A few weeks ago, I expressed a concern about Burt Rutan’s X-Prize attempt, in which I wrote:

Burt Rutan may end up losing the X-Prize because he’s not doing what’s necessary in order to be able to legally fly by the end of next year, regardless of the technical readiness of his vehicle.

Now, from Aerospace Daily:

Rutan, founder of Scaled Composites, said the vehicles really are commercial aircraft and not subject to the stricter regulatory regime of space vehicles, such as booster rockets and the space shuttle.

The FAA office has asked Rutan to defend the safety characteristics of the White Knight launch vehicle and the Space Ship One, he said, a request he has refused. The FAA?s inquiries are not likely to postpone Rutan?s planned flight test schedule, he said, but added, ?it?s possible they will.?

If negotiations fail, Rutan said, he will move outside the FAA?s jurisdiction by obtaining a U.S. Air Force contract. The FAA?s regulatory authority does not
extend to military vehicles.

Rutan ruled out the possibility of moving his program outside of the U.S. to avoid the FAA?s spaceflight regulations. ?I?m geared to do my program at Mojave,? a commercial airport in California where the Scaled Composites program is based, he said.

Advantage, Transterrestrial!

Though I’m saddened to see my prediction come true.

Of course, if this quote is accurate, Burt doesn’t know what he’s talking about. I don’t know what he means by “booster rockets,” but the Shuttle is not subject to any regulatory regime–it’s run by NASA. And the regime actually isn’t stricter–it’s just different (and it’s utterly unfamiliar to him). In many ways, it’s less strict, at least for commercial use, because it doesn’t require vehicle certification (an issue with whose problems no one is more familiar than Burt).

What he’s trying to do is avoid having to get a launch license, and because he’s already decided not to get one, it’s probably already too late for him to do so, or will be soon, because it’s not a process that can occur overnight.

The email correspondent who sent me this information, and is following these issues closely, characterized Burt as a “bull in a china shop.”

He’s going to set off an intra-agency dispute at the FAA, and then widen it to one between the FAA and the Air Force, if he insists on going that route. If I were the X-Prize committee, I’d be thinking really hard about slapping this down before it turns into a nasty mess, with terrible regulatory precedents.

[Update at 3:11 PM PDT]

I should add that moving off shore wouldn’t help him either, unless he renounces his citizenship as well. The US position is that it is regulatorily responsible for launch activities of US entities, regardless of their location on the planet, because of liability provisions of the Outer Space Treaty (yet another reason to get out of it).

[Friday morning update]

Just to clarify questions asked in the comments section, the EZ-Rocket can fly on an experimental aircraft certificate–it doesn’t go in, or even near, space. Here are the current FAA definitions (only recently announced) of suborbital vehicles and trajectories, which will require a launch license of some type.

Suborbital rocket: a rocket-propelled vehicle intended for flight on a suborbital trajectory whose thrust is greater than its lift for the majority of the powered portion of its flight.

Suborbital trajectory: the intentional flight path of a launch vehicle, reentry vehicle, or any portion thereof, whose vacuum instantaneous impact point does not leave the surface of the Earth.

Note that altitude is not a factor in the definition.

And I’ve linked it before, but Jeff Foust has a good overview of the current regulatory situation for suborbital here. This is pending any changes in legislation that may appear this year.