On Tue, 03 Sep 2002 18:22:59 -0700, Adrian Tymes <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
wrote:
>I find it disturbing that the U.S. State Department and The National
>Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration believe they are in any
>legal position to grant permission for lunar travel, especially on a
>mission that will launch using exclusively Russian facilities.
>
>Would it be worth investigating to see if we might need the permission
>of either of said agencies if and when we do high-altitude/orbital
>experiments? I thought we only needed the FAA's permission, and then
>only up to the point where we leave and re-enter US airspace.
It sounds like TransOrbital has successfully completed the payload
review portion of an FAA launch license application. Good for them.
When FAA/AST gets applications for launch licenses and/or payload
reviews (required for launch licenses), part of their process is
running the applications by State, DOD, FCC, NASA, NOAA, Space
Command, and whatever other government agency might have an interest,
for safety and policy review and approval. TransOrbital has
(presumably through AST, though they don't say) gotten approval from
State and NOAA.
Since TransOrbital is a U.S. company, they need a U.S. launch license
to launch something into space themselves. It's unclear to me why or
even whether they need a license to be launched into space on a
Russian launcher flying out of Kazakhstan. They may not need a launch
license, which would make a payload approval pointless.
OH! And therefore easy to get! Oh, that's clever. It's pure
marketing. "Mr. FAA, can we have a launch license?" "To launch out
of Kazakhstan? You don't need one. Have a nice day." "OK then, can
we have a payload approval? We're an American company." "A payload
approval for a launch out of Kazakhstan? Why not. Send us an
application, we'll farm it around...OK, you're approved." "Thank you
Mr. FAA! Hey press! Look what we got!" :-)
Pointless from a technical perspective, but pretty clever from a
marketing perspective.
-R
--
"Sutton is the beginning of wisdom -
but only the beginning."
-- Jeff Greason
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