The budding personal space travel industry anticipates progress on a number of fronts in 2007, including favorable U.S. regulatory decisions, the availability of affordable insurance, new spaceport developments and increased testing of new spaceship designs.

While noting the progress 2007 is expected to bring, the head of the newly formed Personal Spaceflight Federation says the industry is still at the starting gate.

“We’re still in the developing capabilities phase,” said Bretton Alexander, vice president of corporate and external affairs at Transformational Space Corp. and the first president of Washington-based PSF.

PSF is an industry alliance of more than a dozen businesses and organizations engaged in commercial human spaceflight. The organization was created to address regulatory, legislative and policy issues facing the industry, Alexander said.

PSF members include spaceship developers and operators, spaceports, space destination and transportation agents. The list of companies involved in the industry include Bigelow Aerospace, a manufacturer of expandable spacecraft, as well as rocket and spacecraft developers such as Space Exploration Technologies, SpaceDev, Rocketplane-Kistler and XCOR Aerospace.

Within the next few months the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration’s Office of Commercial Space Transportation is expected to issue its final rules for the licenses that commercial suborbital spacecraft owners will need in order to conduct checkout and flight verification missions.

One part of the FAA rulemaking is designed to protect the safety of members of the public who are not involved in private space travel operations. Another part of the new rulemaking will contain regulations designed to ensure that passengers — called “Space Flight Participants” in FAA documents—are able to make informed decisions about their personal safety before boarding private spaceliners.

Insurance and liability

Slide show   Month in Space: Sky highlights Feast your eyes on eclipses, northern lights and other out-of-this-world sights from August 2008. more photos

John Gedmark, PSF’s executive director, foresees continued research and development activity on a number of vehicles and spaceports throughout the year.

“We anticipate these activities will lead to vigorous flight testing in the following year, with the first commercial suborbital passenger flights taking place in 2009,” Gedmark said.

But Alexander said there would be important areas that are not addressed in the new FAA regulations, particularly issues of insurance and liability.

“That’s where the industry and particularly the federation are going to spend a lot of its efforts. We want to make sure insurance is available, that it’s affordable and that [the industry] can withstand an accident — that is likely to happen sometime in the first few years of this activity,” Alexander told Space News.

One issue still to be worked out is a standard cross waiver of liability, Alexander said. Cross waivers of liability such as those that exist for expendable launch vehicle missions and space shuttle and space station activities provide some protection from lawsuits to companies and individuals involved in the specified activity.

The PSF also is focused on getting the FAA to come up with a workable definition of “informed consent,” that will apply to future commercial space passengers who will be asked to sign liability waivers acknowledging the risks involved in commercial spaceflight, Alexander said. “You’ve got to regulate for safety, but you must get informed consent from passengers. What is the standard for informed?”

MORE FROM TODAY

Today Section Front

Ramadan's memorable recipes, traditions   Breaking Ramadan's fast in Ramallah   5 tips to forestall a foreclosure One unique man's slices of 'America' Ambush! Lymphoma survivor gets new look Closet-eater shapes up, sheds 100 lbs. Joy Fit Club transformations It’s back-to-school time for bedbugs Young baseball fan falls from stands Tracing your own family roots Today Section Front   Add Today headlines to your news reader: