Talk to Congress about Commercial Human Spaceflight

#1 October 9th 03, 03:10 AM

#2 October 9th 03, 04:10 AM

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

#3 October 9th 03, 05:07 AM

On 09 Oct 2003 03:10:33 GMT, in a place far, far away,
(GCHudson) made the phosphor on my monitor glow in
such a way as to indicate that:

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. The issue will be whether or not AST (or as
the legislation seems to require, a newly-resurrected OCST) does it
properly...

--
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:

#4 October 9th 03, 10:36 PM

"Regulation expands to fill the space available" is a physical law of
government.

Regulators given a task will keep at it, until they hit a limit. If
they're regulating an existing industry, either the corporations or
their customers will eventually push back when the regulations reach a
tipping point. For our almost nonexistent industry, we have no
substantive mass to push back with, so any regulatory train set in
motion will likely continue going well beyond what we'd consider to be
logical limits. So we have to be *very* careful what paths we start
the regulators down.

The only safe task to set before FAA is disclosure (ala food labeling,
or campaign contributions) so that anyone buying a flight is fully
informed of the risk.

What's not safe: enforceable medical standards and any "other"
standard that might appear to be a good idea to the fine professionals
at the FAA, whom I admire.

Why not medical standards: The medical conditions of the 500 or so
previous space travelers are secret. NASA is obsessive about
protecting all astronauts' medical privacy. Yet, the only logical
course for the FAA is to attempt to gain access to these very
sensitive records, and then make its own judgments about what they
mean. Rocket companies will *not* get to see them in detail and thus
will *not* have any way to influence their interpretation.

So what standards will the FAA adopt? Only conditions that have
failed to disqualify astronauts will fail to disqualify private
passengers? What about a condition that's OK for an astronaut who was
30, but the proposed private passenger is 60? Still OK? We all know
that many of the private firms' initial passengers will be older
because they've accumulated the most money, and their grown children
aren't responsibilities anymore... yet older people take more pills
and have more medical conditions. Do you want to be arguing with FAA
doctors about the medical status of most of your passengers, based on
a medical database you can't examine yourself... while trying to
equate the strains of a Shuttle or Apollo flight with whatever
stresses you believe exist for your perhaps quite different vehicle?
Yikes!

So consider the above for the straight-forward issue of Medical
Standards. Now consider what can happen if any "other" standard can
be thrown into the vetting of passengers.

Full Disclosure for Informed Consent -- that's how it is done when
testing risky new drugs, and it's the only sane way to approach the
issue of the government's role in passenger space flight.

#5 October 9th 03, 10:54 PM

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.

#6 October 9th 03, 11:05 PM

h (Rand Simberg) wrote in message . ..

The issue will be whether or not AST (or as
the legislation seems to require, a newly-resurrected OCST) does it
properly...

Rand, can you tell me why you believe this legislation would transfer
regulatory authority from AST to OCST (now the Office of Space
Commerce)? That's not my reading of the bill. Is there something here
I'm not seeing? Or are you perhaps mistaking remote-sensing licensing
for launch licensing in the final section?

#7 October 9th 03, 11:18 PM

On 9 Oct 2003 15:05:06 -0700, in a place far, far away,
(Edward Wright) made the phosphor on my
monitor glow in such a way as to indicate that:

(Rand Simberg) wrote in message . ..

The issue will be whether or not AST (or as
the legislation seems to require, a newly-resurrected OCST) does it
properly...

Rand, can you tell me why you believe this legislation would transfer
regulatory authority from AST to OCST (now the Office of Space
Commerce)? That's not my reading of the bill. Is there something here
I'm not seeing? Or are you perhaps mistaking remote-sensing licensing
for launch licensing in the final section?

Office of Space Commerce is not now, nor has it ever been OCST. It's
an office in the Department of Commerce. I'm saying that OCST will be
resurrected, restoring the situation prior to the Clinton
administration.

I'm inferring that from the fact that the language in the
authorization reads:

"AUTHORIZATION OF APPROPRIATIONS FOR OFFICE OF COMMERCIAL SPACE
TRANSPORTATION"

whereas in previous years it read:

"There are authorized to be appropriated to the Secretary of
Transportation for the activities of the Office of the Associate
Administrator for Commercial Space Transportation"

which I believe is Patti's current official title.

Morover, I read this directive:

"The Secretary of Transportation shall clearly distinguish the
Department's regulation of air commerce from its regulation of
commercial human spaceflight, and focus the Department's regulation of
commercial human spaceflight activities on protecting the safety of
the general public, while allowing spaceflight participants who have
been trained and meet license-specific standards to assume an informed
level of risk."

