The New Space blogosphere is buzzing over what the Obama Administration might do in terms of regulating commercial spaceflight. Will the new government follow Bush’s hands off, deregulatory approach – which requires only that millionauts sign a waiver acknowledging the risks – or will it demand that the FAA to certify space tourism vehicles before they fly passengers?
Nobody knows yet. Most of the NewSpace folks are hoping for the former. They believe that imposing regulations would kill the nascent industry at birth. Better to return to the early days of aviation, when bold inventors and their brave passengers took risks and the government stayed out. Innovate now, regulate later.
But, is this really the right approach? I’m not so sure.
I’m concerned that the industry could be setting itself up to auger in. By refusing to agree to even minimal safety standards for suborbital spaceflight, the industry could be increasing the chances of a fatal accident. Companies might take greater risks (or cut more corners) than they otherwise would without a set of requirements to meet.
All it would take is one greedy (or sloppy) space tourism operator to blacken the reputation of the entire industry. The risks that people are advocating could change overnight from a virtue to a millstone.
Many New Spacers argue that companies wouldn’t take unnecessary risks, it would be bad for business. Well, companies do a lot of things are bad for business. Especially when there are piles of cash on the table. Ask anyone at Lehman Brothers.
A single accident that sends even a handful of relatively obscure millionauts to their deaths would raise a lot of doubts. The general public probably would be rather shocked to find out that unlike airplanes, there is no certification process at all on these vehicles. That could generate a lot of pressure for regulations.
Meanwhile, customers would ask, “Am I really prepared to give up decades of my life for this dream? Can I do that to my family/friends/wife/husband/favorite pet? Is five minutes of weightlessness really worth the risks?”
There would likely be a lot of “no’s” from people who would be willing to eat their deposits rather than set foot on something that could kill them. There’s nothing like, “That could have been me” to put the fear of the Hereafter in you.
And it would be relatively easy to walk away. Space tourism is a completely optional activity; no one needs to go on a suborbital flight. It’s not like a plane, train or automobile, essential aspects of the infrastructure that you can’t avoid traveling from point to point. Suborbital space vehicles go straight up and come right back down.
For many people, putting down a deposit on a spaceflight is not merely a chance to fulfill a lifetime dream. It’s also a shrewd business investment that often pays for itself. Put down $20K, get invited to select events with Richard Brason and your fellow millionauts, and talk to as many local and national media outlets as you can. Oh, the first flight’s been delayed three years? Not really a problem. All the better to stretch things out.
So, you’ve got an industry offering a service that people want but don’t actually need. It is insistent upon setting its own safety standards without any outside help. But, unlike say climbing Mount Everest, this is not something that rich adventures are doing in a distance corner of the world. Instead, you’ve got a lot of very prominent, wealthy folks who want maximum publicity for their flights. And the space tourism operations will make sure they get it.
That could be a very nasty brew if things go wrong.
It will be interesting to see what the Obama Administration decides on these matters. The current government has been loath to regulate anything, a philosophy that has left America (and the world) less safe from a safety and environmental standpoint. Whether this same approach will remain for space tourism – and how wise it is – remains to be seen.
Similar Posts:
- Europe Looks at Space Tourism Certification as FAA Tells Millionauts They’re On Their Own
- Space Investment Summit 6: Financial Issues
- A Look at Virgin Galactic’s Millionaut Training Regime
- ISU Update: Workshop on Space Tourism Regulation
- Jim Oberstar: Harbinger of Space Tourism Doom?
“By refusing to agree to even minimal safety standards for suborbital spaceflight…”
Oh come on. That’s a preposterous mis-characterization of what is being discussed. The CSLAA sets out very rigorous regulatory
framework for suborbital spaceflight. See the legislation here:
http://tinyurl.com/5t8e47
http://tinyurl.com/5v68e3 (pdf)
The argument with Oberstar was whether it is feasible for a brand new type of space vehicle to reach instantaneously an equivalent level of safety as current aircraft, which have a 100 years of development and billions of hours of flight time behind them.
Yes, one could set up some sort of process and call it “certification” but it would, in fact, be grossly misleading. There is no way to certify at this time that a SS2 or a Lynx is as safe as a 777 or even a Cessna. There is no existing fully reusable manned suborbital space transports of any kind, much less one with a proven safety record of, say, 1 accident in 10k or more flights as thre are with aircraft, that you can use as a standard to which to certify. Everyone is even using different propulsion systems, different architectures (i.e. air launch, HTHL, VTVL, etc.), different subsystems, etc.
It is far more honest and transparent to inform those who choose to ride on the first generation of suborbital vehicles of the risks that come with using such a new technological.
There is an amazing double standard involved here. There are fatal accidents every year in hot air ballooning, commercial water rafting, parachuting, etc. yet they often don’t make it into national newspapers, much less onto the front page. It is beyond me as to why early space travel should be treated any differently than these sorts of adventure endeavours.
The standards don’t seem to be all that rigorous. If I understand it, DOT will look at strict regulations eight years after the passage of the act. This would be 2012, a date that will be pushed back because development of the field has been slower than anticipated.
Sure, there are dangers in every kind of adventure activity. None of the things you list are as high profile as space tourism. You don’t have Richard Branson and Paul Allen out there spending hundred of millions on these other fields. Or promoting them in the press constantly. Nor do you have celebrities like Victoria Principal asking about getting certified as a pilot or guide.
These flights will probably have as high of a profile as NASA missions, at least initially. That’s because the wealthy folks who are buying the tickets and those selling them have an interest in getting as much publicity as possible. You can’t say, “Hey look at us. Look what we’re doing. Look who’s flying today!” Then you have have an accident, blow up a ship of celebrities, and it will be, “Please don’t make a big deal out of it. Could you bury the story somewhere in the back of the Style section?” That’s not going to fly.
It’s a good bet that the people buying the tickets want to be treated a little better for their large investment. They start seeing accidents or worrying that standards are too loose, they’ll get very spooked and take their money elsewhere.
Not rigorous enough for you is not the same as no minimal safety standards at all. The standards are far, far more rigorous than what early aviation had to deal with and what any other new adventure activity has had to deal with. Remember also that it is an “amendments act”. There are all of the other commercial launch regulations as well. When teams have to get permits even for tethered tests of unmanned vehicles, the barn-storming era for this technology clearly has gotten bypassed.
CSLAA did not happen because of a wild deregulating administration. Getting the CSLAA was something that took a heck of a lot of effort over a long period by companies and space advocacy groups working with Congress and the FAA.
It was a non-partisan, bottom-up effort with very little interaction with the administration. I participated in some of the Capitol Hill campaigns to inform staffers for various Congresspersons and it was always evenly split among the two parties. Patti Grace Smith, btw, was a Clinton appointee and she was very supportive of the CSLAA efforts. Harry Reid was crucial in getting a vote for it when everyone thought it was dead.
The reason most everyone but Oberstar supported it was because it was obvious that it would be trivially easy to suffocate this industry before it got off the ground. The goal was to avoid the Catch 22 where you can’t fly till you prove you are safe but can’t prove you are safe til you can fly. Even with a couple of hundred million for Virgin Galactic (btw, I’ve not heard of any money currently coming from Paul Allen into VG), they cannot afford to fly 10k times before taking a paying passenger. The smaller companies like XCOR have even fewer resources.
The profile of the activity should have nothing to do with how it is regulated. Every year or two it seems that some notable dies in downhill skiing. I don’t believe, however, that there has been any changes to the regulation of downhill skiing just because some famous people have died while doing it. Skiers are aware of the dangers. Passengers on space tourist vehicles will also be well aware of the dangers in their activity.
Of course, you are absolutely correct that a fatal accident in the early stage will be disastrous to the development of a market for the industry. Never mind what it would do to inspire more regulation, to attract liability actions, and drive insurance out of range. The suggestion that companies will take only those precautions necessary to get by the regulators is simply not valid. These companies want to avoid hurting anyone and they want to build viable businesses. So they will do everything they can to avoid an accident regardless of what is written in the regulations.
Hi Clark:
Interesting information. Thank you for it. It’s been a very good exchange. Very informative and useful. Thank you for taking the time to participate.
Although I take your point concerning the Bush Administration, I’m not always comforted by the fact that something is bipartisan. Generally speaking, I feel that Congress is often too indebted to monied interests who are able to call the shots relating to regulations. Or weak regulations. I think the current fiscal crisis has elements of this in it, with bipartisan fingerprints all over it. The crisis, as you well know, is having quite deleterious effects in the field in which I work. They may hit very close to home very soon.
I was curious on one other point:
“These companies want to avoid hurting anyone and they want to build viable businesses. So they will do everything they can to avoid an accident regardless of what is written in the regulations.”
I had a conversation a few weeks ago with an engineer whom I respect who works at a rocket company. We started talking about the explosion at Scaled Composites last year. This person found it very strange that there were fatalities in a ground test such as this. The engineer had been present at tests of a similar nature; this person said that before when anything was pressurized (even feeder lines), everyone was ordered behind safety walls. The engineer couldn’t understand how such fatalities could have occurred if proper procedures had been in place.
I’ve also been curious by statements earlier this year concerning the accident. Scaled stated, if I recall correctly, that they had not understood the explosive nature of the materials they were working with prior to the blast. This was also greeted with great skepticism by my friend.
