In a column in Wednesday’s Wall Street Journal [paid subscription required], Holman W. Jenkins Jr. lashes out at the Senate for blocking passage of HR 5382. There are not too many details in the piece not seen elsewhere, although it was interesting that he noted, quite accurately, “Thank the Internet for the fact that legislation that normally would be ignored as the special interest of a handful of companies has a noisy popular following among disinterested voters and citizens.” Hopefully advocates of the bill are not superstitious: Jenkins’ column was published in the print edition on page A13.
At the end of the column he mentioned that two people who are not pushing the legislation are Burt Rutan and Richard Branson:
For a pair who say they want to spend $100 million making space tourism a reality, Messrs. Rutan and Branson have displayed an odd indifference to the legislative battle. Either Sir Richard is peddling vaporware and doesn’t really intend to fly — or he’s making an improbable bet on the FAA’s willingness to let paying clients fly in an “experimental” spacecraft in violation of every rule in the book.
What Jenkins doesn’t mention is that Rutan has made his disdain for FAA/AST clear on a number of occasions in public speeches, mentioning that he would prefer to be certified like an aircraft, a proposition that horrifies most other entrepreneurial space ventures.
In a related story, this afternoon Americans for Space sent out an email alert, encouraging people to call the office of Sen. John McCain and ask him to support the legislation. (McCain had previously been identified as one senator who placed a hold on the legislation, although it’s not clear now if he still has a hold in place or if other, anonymous senators are blocking the bill.) The Senate plans to adjourn for the year later today, after wrapping up the intelligence reform bill; if HR 5382 doesn’t pass today, supporters of such legislation will have to start all over again in January.
Who said Sir Richard Branson (what is his new show called?) is going to fly the spaceships in the United States. This is typical Americentric thinking.
Our Congress should understand their importance outside the U.S. is minimal.
I agree that gadflies,eccentrics,nonconformists, and other weirdoes are the ones that typically build new empires, not stasists who are happy with the status quo. Burt Rutan and Richard Branson are two examples of this kind of thinking, and we should not expect to shoehorn the definintion of a revolutionary into the pigeonhole of convention, it just doesn’t work.
Pioneers in any field flout convention, and just like the convergence of the computer, DVD, cell phone, and entertainment center, something new cannot be shoehorned into conventional definitions, and trying to do so invited logical errors and unnecessary conflict. Let Burt and Richard be themselves, and leave nationalistic jingoism be put where it belongs, back in the late 19th and early 20th, century, not in the Networked Enterprise, WIFI’d, Internet connected 21st Century.
Virgin Management, LLC has international influence. If the regulatory structure within the United States does not support commercialization, I’m sure his company will evaluate other options. The United States is not the only country interested in commercializing the space industry.
Commercialization of manned space flight will continue and national space policies developed to advance this commercialization effort will be important. The nations that concentrate space policies on commercialization will benefit the most. Exploration is important; to make money from exploration is more important. Yes, I’m a capitalist.
Mr. Malkin, Branson has contracted Scaled Composites, not Airbus Industrie, to build his fleet. Burt Rutan has to develop his hardware to function in the US regulatory environment, regardless of where launch operations will take place. Just as Boeing has to certify its airliners under US regs even if it intends to sell to Australian domestic carriers. So, in this case, yes, the US Congress _is_ critically important to Branson’s plans.