LAS VEGAS — The top of the Federal Aviation Administration’s industrial spaceflight office expects current restrictions on his ability to control safety of spaceflight participants to be prolonged past this yr.
Speaking on a panel at AIAA’s ASCEND conference Oct. 25, Kelvin Coleman, FAA associate administrator for industrial space transportation, said he anticipated the “learning period” to be prolonged beyond its current Jan. 1 expiration. The training period limits the power of the FAA to enact regulations regarding the security of spaceflight participants on industrial spacecraft.
“We expect it would be pushed out further. How far out we don’t know,” he said, with different projections from different people.
A panel of industry witnesses endorsed one other extension of the training period at an Oct. 19 Senate hearing. They didn’t offer a consensus about how long it needs to be prolonged beyond it being several years, including one estimate of eight years.
Certainly one of those witnesses was Bill Gerstenmaier, vice chairman of construct and flight reliability at SpaceX, and he reiterated that advice on the ASCEND panel. “The flight rate is fairly low,” he explained, with a diversity of technical approaches. “I feel it’s tough to place all of those pieces together.”
While there could also be acceptance that the training period can be prolonged, there was not agreement that it should. “A methodical, thoughtful approach to regulation is what’s needed,” said Doug Ligor of the Aerospace Corporation, which released a report in April that really helpful Congress let the training period expire. “You’ll be able to do it with no moratorium.”
He went further, calling the training period unnecessary in the primary place. “The concept that you would like a moratorium was suspect to us from the start,” he said, noting that such restrictions should not present in other industries. “The moratorium was an aberration.”
Industry officials countered that ending the training period now might disrupt ongoing discussions about what future regulations should seem like. “I feel we’re doing every thing that we must be doing to be sure that we’re moving forward in a productive fashion, and allowing the training period to finish prematurely could risk that productive cooperation,” said Mary Guenther, vice chairman of space policy on the Business Spaceflight Federation, an industry organization.
That cooperation includes the creation by the FAA earlier this yr of a space-focused aerospace rulemaking committee, or SpARC, on developing regulations for occupant safety. That committee includes representatives from industry and other organizations.
Coleman said he hoped the SpARC will consider when it would be appropriate to maneuver away from the present “informed consent” approach where spaceflight participants should be informed of the risks of business vehicles and sign documents acknowledging those risks.
“The time is now to take into consideration that while the flight rate is comparatively low,” he said. “We don’t wish to get into the next flight rate after which have a nasty day and a mad scramble to control. That’s a poor way of approaching it. The window is open now and we must reap the benefits of it.”
If there may be an accident, he warned, “I feel we’re kidding ourselves if we don’t think questions will are available in like, ‘Why didn’t the FAA do more? Why was no more in place?’”
Gerstenmaier countered that informed consent was essential, drawing upon his experience at NASA leading its human spaceflight programs. “Informed consent needs to stay there since the risktaker need to just accept that risk for themselves,” he said. He noted that, at SpaceX, he has had people “walk away from contracts because I described to them what the danger was related to the vehicle.”
He did, though, support the FAA’s creation of the SpARC on regulations. “This is totally the correct time to start out the SpARC activity. There’s going to be regulations coming somewhere in the long run,” he said. “We’re working very cooperatively and dealing really hard within the SpARC activity to place together those thoughts on what the subsequent set of regulations must be.”
“I feel that’s just a superb step forward when it comes to putting the stakeholders together,” Guenther said of the SpARC. “All of us want regulations in the long run that be sure that we’re capable of proceed to innovate, that we’re all moving forward in maintaining our global leadership.”