Space tourist Gregory Olsen and the crew took off from the ISS twelfth Launchpad at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in their Soyuz TMA-7 about the 1 October 11:55 CEST. Olsen, who paid 20 million dollars to be a "spaceflight participant" as he calls it, joins a group of tourists in space: Dennis Tito became the first passenger pays (20 million dollars) in April 2001 and Mark Shuttleworth was the second (20 million dollars) in April 2002.
Space tourism is here and not going anywhere but up. In an article published by Aviation Week in 2000, Norman Augustine, former CEO, Lockhead Martin, predicted that the space tourism would become the main business of space. In 1997 the United States survey "National Leisure Travel Monitor" include questions about space tourism for the first time. Of 1,500 Americans surveyed, 42% said that they would be interested in flying on a cruise ship of space and would be willing to spend on average $ 10,800 for travel.
For the industry succeed, however, private enterprise will need to take the reigns from Russia and transform the space tourism company in a deal, rather than a government program. Unfortunately, the laws governing space travel and use of outer space were legislated through international treaties in the 1960s and 1970s and were focused mainly on government operations. Of course, when these treaties were adopted, Government space program were the only game in town. Not to mention that the cold war was in full swing. The attitude of "space race" favoured the complete control of the Government on space operations that soaked any need to address the rights of private enterprise. This lack of vision is and will continue to complicate the future of commercial space tourism, unless changes are made.
Current laws dictate that Member States are responsible for any outdoor space activities by public bodies or private companies. For example, if a private company in Japan launches a rocket that explodes above Alaska and causes loss of life, the Japanese Government would be responsible in addition to the company. Given this configuration, a nation can prohibit commercial space and all related activities to mitigate the risk, or alternatively can enact laws that certain standards of quality and safety to help reduce their exposure to liability.
The December 23, 2004, President Bush signed into law the commercial space launch amendments Act. This Act advances the development of commercial spaceflight industry emerging and designates the Transportation Department and FAA as agencies responsible for regulating private human spaceflight.
But if every country does its part to promote the industry, agree the quilt patch resulting national regulations will result in totally different levels of quality and safety standards. We saw this maritime sector where cheap-flag-States allow ships and crews to drop well below reasonable standards of security. Not the safest regime for those travelling in space.
The most appropriate solution would be to create an international treaty that creates a standardization equal favouring greater transparency and reliability for enterprise private space tourism or any other commercial activities in outer space. The principles of such a treaty could then be adopted in national law, thus making each country responsible for monitoring private companies under his control and enforce uniform rules.
But so far, has not hindered the necessity of standardizing those seeking their first commercial flight in outer space. In fact, there is already a waiting list. Sir Richard Branson, billionaire founder of airline Virgin Atlantic, formed the Virgin Galactic LLC, which will start launching commercial passengers into space sometime in 2008 by the American soil. The going rate for a place aboard Virgin Galactic suborbital spaceship is $ 200,000. You can secure your home today with a deposit of $ 20,000.
Will Whitehorn, President of Virgin Galactic, was quoted by SPACE.com stating that, "we have a significant level of deposits now ... almost 10 million dollars worth ... I'm sure we would have sold at least the first couple of years by the time that you start to fly. "
No comments:
Post a Comment