13 thoughts on “The Learning Period For Regulating Spaceflight Participant Safety”

  1. The bottom of the press release says:

    Updates Space Launch System
    Provides a use policy for NASA’s heavy-lift rocket, the Space Launch System.

    Why did the let some staffer put the word “policy” in that sentence? They were soooo close!

    1. I’ve been told that it weakens the requirement that NASA find a commercial launch whenever possible, which my DC source was very unhappy about. All in the interest in finding more payloads for SLS.

  2. “If we haven’t started flying by then, we might as well give up.”

    You could have said the same thing in 2007, and been wrong then too. But I understand the sentiment.

  3. One bright point in this compromise bill is Sec. 107 was included, which gives federal courts exclusive jurisdiction over of any action or tort arising from a licensed launch or reentry.

      1. Sounds like you’re chomping at the bit to sue somebody.

        Texas was never “omnipotent.” The Federal government can assert that its jurisdiction supersedes the states. Individual states cannot do the same in reverse.

        1. Quite the contrary. When the Democrats ran Texas, that state’s legislature was infamous for handing the trial lawyers pretty much anything they wanted. There was a time when most of the worst nuisance litigation in the country was originated by Texan law firms. Since Texas went Red, much of that has ceased. The new commercial space law just reinforces the fact that having Republicans in charge of both houses of Congress is having a tonic effect on curbing the worst abuses of the tort bar. I mentioned Texas mainly because it was, for a long time, such a notorious slough of litigiousness and also because the chairs of most of the committees and sub-committees concerned with space matters are now Texan Republicans. Unlike some here, I’m not of the opinion that which party runs things is a matter for indifference.

          1. East Texas is still a hotbed of patent litigation, however. So, there are limitations.

            And those Texas Republicans didn’t seem to have any effect on NASA’s Dream Chaser decision. Texas lost out twice on that one, (Dream Chaser would have been built in large part at Lockheed in Fort Worth and landed at Ellington Field in Houston.)

          2. “And those Texas Republicans didn’t seem to have any effect on NASA’s Dream Chaser decision.”

            Good news for SNC, they are competing in the next round of cargo contracts. IIRC, Boeing got knocked out so its SpaceX, Orbital ATK, and SNS in the running. Dream Chaser has some nice benefits for cargo return, I hope NASA throws them a bone.

      1. Nope. They would have to go to the federal district court in the jurisdiction where the reside or when the contract or injury occurred. Plaintiffs’ lawyers lobbied against it big time.

          1. I love it. The plaintiff bar used and continues to use state courts as a killing field to savage general aviation because they have a local jury pool to choose from. In federal court, the jury pool is chosen from the district the court covers, which in the case of a state like New Hampshire is the entire state.

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