (even though the X33
was still a year away from inception), and may have actually wanted the AST
to be in FAA control, maybe even lobbied for it. This is extreme supposition
on my part, bordering on conspiracy rubbish, but if it is taken as a given
that Lockmart felt it could be flying VentureStars (or whatever precursing
beheamouth they had envisioned in the 94-95 timeframe),within a decade or
so, it could have easilly become the defacto launcher for all payloads in
the United States at a moderate to high cost. No one else would have been
able to compete because no one else would have had the money to get an RLV
with manned capability certified. That's just been my take on the "Why" of
that change in the Commerical Space Act. If such thinking was what was
behind the idea, (and I realize it's a longshot), then it was a disaster all
around.

Ironic thing is that FAA regulations won't be enough to stop the coming
private space industry. They'll just be enough to make the industry
stillborn in America, while other countries get a toehold on an emerging
market.

h (Rand Simberg) wrote in message
That's the title of my latest Fox column, on the chilling effect that
regulatory uncertainty may have on investment in private space. I
suggest taking AST out of the FAA:

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,92840,00.html

And to prove my point, here's a story about Dennis Tito's testimony to
Congress yesterday, saying that he's ready to write a check, but not
until this issue is resolved:

http://www.space.com/missionlaunches...ns_030724.html

Thanks for bringing this up, Rand. It is possible that commercial
reusable launch vehicles will not happen in the U.S. because of this
regulatory impasse. We have been working with AST (associate Admin for
Space Transport) for 4 years and it was looking like the licensing
process was on track. Now, there is a jurisdictional dispute with AVR
(the aircraft side of FAA).

AST doesn't use the term "certification" for several reasons:

1) Certification is a way of guaranteeing that serial #150 performs
just like serial #1 that went through flight testing. When a single
vehicle flying once a day can carry the world's payload market, this
does not make sense.

2) Certification is for common carriers. Aunt Martha visiting Grandma
for Thanksgiving just wants to get there and expects a minimum level
of safety and reliability. Reusable launch vehicles are several
generations from this level of cost and safety. Adventure tourists who
sign up for MiG 25 rides or launches to ISS cannot expect the same
level of safety, and the FAA cannot, at the current level of
technology, guarantee it.

3) Certification is a way of ensuring uniformity of materials and
processes that are flight proven. However, there are no proven
materials and construction techniques appropriate for high Mach, low Q
flight, nor for the reentry heating environment. The few things that
have been tried are, well, too few.

AST has a congressional mandate to promote the industry and AVR does
not. Just ask Zero-G Corp how easy it is to get certification to fly
parabolas.

Dan DeLong

"Jon G" wrote in message ...
Ironic thing is that FAA regulations won't be enough to stop a coming space
toruism market. They'll just be enough to make the industry stillborn in
America, while other countries get a toehold on an emerging market.

[snipped much of discussion of LockMart X-33] No one else would have
been
able to compete because no one else would have had the money to get an RLV
with manned capability certified.

They would not have had to. X-33 was a NASA procurement, with separate
"human rating" requirements, different from FAA's licensing commercial
vehicles. The current problem is whether AST (Associate Admin for
Space Transportation) will keep the authority, or whether AVR (the
airplane certification people) will take over.

There is a huge difference. AST has been licensing ELV launches, where
you expect the thing to fail. Their new foray into reusables and
manned reusables is an effort to stretch that licensing environment.
AVR has been certificating aircraft for commercial operations, and
trying to stretch that to reusable space launchers will certainly kill
the nascent industry.

A few of the reasons:
1) AST has a congressional mandate to promote the industry, AVR does
not.

2) AVR's certification is to ensure that serial production of aircraft
matches the tested serial #1. This makes no sense in an industry where
each vehicle will likely be an improvement over the previous.

3) AVR certifies that materials and fabrication processes conform to
industry accepted practices. For RLVs, there are no industry accepted
practices.

4) AVR certification developed starting 20 years after the first
commercial aircraft operations started, when the manufacturers had
cash flow to pay for certification, and flight experience to point to.

