Applications and Petitions: None Answers and Replies: Human Space Flight Requirements for Crew and Space Flight Participants - Comments of Air Line Pilots Association / Association of Space Explorers - USA / Blue Origin / Dii Aerospace Laboratories / International Association of Space Entrepreneurs and the Institute for Space Law and Policy / Knutson & Associates / Paragon Space Development Corporation / Personal Spaceflight Federation / Presda, LLC / Space Adventures / Starchaser Industries Orders and Notices: None Rules and Regulations: None Grant of Petitions: None

	Human Space Flight Requirements for Crew and Space Flight Participants FAA-2005-23449 February 28, 2006 Comments of Air Line Pilots Association, International ALPA considers the U.S. commercial space transportation industry to be in a nascent stage. Accordingly, we believe that extensive substantive comments by ALPA on proposed regulations governing commercial space transportation, at this point in time, would be premature. However, notwithstanding that space flight passenger and flight crew participants are to be informed of the particular risks involved in their flights, we note that other current airspace users must be also assured that a reasonable level of safety can be maintained during the anticipated launches and re-entries. It is proposed in the subject rule that flight crew human factors during safety-critical periods be addressed. ALPA agrees that pilots or flight crew, including any remote operators, acting under this rule should be certificated. One other measure that can assist in ensuring safety of flight for all airspace users is for the FAA to implement reasonable prescriptive duty limits for all commercial flight crews to ensure that fatigue does not play an undue role in introducing human error. We will continue to monitor the relevant dockets with interest, and will commment on developments in the future as appropriate. By: ALPA, Duane Woerth February 27, 2006 Comments of the Association of Space Explorers - USA | Word We believe concise definitions are important because the terms are used to prescribe qualifications and training requirements in section 460.  This definition contains two sentences.  Without the second sentence, the definition would have an entirely different meaning.  We believe that you intend the second sentence to mean if a person is not a flight crew member or a remote operator, then that person is not crew, and we agree with this intent.  We recommend the two sentences be combined into one, to avoid any miss-reading of the definition.  Barring that, we suggest changing the second sentence to read:  “A crew consists only of flight crew and any remote operator”. ASE – USA would also like to comment on a few components of the proposed rule change that impact vehicle design.  These are in the areas of the Environmental Control System and cabin pressurization. By: Board of Directors February 27, 2006 Comments of Blue Origin We suggest the proposed rule be revised to clarify that: “control” means actual, hands-on piloting (navigation and control) of the vehicle, rather than merely being in the chain-of-command; and control of a “flight path” does not include initiating a launch or an abort of a launch-in-progress. We suggest that the FAA clarify (either in the regulation itself or comments) that “control” can include passive measures and/or harnessing the basic laws of physics, rather than active instrumentation. The goal of these suggestions is that Operators be allowed to develop simpler, more reliable, passive methods of maintaining environment tailored to the maximum possible duration of a flight. We suggest that FAA publish a comprehensive safety record of all launch and reentry vehicles, which it periodically updates, and that Operators be required to provide each space flight participant with the official FAA publication. It will be difficult for Operators to gather comprehensive data on all launch and reentry vehicles; FAA has better access to this information. Also, different Operators are likely to gather slightly different data, which could spawn needless litigation over differences of tertiary impact to informed consent. We suggest FAA not set up such a likely result in the regulations, but instead publish a comprehensive list that all Operators can use for informing space flight participants. By: Robert Millman February 27, 2006 Comments of Dii Aerospace Laboratories | Word As currently written, this document read as a “wait-and-see” and “case-by-case” basis approach. A “base-line” needs to be established based on Best Practices and Lessons Learned from decades of known experiences and issues of Commercial Flights, USA Military Flight Standards and NASA which has direct correlations to Civilian Space Pilots & Crews and Civilian Space Passenger. Establish a “Blue Ribbon Panel of Experts” for reviews and recommendations. The Blue Ribbon Panel could include Federal Government, State (Space Port) Government, Local City Government, University scholars, Space Industry Experts, Flight Operators Companies, Manufactures of Vehicles and Manufacturers of Space Equipment as well as Civilians, on a Panel that can review existing data on Human Space Training. Inclusion of known experiences and issues in the FAA document would off-set a possible post future accident situation, which would likely describe anyone involved in Civilian Space Travel Industry as grossly negligent, while the media would likely use phrases such as a lack of fiduciary responsibilities by government and industry, at a level likely to be characterized as morally and ethically bankrupt with regards to the requirements for the civilians and crews participants in the commercialization of private space travel. All governmental agencies resources should be used from the outset to ensure the safety of civilian space passenger and flight crews into space. By: Marshall Gardner February 27, 2006 Joint Comments of the International Association of Space Entrepreneurs and the Institute for Space Law and Policy | Word We reiterate our overall recommendations that the FAA (1) regulate only where essential to achieving the goals of the Act, and where there exists a sufficient basis of experience for regulation; (2) carefully consider the costs to entrepreneurs of each regulation it seeks to impose; and (3) evaluate the precedential effect of any regulations it promulgates at this time. In addition to the other suggestions raised above, IASE and ISLAP also encourage the FAA to pay special attention, in issuing final version of regulations proposed in the NPRM and in the course of issuing future regulations, how regulations drafted primarily in consideration of suborbital human space flight might apply to the eventual development of an orbital human space flight industry.  