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How does anyone in government know how to regulate those vehicles when they are brand new?”ĭrees, the former CEO and general manager of Mojave Air & Space Port in California, believes better regulation also means enlisting more knowledgeable government personnel, particularly in the FAA’s Office of Commercial Space Transportation, to design and execute those regulations. “The industry is not concerned about regulation,” she added. We are still very much in data collection mode. “The fear is if we are writing regulations based on old vehicles that weren’t very safe, then there’s a potential implication here that these vehicles will also not be safe because the regulations are also not safe. “The biggest concern”: Yet one fear is that the government will adopt regulations based on old data on earlier spaceflight. “I feel like as a comparison we are at a faster pace than commercial aviation because it took decades to iron out a lot of those regulations back then.” “When we think about transporting not only people in an emergency situation, or organs, things that don’t have the luxury of time when it comes to transporting around the world.”īut is Washington ready to regulate this industry? “As a comparison to commercial aviation, I think there’s a pretty significant difference,” Drees said, pointing out that fewer than 10 commercial space flights in the past 17 years have carried people.
The push to take private citizens to orbit is “to really perfect the technology, perfect vehicles and then be able to manufacture those vehicles en masse as a new transportation system, which will be significant to people around the world,” she told us Thursday. But Karina Drees, president of the Commercial Spaceflight Federation, a leading industry association in Washington, maintains they are about far more than joy rides for the rich and famous. The flights will mark a major achievement for the expanding private space industry. They are the culmination of the 17-year odyssey of private space travel that began with the first flight of Virgin’s SpaceShipOne in 2004. Bezos is set to be among the crew of the New Shepard on its maiden flight carrying humans into space from West Texas on July 20. “A NEW TRANSPORTATION SYSTEM”: The long and at-times bumpy journey of the space tourism industry is poised to reach a major milestone beginning Sunday when the first of two space flights are set to carry Virgin Galactic founder Richard Branson and Blue Origin founder Jeff Bezos above the Earth.īranson will be aboard VSS Unity when the crew takes off for the edge of space from New Mexico on Sunday. Email us at with tips, pitches and feedback, and find us on Twitter at And don’t forget to check out POLITICO's astropolitics page for articles, Q&As and more.
WELCOME BACK TO POLITICO SPACE, our must-read briefing on the policies and personalities shaping the new space age in Washington and beyond. The last three Apollo missions to the moon were more revolutionary than you might think. A leading aerospace association has opted to register a lobbyist for the first time. Why billionaires going to space is a big deal, and not just costly joy rides.
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