Holman Jenkins has a column in today’s WSJ about the launch legislation being held up in the Senate (link may be subscription only–I’m not sure). With the title, “The ‘Final Frontier’ May Be a Senate Waste Basket,” he’s clearly not impressed with that body. He makes an analogy with what happened to the general aviation industry in the eighties (in which it almost went under from fear of lawsuits and costs of insurance), that was only revived in the nineties by farsighted legislation limiting liability for aircraft makers. He also asks an interesting question, that I’ve been wondering about as well:

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.

My guess is that Branson is taking his cue from Burt, who wishes that AST would dry up and blow away. He wants to be regulated by AVR. He should be careful what he wishes for.