

New Bill Directs NASA Back to the Moon By 2022 - mvs
http://www.popsci.com/technology/article/2011-04/new-bill-directs-nasa-back-moon-2022-permanent-base-mind

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ChuckMcM
I encourage you to write your Congressional representative and rather than
exhort NASA to go to the moon, make it _easy_ for private enterprises to
launch vehicles into space. Export permits? Import permits? I listened to a
talk on Falcon9 at Google where the presenter went into a small bit of the
paperwork that was needed to fly their rockets.

Here was an interesting point. If you were crazy enough to ride in a Dragon
capsule on its first trip, signed a waiver that basically said "I hold
everyone harmless for this crazy act I undertake" and something went wrong and
you died, they could be charged with man slaughter at a minimum and murder at
worst.

So write your representative and suggest that they change the rules to 'will
license' from 'may license'. That simple change means that if a company meets
the published requirements for a space going vessel the FAA is then required
by law to issue them a license to fly it. Combine that with a durable and
quick issue resolution process (where once an issue is resolved it stays
resolved) and people like Elon Musk can be much more aggressive about moving
these programs forward.

