[AR] Re: Back in business.
- From: "Ian M. Garcia" <ian@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: "arocket@xxxxxxxxxxxxx" <arocket@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Fri, 1 Oct 2021 13:56:43 +0000
I admit I haven't been following VG closely, but their FAA violation seemed
accidental to me. However, didn't SpaceX and SWARM openly and knowingly break
the law in the cases Ben mentions?
Ian
--
Ian M Garcia
________________________________
From: arocket-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx <arocket-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> on behalf of
Norman Yarvin <yarvin@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Friday, October 1, 2021 9:47 AM
To: arocket@xxxxxxxxxxxxx <arocket@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: [AR] Re: Back in business.
On Fri, Oct 01, 2021 at 11:46:44AM +0300, Ben Brockert wrote:
SpaceX and VG have tested it and the lesson appears to be that you can
ignore the FAA and things will be fine. It was not the result I would
have guessed. Companies will adjust how they operate as a result.
If you expected them to do the usual captured-regulator thing and come
down extra hard on anyone who dares innovate and pose a competitive
risk to established business models -- well, there aren't any
established businesses yet in suborbital joyrides, so that doesn't
apply.
Or if you expected them to show genuine technical insight into the
problem, knowing it better than the company's own engineers do, and
correcting them before a disaster, as a matter of protecting the
public: why would you expect them to be superhuman, either in ability
or in morality?
Personally I do expect the suborbital joyride business to end after
they dig corpses of crew and passengers out of a smoking hole and
other prospective passengers decide that six minutes of zero-G just
aren't worth the risk. But even if regulators were of my opinion, why
would they preemptively try to save people from that? What does a
bunch of rich dead fools matter to them? They can't _voice_ such
uncaringness, but they can have it privately. When people die, it
provides a great argument for regulatory empire-building, which is
where bureaucrats' personal incentives are.
Even with the best of intentions, trying to figure out the best level
of safety process is difficult even for people who are on the scene
every day and can keep track of all the dangerous screwups that got
caught in time. For remote regulators it's nearly impossible. So
it's perhaps inevitable for any big innovation to have a death toll:
even people who can correctly predict such events usually need to have
an actual event to point to, for others to believe them and agree that
rules are necessary. What you can say after the fact is that the
innovation was worth it. I don't believe that's the case here;
suborbital joyrides don't actually seem worth it. But there's a fair
chance I'm wrong and the business will survive the smoking holes
(while supporting the growth of a regulatory empire).
Swarm demonstrated that violating FCC rules is slightly more
treacherous in that they will fine you, but that is the same as saying
that you can ignore them for a price. Afterward they will still
approve your subsequent plans.
You'd prefer they were vindictive? "You defied me! You must be
destroyed!"
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