I am genuinely interested in your views on this matter. Do you think Scaled did everything it could to avoid a fatal accident and to protect its workers? Do you think the company followed proper procedures? Did they go above and beyond to protect their workers?
Hi Doug,
Regarding the accident, it’s clear in retrospect that they made mistakes. Cal OSHA cited violations and fined them. I believe Scaled is still in the process of protesting these citations. Perhaps that is why they still have not released their internal investigation report, only a summary.
The accident involved flowing N2O through the system, not an engine firing. They treated that as a preparatory action, not a test situation. So they had not yet required people to get behind barriers. I’ll note that those who were in charge of the propulsion test program were there at the site at the time and were among the causalities. It wasn’t like management had ordered underlings out to do something they were not expert in doing.
The N20 system had been tested for several years and was used on the SS1. They were not doing experiments on this procedure or this part of the propulsion system. It was all considered mature and safe.
It’s a bit extreme to say that pressurization always automatically means going behind barriers. They were, after all, working with a system that is going to fly with passengers sitting right in front of it. Before allowing that, the builders clearly have to pass a point in the development process where they themselves feel they understand it well enough to know when it is safe and routine to use it. I certainly don’t want to fly with a propulsion system that the builders are still afraid to be close to when operating.
For the rocket racer engines, one now often sees pictures and videos of XCOR and Armadillo people close to the engines during firings. I’m sure the pilots insist on this!
Similarly, the Scaled propulsion team clearly felt they well understood the parameter envelope within which they could operate the N2O system routinely and safely. Unfortunately, for the conditions that day, particularly the high ambient temperature, they unwittingly had gone outside that envelope and they suffered greatly for that.
From the regulators point of view, they were at a test stand and so should have followed test procedures throughout. From Scaled’s viewpoint, the accident occurred before the tests had started and during a procedure that was not being tested and that they thought highly reliable and incapable of causing an explosion.
Rutan had always been very proud that Scaled had never had a fatal accident since he started it in the 1970s despite flying many radical new designs. This accident clearly devastated him and contributed to the serious illness he suffered in the past year. His focus on safe operation goes far beyond just what regulators tell him to do. (Remember also that his and Branson’s family members are going to be among the first to fly on the SS2.)
So, yes, I think Scaled will do everything feasible within their resources to build a safe system and the accident does nothing to refute this. Part of making a safe system is to operate all the systems many times and to do lots of testing in hopes of ferreting out even the most rare flaw. There was a very high price paid to find out this problem but the system will be safer because of it.
Clark,
You make excellent points but one other issue might be third party liability. With your analogy of whitewater rafting, etc. it is unlikely that any damage will be to others. While an SS2 spinning wildly out of control and landing on, say, Oberstar’s 4th of July BBQ, might be a bit more of a problem.
Of course, that is precisely what insurance is for and why companies like Lloyd’s of London are in business. In order for VG, Space-X, etc. to convince our nail-biting astrocrats that casualties/damage is inevitable we will need to have the necessary coverage.
Hi Richard,
The AST/FAA regulatory framework is in fact primarily focused on protecting the third party, i.e. the “uninvolved public” as they call it. Much of the license/permit processes requires convincing them that your vehicle cannot veer off during the flight and hit non-participants. XCOR, for example, knew during the Oshkosh exhibition flights where their vehicle would end up if the engine failed at any given second during a flight and they made sure no end point was on top of a spectator.
Nevertheless, there is always some extreme circumstance that leads to a very small but non-zero chance of an accident. I forget the numbers, but the companies must purchase insurance to cover their 3rd party liability up to a given amount and then the government indemnifies them above that. This is similar to the situation with airlines. I heard that the LLC participants pay about $10k for insurance.
Insurance coverage has become a frequent topic of discussion at NewSpace oriented conferences like the annual Space Access Society meeting in Phoenix. Panels now usually include insurance brokers, AST regulators, and lawyers. I sort of miss the old heavy focus on new hardware ideas but it does show how things have matured as vehicles have begun flying and a real business develops.
- Clark
Clark,
Came to this discussion a bit late but thanks for the sanguine outline of some of the safety considerations.
Coming from the UK it is interesting to see how the European approach will diverge from the FAAs approach. I am currently trying to track down a copy of the EASA proposed regulations that were presented to the IAASS conference in October 2008. From what I have gathered they will only operate up to 100km.
It will also be interesting to see how things develop if sub orbital flights start being used for point to point travel rather than go around trips back to the launch location. A way off into the future I know, but what happens now will have an impact on any such future operations.
I have both a personal and professional interest in this as I work in System Safety Engineering of complex systems including air traffic management systems, and an Australian wife with family still out there.
Ed