On Sat, 08 Feb 2003 12:03:01 -0800, Adrian Tymes <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
wrote:
>("You're under arrest because you didn't have a launch license from
>NASA." "NASA doesn't issue launch licenses! That's the FAA!" "We'll
>let the courts decide that. In the mean time, we're impounding your
>vehicle. You're liable if we mishandle it and the explosion injures
>anyone.")
This would not happen. NASA reps frequently tell Rick Tumlinson
(rather plaintively, last one I heard) (and futilely, since they're
talking to Rick, to whom NASA's talk is beyond cheap), "We're not a
regulatory agency!"
Even if AST found you in violation, and FAA issued an injunction
forbidding you to fly, the cops (likely sheriff's deputies, though
they could be Federal marshals, or even TSA officers) would not
impound your vehicle. They'd just lock up your mission control
trailer and post a guard on it.
>To the ISS's orbit, anyway, whether or not NASA lets us actually dock
>with the ISS. ("Someone paid us to put a tracking satellite within easy
>EVA distance of the ISS. Why? Dunno, but we could as easily have put
>supplies there for the ISS crew to grab. So long as we're not actually
>touching the ISS, it ain't NASA's property.")
There's a problem with this, too. One of the required sections in a
launch license application is a collision avoidance analysis in which
you prove you won't (meaning, prove you can't) come within 200 km of a
mannable object in orbit. That would include ISS, Soyuz, and Shuttle.
I'd include Progress just to be conservative: while it's never been
manned, it's probably mannable in an emergency.
So you can't deliver stuff to anywhere near ISS without NASA's
permission.
-R
--
Every complex, difficult problem has a simple,
easy solution - which is wrong.
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