Panel: What rocket companies are looking for from a rulemaking

04/29/05 00:00:00    

By Michael Mealling

Chuck Lauer, Jeff Greason, John Powell, John Carmack on what rocket companies are looking for from the rulemakings:

There's a slight disagreement between Jeff and John on whether or not the law that was passed was a good thing. John also says they've scaled back their license oriented work since they're not trying for the XPrize anymore. Sees no huge roadblocks except for lack of a civilian vertical launch site.

John Powerll is in a quandry with AST for the first time: he actually likes them. The main reason is that its full of “shoulds” not “shalls” which the experimental airplane regulations have. He asks everyone to be careful to watch out for the inevitible creap of “shalls” back in.

Chuck Lauer: the right person for writing the medical stuff is there so that's a good thing.

Jeff Greason: XCOR has not gotten back to AST on their comments on the medical stuff. Jeff's biggest bone to pick is that they looked beyond suborbital to orbital when that's not what anyone is after right now and that there's no information about what's needed either and that there is no middleground between suborbital to orbital given the rather arbitrary measurements used to define them.

Question: do you agree or disagree with Burt's point about certification. They all agree that certification of some type eventually is a good thing but there is no way to write that certification now.