Such development is the next logical step in the process “of safely opening space to the American people,” and should be considered carefully at all times by the FAA. By: IASE - Jim Schulz, ISLP - Berin Szoka February 27, 2006 Comments of Knutson & Associates Initially, this firm through the undersigned writer, had the pleasure of addressing the attendants of the 9th Annual FAA Commercial Space Transportation Conference earlier this month. As a result of that participation, it became fairly clear that there seems to be some misunderstanding of the “effect” of an operator who gives a potential space passenger “informed consent.” For this reason, and a few others regarding my own expertise in adventure sports risk management, I am commenting on some of the language in the proposed rules and the general discussion. By: Tracey Knutson, 907-264-6610, tracey.knutsonlaw@alaska.net February 27, 2006 Comments of Paragon Space Development Corporation | Word Environmental Control and Life Support Systems Smoke Detection and Fire Suppression Verification Program Training Device Fidelity By: Taber MacCallum February 27, 2006 Comments of Personal Spaceflight Federation The definition of “crew” needs to be amended so that non-safety-critical flight crew do not require inappropriate medical certification, and alternate means of compliance must be allowed; Unnecessary regulations for environmental control need to be removed. At a minimum, refinement is necessary so that systems which do not need both active monitoring and control are not required to be both monitored and controlled; The requisite language of the crew informed consent should be provided by the Federation in conjunction with the FAA and should be published by the FAA; Remote operator qualifications must be modified to remove the requirement for a pilot’s license or instrument certification, and alternate means of compliance for all other requirements must be allowed; The list of human vehicle accidents must be published by the FAA; and The proposed language concerning vehicle specific safety records must be reworded to substitute the term “accident” in the place of “failure” or “anomaly”, clarified to restrict this disclosure for the Vehicle Verification and Commercial Operations phases only, and refined to remove the disclosure requirement for information of accidents occurring on the ground. The Federation also urges the FAA to consider the ITAR ramifications of any proposed requirement for describing any corrective actions taken to space flight participants. By: Michael Kelly February 27, 2006 Comments of Presda, LLC Predesa, LLC, provides systems engineering, systems safety engineering and systems/software certification services support to aviation and aerospace clients in the United States. Predesa offers observations and comments on the NRPM content in the context of its experience with complex avionics systems analysis, design and specification, and the safety analysis, failure analysis and verification/validation activities associated therewith. By: John Malley February 27, 2006 Comments of Space Adventures | Word Space Adventures recommends that the FAA perform a thorough term-by-term review in the NPRM for the terms “crew” and “flight crew.”  Space Adventures believes that the words may have been inadvertently interchanged in some areas of the preamble and regulation text. Space Adventures believes that a commercial launch site’s property should also fall under the higher 1X10-5 threshold.  Further, Space Adventures also believes it is reasonable to extend the 1X10-5 threshold to all other property located on a commercial launch site.  Any reasonable potential tenant would understand that there is increased risk when locating their property on an existing commercial launch site which supports launch activities.  For existing airports that request a launch site license, the existing tenants would be informed of the increased risk associated with their airport applying for a launch site license (parts of the launch site application review include a public hearing).  Additionally, Space Adventures believes that the economic impact to the launch vehicle operators of the FAA moving to the increased property loss threshold is greater than the potential economic impact to the tenants at commercial launch sites of exposure to additional risk. Space Adventures notes that it has sent three space flight participants to the International Space Station since 2001 with additional orbital space flight participants currently in training.  Space Adventures assumes that the FAA intended to say “…orbital commercial human space flight using non-government launch vehicles…” By: Pat Hoar February 27, 2006 Comments of Starchaser Industries In parts of the proposed rulemaking, the word ‘range’ appears without being properly defined. Starchaser recommends that this word be changed to recognize that manned spaceflights are not the express and exclusive domain of the US Government agencies at US Government sites. Starchaser offers the suggestion to eliminate the term ‘pilot’ from the regulation and use another term that is more applicable to contemporary space operations such as ‘Flight Commander’. Starchaser is concerned about the vague nature of the requirement for verification through flight testing, “The FAA will initially determine the amount of verification and, specifically, flight testing of launch or reentry vehicles on a case-by-case basis through the licensing or permitting process.” This requirement is open to a great deal of subjective judgment and potential manipulation as stated. Starchaser recommends a reliability requirement be generated as well as an algorithm for its calculation. By: Richard Kestner Index