Are There Rules for People Going into Space?

November 14, 2014

November 14, 2014 – Who regulates humans going into space? For government programs such as those run by NASA, Russia’s Roscosmos, and China’s CNSA, there are rules and a protocol that space travelers must go through to be eligible to get to low-Earth orbit? But a commercial carrier is subject to what rules when it comes to passengers? In the United States other than filing for permission to fly through the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), there appear to be no regulations for determining who can and cannot come aboard.

Of course that’s the same as when flying a commercial airliner. The FAA doesn’t apply a standard for airlines when accepting the suitability of paying passengers. All that’s required is that the passenger be notified of potential risks when they buy a ticket or during onboard safety demonstrations. And considering that more than 3 million of us fly on commercial aircraft on about 50,000 flights each day the current standard and regulatory framework seems to be working. It is only when a crash occurs that the FAA or other civilian flight administrator gets involved in investigating what happened.

For those wannabe 700 plus space voyagers who have put a deposit down (only 20 have cancelled since the crash of SpaceShipTwo) on flying Virgin Galactic to sub-orbital space there appears to be not much more than what passengers flying commercial airliners are subject to before flight. Virgin states that all passengers must go through a three-day screening program to be judged physically and mentally fit to fly. But no one is regulating that pre-screening. One hopes that Virgin Galactic is borrowing best practices from those government space agencies mentioned above but with no regulatory oversight there is no guarantee.

For that matter, what regulatory body determined whether SpaceShipTwo was airworthy at the time of the accident that occurred last month? The U.S. National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) normally is called in whenever there is a commercial airplane crash. But what kind of permits governed SpaceShipTwo? Apparently an experimental permit for two powered test flights was issued in November of 2013 to Scaled Composites, the company that built the sub-orbital spaceplane. A number of drop tests were done with and without rocket engine aboard. And there was at least one powered test flight. But it is unclear if Virgin’s subcontractor stuck to the limits of the license. Which begs the question, who was watching to ensure the company met the restrictions of the permit?

With one of the two test pilots killed when SpaceShipTwo disintegrated, it also begs the question, who has oversight to determine the qualifications of the pilots to fly a sub-orbital spaceplane? It’s not like there are a lot of them out there. Does a person with a commercial license to fly aircraft qualify? Are there other types of licenses with “test pilot” stamped on them? With pilot error the possible cause of the accident, although a mechanical cause has not been ruled out, it would seem that lack of regulation is no longer the accident waiting to happen, but one that has already occurred.

Commercial space flight is the new frontier and like all frontiers, it appears to be writing its own rules with little in its way. In the U.S. the rationale by government has been this: no one wants to get in the way of progress in developing commercial options for getting to orbit after the NASA Shuttle program shelving.

So SpaceShipTwo’s replacement (60% built at the time of writing) and others planning commercial sub-orbital and near-Earth orbit spaceflight continue to operate in what is equivalent to the American “Wild West” of the 19th century. Commercial space operators, and in future, their passengers are like those hikers who accompanied by guides ascend Mount Everest. One in 62 die.

A lawyer and professor of space policy at George Washington University, Henry Hertzfeld, when recently interviewed by MIT Technology Review questioned if we even know how many test flights are needed to determine whether a suborbital spacecraft is airworthy enough to take on passengers. For those passengers he states, “People do those types of things because they are crazy, stupid, or thrill-seeking.” In other words, we can’t stop them if they want to be the first to die trying.

With lack of sufficient knowledge and experience related to commercial space ventures, and the lack of government willing to regulate oversight expect more accidents to happen and many more lives to be lost.

Sovrn

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