Berin Szoka is giving a talk on reforming ITAR, and makes the useful points that it will do no good to attempt to persuade someone on the basis that it’s bad for business, or impeding the development of space. They won’t care. ITAR is about national security, and any arguments against it must use ju jitsu–those defending it must be convinced that ITAR, as currently constituted, actually damages our national security. Fortunately, this is a case that can be made, and must.
New Industry Association
Mike Kelly is announcing the formation of a new association to promote personal spaceflight, called (creatively enough) the Personal Spaceflight Federation.
Will represent the personal spaceflight industry–companies that will provide human spaceflight under the regulatory auspices of the FAA. Includes developers, operators, marketers, resellers, spaceports, and commercial space destinations.
Challenges for the industry:
- Safety
- Regulations
- overly burdensome
- Chaotic/Inconsistent
- Public Perception
- Long-Term Challenges
Purpose is to present a unified front on critical issues, such as FAA rules and environmental issues, industry standards, coordination of lobbying efforts, public relations, research, pool resources and expertise to deal with common issues, establish partnerships. There will be bi-yearly meetings of principals (assuming this means semi-annual, e.g., twice a year).
Non-profit 501(c)6 (Trade Association) in California with board of directors, chaired by Mike Kelly and staffed by John Gedmark. It is financed by membership fees. First official act was to produce consensus comments on the recent FAA-AST NPRM on human spaceflight participants. Managed to come up with unanimous set of comments (seventeen pages), which presumably the FAA will take seriously. One major issue was the nature and definition of “informed consent.” Another was potential for foreign passengers to be excluded due to ITAR issues. Another was definition of “crew.” They wanted to make a distinction between “safety-critical” and “non-safety-critical” crew (e.g., pilots versus people gathering data, such as the NASA equivalent of “mission specialists”).
Next area to be tacked is set of voluntary industry standards, once technology is mature enough to warrant them. This will provide better liability protection, since neither the developer or the FAA will be liable if they follow the industry standard. Use of AIAA seen as key here. Care has to be taken here–bad standards can cause as much harm as bad regulation. Premature to establish them now, because standards represent best practices, and industry is too immature to know what those are. Fortunately, it will take a while for them to evolve.
Future activities: Develop consensus document on NPRM on reusable expendables, continue research on liability waivers for passenger spaceflight, continue research on standards development, and develop ITAR strategy.
Fifth Columnist Fired
I wonder why this story broke on a Friday afternoon?
In a rare occurrence, the CIA fired an officer who acknowledged giving classified information to a reporter, NBC News learned Friday.
The officer flunked a polygraph exam before being fired on Thursday and is now under investigation by the Justice Department, NBC has learned.
Intelligence sources tell NBC News the accused officer, Mary McCarthy, worked in the CIA
No Rush
The Sanity Inspector says that we don’t have to worry about the offensive buildup–we have plenty of time:
Former French prime minister Pierre Laval said Monday that Germany is a least five years away from developing an offensive military capability, leaving time to peacefully negotiate a settlement.
“But there is a chance that the Western powers will use bombs or artillery against several sites in Germany,” he was quoted as saying. “Then, the reactions would be strong, and would contribute to increased war fever.”
Conference Update
As Jeff Foust notes, there hasn’t been a lot of breaking news at this conference, but he has recovered sufficiently from last night’s pistonless-pumped margarita party to put up a summary of yesterday’s sessions.
Obvious Scientific Result Break
I haven’t seen a lot worth reporting since the wireless came back up, but I did run across this piece, in the “bears use the woods as a toilet” category, which claims–hold on to your hats, now–that men influenced by attractive women don’t always make great decisions:
“We all think we are rational beings, but our research suggests … that people with high testosterone levels are very vulnerable to sexual cues. If there are no cues around, they behave normally, but if they see sexual images they become impulsive…”
What would we do without researchers?
Space Access Live
Wireless is up. There was an announcement from Space Frontier Foundation that the Teachers in Space program has had the donation of 3 suborbital spaceflights, one each from Armadillo, Rocketplane-Kistler and XCOR. The sponsors hope to find federal sponsorship for hundreds of educator flights.
— Update 6:07 MST —
Alan Boyle has more.
On The Air
The wireless is up in the room. For now.
George Nield of FAA-AST is talking, and describing the new rules for human spaceflight.
Here is Jeff Foust’s first post from the conference.
Still No Wireless
I’m posting this from the lobby after lunch. In theory the wireless is supposed to be up in the room Real Soon Now.
Clark Lindsey has some stuff up from the proceedings so far. And more here.
Worst.Hotel.Ever
At least for a Space Access conference. There’s no broadband in the rooms. There is a wireless connection in the lobby, from which I’m posting this. Michael Mealing is attempting to set up a wireless connection in the room in which the proceedings are occuring, so we can blog from there, but there’s a problem with the network connection to the router, and there will be no resolution before tomorrow morning. The restaurant took half an hour to take out orders, and an hour to deliver them, then screwed up the check. Not to mention that my linguini was spaghetti., and overcooked.
Other than that, everything is great. Hopefully better news on the morrow.