5) AVR deals with common carriers. When Aunt Martha buys a ticket to
visit Grandma for Christmas, she has no interest in the aircraft that
gets her there, but she does have an expectation that she will not get
killed enroute. AVR is good at this. It's going to be several
generations of vehicle design-build-test before this level of
reliability can happen. Until then, if we aren't allowed to make
money, we can't get investment.

Don't know what's going on with Google. I posted the first comment on
Sunday afternoon (July 27) and after 24 hours of no result, I posted
the second. 40 hours after that, they both appear.

Anyway, I thought maybe something about space policy was in order on
sci.space.policy.


Dan

On 30 Jul 2003 15:40:01 GMT, in a place far, far away,
(Dan DeLong) made the phosphor on my monitor
glow in such a way as to indicate that:

Don't know what's going on with Google. I posted the first comment on
Sunday afternoon (July 27) and after 24 hours of no result, I posted
the second. 40 hours after that, they both appear.

Anyway, I thought maybe something about space policy was in order on
sci.space.policy.

Sorry about that--this thread is cross posted to sci.space.moderated,
so that probably slowed down the appearance in both fora.

--
simberg.interglobal.org * 310 372-7963 (CA) 307 739-1296 (Jackson Hole)
interglobal space lines * 307 733-1715 (Fax) http://www.interglobal.org

"Extraordinary launch vehicles require extraordinary markets..."
Swap the first . and @ and throw out the ".trash" to email me.
Here's my email address for autospammers:

X-33 would have presumable led to Venture $tar which would have been
privately funded and which was supposed to be much more reliable (tongue
firmly in cheek)


"Dan DeLong" wrote in message
om...
"Jon G" wrote in message
...
Ironic thing is that FAA regulations won't be enough to stop a coming
space
toruism market. They'll just be enough to make the industry stillborn in
America, while other countries get a toehold on an emerging market.

[snipped much of discussion of LockMart X-33] No one else would have
been
able to compete because no one else would have had the money to get an
RLV
with manned capability certified.

They would not have had to. X-33 was a NASA procurement, with separate
"human rating" requirements, different from FAA's licensing commercial
vehicles. The current problem is whether AST (Associate Admin for
Space Transportation) will keep the authority, or whether AVR (the
airplane certification people) will take over.

There is a huge difference. AST has been licensing ELV launches, where
you expect the thing to fail. Their new foray into reusables and
manned reusables is an effort to stretch that licensing environment.
AVR has been certificating aircraft for commercial operations, and
trying to stretch that to reusable space launchers will certainly kill
the nascent industry.

A few of the reasons:
1) AST has a congressional mandate to promote the industry, AVR does
not.

2) AVR's certification is to ensure that serial production of aircraft
matches the tested serial #1. This makes no sense in an industry where
each vehicle will likely be an improvement over the previous.

3) AVR certifies that materials and fabrication processes conform to
industry accepted practices. For RLVs, there are no industry accepted
practices.

4) AVR certification developed starting 20 years after the first
commercial aircraft operations started, when the manufacturers had
cash flow to pay for certification, and flight experience to point to.

5) AVR deals with common carriers. When Aunt Martha buys a ticket to
visit Grandma for Christmas, she has no interest in the aircraft that
gets her there, but she does have an expectation that she will not get
killed enroute. AVR is good at this. It's going to be several
generations of vehicle design-build-test before this level of
reliability can happen. Until then, if we aren't allowed to make
money, we can't get investment.

On 2 Aug 2003 05:00:02 GMT, in a place far, far away, "Jon G"
made the phosphor on my monitor glow
in such a way as to indicate that:

X-33 would have presumable led to Venture $tar which would have been
privately funded and which was supposed to be much more reliable (tongue
firmly in cheek)

That was a huge presumption, particularly given that Lockmart never
evinced the slightest iota of interest in commercial space markets, as
evidenced by both their performance on the commercial space
transportation systems study, and their joke of a V* "business plan."

--
simberg.interglobal.org * 310 372-7963 (CA) 307 739-1296 (Jackson Hole)
interglobal space lines * 307 733-1715 (Fax) http://www.interglobal.org

"Extraordinary launch vehicles require extraordinary markets..."
Swap the first . and @ and throw out the ".trash" to email me.
Here's my email address for autospammers: