GAO on Federal Liability Risk for Commercial Launches
GAO: Commercial Space Launches: FAA Should Update How It Assesses Federal Liability Risk
“According to studies, the United States provides less commercial space launch indemnification for third party losses than China, France, and Russia. These countries put no limit on the amount of government indemnification coverage, which in the United States is limited by the Commercial Space Launch Act Amendments of 1988 (CSLAA). Governments’ commitments to pay have never been tested because there has not been a third party claim that exceeded a private launch company’s insurance.”
Spacex is safe.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id…
This is one of those things that I think should have been nailed down long ago, with a game plan for regular review and revision, instead of being on the brink of expiring. In an industry where providers must think long term and get as good a handle as possible on long-term costs, here is yet another impediment to accurate cost and schedule determination, brought about because government agencies are so slow to respond; and in fact, respond is all they do; they seldom seem to anticipate needs ahead of time.
The one and only thing that everybody has agreed on for years is the absolute need for reduction of launch costs. We’ve had some progress, in the US most noticeably through SpaceX, but this indemnity insurance issue is just one more thing that makes it seem like we keep going one step forward (technical) and two steps back (non-technical).
This is yet another example of overlooking something that is absolutely essential. It strengthens my insistence even more that we are suffering because we are blundering ahead, operating without an overall master plan for space. This is something I’ve rattled on about here before, and will almost certainly continue to do in the future. I’m not talking about an ungainly mega-program, but a PLAN; a plan which lays out ALL of the requirements for dealing with space, and their interdependencies in time, technology and availability, so that a time line of mutually supportive space programs, done in the correct order, can be laid out and facilitated, with the maximum of efficiency and effectiveness, and at a minimum cost. We can do space right, or we can continually restart it, over and over again for ever, without accumulating much in the way of progress. Pick one.
Steve
The Outer Space Treaty (1967), if I recall off the top of my head, places all liability for damages caused in traveling to and from Earth’s surface by citizens of signatory nations on the governments of those nations (regardless of where such ingress and egress begins or ends, anywhere on Earth). I’ve hoped such issues wouldn’t enter the discussion until one or more of the new actors actually had a mishap, and then from the U.N. or some other earthbound entity “filed a claim,” so to speak. I suppose it shouldn’t surprise anyone that GAO would raise such a flag. At least they didn’t try to strangle the baby in the cradle before the recent successful SpaceX mission.
But regardless of any limits on liability set by Congress, I think the Treaty simply sets federal liability at unlimited by default.
Should start an interesting conversation…