Over at the new space blog Hypotheses Non Fingo, one of the posters writes:

That leads me to another question – NASA in the US is designed to regulate space travel and space launches (among its many other points of interest) and each country that’s involved in space exploration has its own government organization designated to do the same. So how do we coordinate with all those private companies that have the ability to build their own spacecraft? If many different organizations have the ability to launch – do we set forth regulations on safety specifications, times to launch, etc? I think this will become an issue in the near future, especially with the push for space passengers.

Well, I don’t know the answer to the question, but there’s a misapprehension here. NASA is neither “designed” or chartered to regulate space launch (thank the heavens–NASA’s enough of a problem as it is without giving it legal authority to regulate its competition). NASA “regulates” only its own launches (and judging by the contents of the Gehman Report, doesn’t do a very good job of it…).

Regulation of commercial launch is the job of the Department of Transportation. It’s currently done specifically by the FAA, but that’s not required by the enabling legislation–it was simply a decision made by the Clinton administration that could be undone by this one if it so chose. I in fact think that it might be a good idea to get it out of the FAA and reestablish the Office of Commercial Space Transportation to report directly to the secretary, as was the case through the late eighties and early nineties. But to allow NASA to do it would both require legislation, and be a disaster for the future of space transportation.

Over at the new space blog Hypotheses Non Fingo, one of the posters writes:

That leads me to another question – NASA in the US is designed to regulate space travel and space launches (among its many other points of interest) and each country that’s involved in space exploration has its own government organization designated to do the same. So how do we coordinate with all those private companies that have the ability to build their own spacecraft? If many different organizations have the ability to launch – do we set forth regulations on safety specifications, times to launch, etc? I think this will become an issue in the near future, especially with the push for space passengers.

Well, I don’t know the answer to the question, but there’s a misapprehension here. NASA is neither “designed” or chartered to regulate space launch (thank the heavens–NASA’s enough of a problem as it is without giving it legal authority to regulate its competition). NASA “regulates” only its own launches (and judging by the contents of the Gehman Report, doesn’t do a very good job of it…).

Regulation of commercial launch is the job of the Department of Transportation. It’s currently done specifically by the FAA, but that’s not required by the enabling legislation–it was simply a decision made by the Clinton administration that could be undone by this one if it so chose. I in fact think that it might be a good idea to get it out of the FAA and reestablish the Office of Commercial Space Transportation to report directly to the secretary, as was the case through the late eighties and early nineties. But to allow NASA to do it would both require legislation, and be a disaster for the future of space transportation.

Over at the new space blog Hypotheses Non Fingo, one of the posters writes:

That leads me to another question – NASA in the US is designed to regulate space travel and space launches (among its many other points of interest) and each country that’s involved in space exploration has its own government organization designated to do the same. So how do we coordinate with all those private companies that have the ability to build their own spacecraft? If many different organizations have the ability to launch – do we set forth regulations on safety specifications, times to launch, etc? I think this will become an issue in the near future, especially with the push for space passengers.

Well, I don’t know the answer to the question, but there’s a misapprehension here. NASA is neither “designed” or chartered to regulate space launch (thank the heavens–NASA’s enough of a problem as it is without giving it legal authority to regulate its competition). NASA “regulates” only its own launches (and judging by the contents of the Gehman Report, doesn’t do a very good job of it…).

Regulation of commercial launch is the job of the Department of Transportation. It’s currently done specifically by the FAA, but that’s not required by the enabling legislation–it was simply a decision made by the Clinton administration that could be undone by this one if it so chose. I in fact think that it might be a good idea to get it out of the FAA and reestablish the Office of Commercial Space Transportation to report directly to the secretary, as was the case through the late eighties and early nineties. But to allow NASA to do it would both require legislation, and be a disaster for the future of space transportation.

I’m listening to “To The Point,” Warren Olney’s show on NPR. He’s talking about space, and as usual (not for him, for the media in general), he’s asking the wrong question. “Should humans be in space?”

No way to answer that question, Warren, unless you first stipulate what we’re trying to do there, but until you do, it makes no more sense than to ask “Should humans be in California?”

Sadly, he spent twenty minutes or so talking to Bob Park, and now he’s got Donna Shirley on. The assumption, of course, is that the only reason for a space program is science.

Sigh…

[Update a little later]

They also interview Howard McCurdy, who says we’ll commit to Mars in the year 2050…

At least, toward the end, Donna Shirley put in a good word for the entrepreneurial launch companies. But that was the only sense in which this wasn’t a traditional debate about man versus robots.

The good thing is everyone is saying that we have to have a national debate as to purposes.

I’ll have to bug Warren to do a show with a wider variety of viewpoints, and without so many inherent (false) assumptions. He did two or three years ago, with me, Tom Rogers, and Lori Garver.

I have some more commentary on the Gehman report at Fox News.

Keith Cowing has a wealth of (mostly anonymous) commentary from NASA employees on the Gehman Report.

It’s pretty depressing. After reading this, I’m not sure that NASA is salvageable. The only way to fix it, really, is to abolish the agency, and create a new one, hiring the best people from the old.

Fortunately, what NASA does is becoming ever less relevant to America’s future in space.

Hypotheses Non Fingo.

Go check it out.