It doesn't explicitly call for pulling it out of FAA, but that would
certainly be the sensible way to do it (considering that the move to
the FAA occurred under the Clinton-Gore administration for no good
reason other than attempting to streamline the bureaucracy). It's
clear to me that the intent is to make it very clearly not aviation
related. Resurrecting the original OCST, which reported directly to
the SecDOT, would give the office more clout in any potential turf
wars with AVR.

--
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:

#8 October 10th 03, 12:08 AM

On Thu, 09 Oct 2003 22:18:36 GMT, in a place far, far away,
h (Rand Simberg) made the phosphor on my
monitor glow in such a way as to indicate that:

Morover, I read this directive:

"The Secretary of Transportation shall clearly distinguish the
Department's regulation of air commerce from its regulation of
commercial human spaceflight, and focus the Department's regulation of
commercial human spaceflight activities on protecting the safety of
the general public, while allowing spaceflight participants who have
been trained and meet license-specific standards to assume an informed
level of risk."

It doesn't explicitly call for pulling it out of FAA, but that would
certainly be the sensible way to do it (considering that the move to
the FAA occurred under the Clinton-Gore administration for no good
reason other than attempting to streamline the bureaucracy). It's
clear to me that the intent is to make it very clearly not aviation
related. Resurrecting the original OCST, which reported directly to
the SecDOT, would give the office more clout in any potential turf
wars with AVR.

I also note that nowhere in the legislation is the acronym "FAA" used.
Based on conversations with some people involved in drafting it, I
believe that this is quite deliberate.

--
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:

#9 October 10th 03, 12:54 AM

On Thu, 09 Oct 2003 04:07:39 GMT, in a place far, far away,
h (Rand Simberg) made the phosphor on my
monitor glow in such a way as to indicate that:

On 09 Oct 2003 03:10:33 GMT, in a place far, far away,
(GCHudson) made the phosphor on my monitor glow in
such a way as to indicate that:

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. The issue will be whether or not AST (or as
the legislation seems to require, a newly-resurrected OCST) does it
properly...

I've put up a blog post with a preliminary analysis of the proposed
legislation (and taken the liberty of incorporating David's
comments--I trust he'll tell me if that's a problem).

http://www.interglobal.org/weblog/ar...48.html#003148

--
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:

#10 October 10th 03, 03:13 AM

(GCHudson) wrote in message ...

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.

`(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;

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 call upon our community to seriously debate the wisdom of
supporting this legislation.

I've been working with AST since 1999, and I don't share Gary's
concern about AST restricting human access to space. In plain
English, AST doesn't want to. AST has a Congressional mandate
to "encourage, facilitate, and promote commercial space
launches and reentries by the private sector,"
_(49 USC 70103(b)(1))_, they know it, and they are carrying it
out with enthusiasm.

At Space Access 2003, Jay Garvin, AST-200 – the guy who signs
the launch license – addressed the passenger issue. "If someone
asks me to issue him a launch license to fly passengers, there's
no regulation or law that says I can do it. There's also no
regulation or law that says I can't. I'd do it. If the
application was substantially complete and it passed all the
reviews, I wouldn't have grounds to deny it."

AST is required to issue a license – "the Secretary, not later
than 180 days after receiving an application, *shall* [RMC
emphasis] issue or transfer a license" _(49 USC 70105(a)(1))_
– if the application is substantially complete and is
"consistent with the public health and safety, safety of
property, and national security and foreign policy interests
of the United States." _(49 USC 70105(a)(1))_ The current laws
and regulations don't address passengers one way or the other.

HR 3245 does not give AST the power to restrict human access
to space. The proposed restriction is not on the spaceflight
participant; it's on the licensee. HR 3245 would do nothing
more than require the licensee to set standards, and then meet
them. It does not give AST veto power over those standards; it
merely says the licensee must have standards and stick to them.
That's reasonable.

Commercial human spaceflight is going to be regulated; that's
the nature of the times in which we live. The proposed statutory
requirement is the least intrusive government oversight we are
ever going to see for spaceflight participants. This bill does
not set a legislative standard for human spaceflight, nor does
it authorize any agency to set a regulatory standard. It puts
the authority to set standards right where it belongs – with
the spaceflight provider – and it gives the spaceflight provider
ALL of that authority. The regulatory agency is not even given
veto power over the spaceflight provider's human spaceflight
standard. (That veto power, BTW, is also right where it belongs:
in the marketplace.)

HR 3245 is a good bill, and if you want to see regular, routine,
commercial, American access to space become a reality, then you
should support it. If you don't ever want to fly into space,
then feel free to oppose it.

Randall Clague
Government Liaison
XCOR Aerospace

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