#RichardBranson and #JeffBezos will fly in industry w no mandatory safety regulations to protect passengers & crew. FAA's only focus is making sure that people and property on the ground are not injured or killed. The agency can't step in until there is an accident or close call.
A regulatory moratorium was put in place in 2004. It's been repeatedly extended and will expire in 2023 unless it is renewed. Purpose was to let companies experiment w different designs and approaches without burdening them with costly regulations.
Passengers fly at own risk after signing waiver. Companies required to lay out risks for them. New Mexico where #VirginGalactic #RichardBranson will fly #SpaceShipTwo #VSSUnity on Sunday has a law limiting lawsuits to cases of gross negligence or intentional harm.
Gross negligence could be hard to prove absent any regulations. Intentional harm seems unlikely. Some key House members have expressed a desire to end the moratorium and allow FAA to regulate the industry for safety.
People harken back to the early days of aviation regulation (or lack thereof) to justify the moratorium. I did look into that some years back in a series I wrote. It's not quite the same. You can read the first part here: parabolicarc.com/2016/03/03/ear…
For one thing, the govt regulated less in the 1910's and 1920's. There wasn't much to regulate in terms of private commercial air travel. It was too dangerous for most people to want to fly on. It wasn't until govt started regulating that aviation got a lot safer.
The U.S. govt was just beginning to figure out how to regulate private air travel when Lindbergh flew the Atlantic in 1927. Large numbers of people started to fly, which overwhelmed the regulators. 1929 was worst year in terms of fatalities per miles flown.
Safety got a lot better through the 1930's and beyond. The prize that Lindbergh won inspired the Ansari X Prize that led to the flight Branson will be on tomorrow. If successful, it could lead to many people flying suborbital in an industry without mandatory safety regulations.
Planes are a lot easier to build than spaceships. You can roll the former off assembly lines. Spaceships can take years to build and test before you put passengers on them. #RichardBranson had planned to fly in Q1 2015 before VSS Enterprise crashed. It's now Q3 2021.
One difference between Lindbergh in 1927 and Melvill & Binnie with SpaceShipOne in 2004 was the nature of the tech. Lindbergh flew a modified air mail plane. There was an aircraft manufacturing industry & limited commercial passenger service.
US govt had abandoned suborbital flights when X-15 program ended in 1968. It served its purpose research high-speed & high-altitude flights. SpaceShipOne had to make it to Karman line & serve as basis for a larger passenger vehicle. It did the former, but scaling it up was hard.
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