"Frying Pan Tower fractional ownership?"
Perhaps? I do know it cost millions to decommission rigs. What we need
is some government support that would allow the decommissioning to be
released to a non-profit. One that could afford insurance and
decommissioning in the future or allow the oil company to get a break
for allowing a non-profit to lease and maintain a platform until
decommissioning.
We would need a few high level people to actually care is really all.
It makes sense in a lot of ways. The only issue that needs to be worked
out is decommissioning because that's what everyone really cares about.
Monroe
-------- Original Message --------
Subject: [AR] Re: FAA licencing a 20 mi offshore launch.
From: DH Barr <dhbarr@xxxxxxxxx>
Date: Mon, March 11, 2019 11:22 pm
To: arocket@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Frying Pan Tower fractional ownership?
On Tue, Mar 12, 2019, 12:52 AM Monroe L. King Jr. <monroe@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
wrote:
Moderate seas are about 8ft with 80% of the highest swells being 22ft in
rough seas. The nominal sea would be 4ft.
I would suggest you do some nominal rocket launches using large solids
to gain some experience with the FAA and sea launches.
Run some drills using a spar buoy in a bay or any calm body of water.
Mockup and just attempt your launch procedure.
You need to have some sea dogs on your team can't all be landlubbers.
(owning a yacht does not qualify anyone to be a sea dog) I'm talking
about men that work on the ocean every day.
It's very easy to use https://skyvector.com/ and see the flight paths
and vectors used by commercial aircraft. The sectional charts will
include everything such as military restrictions.
I would avoid working with the Navy under all circumstances if you
intend to do commercial launches.
That 12 mile rule was invented so gambling ships could make money. I
would not count on that to fly with the FAA. Last time a checked the
real line was 75 miles to reach international waters but I'm sure that
has changed by now. I believe they stagger several lines with different
rules. I'm not current with what they are.
I recently checked on the launch radius and it was the number of persons
within 50 miles. For insurance purposes.
I really wish an amateur group could obtain use of an offshore rig for
the purpose of facilitating and accommodating startups in the space
industry. I think that would be the ideal scenario. I'd be willing to
put a lot of time in on a project like that.
Good luck!
Monroe
-------- Original Message --------of
Subject: [AR] Re: FAA licencing a 20 mi offshore launch.
From: David Summers <dvidsum@xxxxxxxxx>
Date: Mon, March 11, 2019 6:52 pm
To: snyder@xxxxxxxxxx
Cc: arocket <arocket@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
As Henry mentioned, no matter what you need to involve the FAA-AST. We
haven't gotten deep into discussions yet, so take all this with a grain
salt. We also started under the assumptions of a launch from an existingnot
range (someone else was going to pay for that, so why not), so we already
had a lot of the work done.
1. We are beyond the control of air traffic control officially.
Unofficially, we will obviously need to issue NOTAMS, etc. There aren't
that many flights to the south of the big island, though. (Only French
Polynesia)
2. I have yet to experience the joy of the environmental impact study...
3. Range safety is a lot easier when you launch 20 miles from anyone, and
aim away from everyone! The monte carlo simulation says that we meet the
legal requirements without even a way to shut the engine down! (We are
doing that, of course. We have manual and automatic abort methods.)is
4. We aren't exporting, as long as we don't land anywhere else. The ship
a floating chunk of US Territory.out
5. The FCC also claims jurisdiction even in international waters, so we
still have to comply with the rules.
Keeping launch platforms stable is actually fairly straightforward - you
use a spar bouy. It really helps to have a small and light vehicle for
that, though! Right now, we are planning on 15 ft waves. We can likely
handle bigger if needed, but I'm not sure I want to be on a boat to get
there in 15 ft waves, even if the platform handles it OK. (Maybe if wein
involve the Navy - I understand they have a few vessels that don't sway
Pearl)south
Thanks!
-David Summers
On Mon, Mar 11, 2019 at 12:34 PM <snyder@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
David,
I am Curious on how the FAA licensing is going.
Since you are well beyond the 12 mile limit,
(but inside the 200 mi exclusive economic zone) I am wondering
how much easier that might be than being closer to shore or at
a conventional launch range.
I had heard a quote from the FAA that they didn't really have much
jurisdiction beyond 12 miles, but that may have been just in
air traffic control.
ATC ?
Environmental impact ?
Range safety ?
Export controls ?
Is it general FAA or the "Office" ?
Oddly enough, our satellite had big problems with the FCC, who
gives out , much delayed and crippled, licenses for satellite
launches. And sometime the radios on board.
Thanks for any information, and I understand if there are
proprietary limitations to what you can say.
-Gary.
PS: I suppose a comment on the waves and Swells and keeping
you launch platform stable would be interesting also.
From: David Summers <dvidsum@xxxxxxxxx>
Date: Fri, 8 Mar 2019 15:09:30 -0600
Subject: [AR] Re: What makes a useful launch vehicle?
Because of FAA licensing, we have just one launch point, 20 miles
of
the big island of Hawaii, in international waters. I'm going to beliving
there anyway, might as well launch there!water.
Eventually, we will likely be able to launch from any large body of
-David