Beginning on September 3, 2019, I published a three-part article, “Solving the Commercial Passenger Spaceflight Puzzle”, in the online The Space Review. The purpose of this article was to address the “puzzle” of why, nearly sixty years after the first human spaceflights, commercial passenger spaceflight to Earth orbit has yet to begin. The limiting factor has been a lack of acceptable safety. Achieving acceptable safety is an engineering responsibility. For aircraft, this is addressed in the engineering principles and practices that deploy aircraft that are airworthy. We now need to do this for commercial spaceliners so that they can routinely, with acceptable safety, transport passengers to and from Earth orbit.
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This paper discusses how to develop a commercial passenger spaceflight industry with acceptable safety. In Part 1, current federal law governing the safety of “spaceflight participants” is discussed along with NASA’s “human-rated” approach to their astronaut safety. A proposal by the International Association for the Advancement of Space Safety for certifying safety, based on NASA’s “human-rated” system, is critiqued. In Part 2, the need for commercial passenger spaceflight systems to be airworthiness certified is explained and why this is not a hindrance to advancing human spaceflight. In Part 3, the Air Force Transatmospheric Vehicle (TAV) concept of a Boeing two-stage-to-orbit system is used to highlight how a commercial passenger spaceflight industry can now be started. The author proposes the creation of a federal port authority to undertake the development of the initial commercial spaceliners and spacelifters.
The full article, in a tablet-friendly format, can be downloaded here.
James Michael (Mike) Snead is an aerospace Professional Engineer in the United States, an Associate Fellow of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA), and a past chair of the AIAA’s Space Logistics Technical Committee. He is the founder and president of the Spacefaring Institute LLC (spacefaringinstitute.net) which is focused on space solar power-generated astroelectricity and the astrologistics infrastructure necessary to enable the spacefaring industrial revolution that will build space solar power energy systems. Mike Snead has been involved in space development since the mid-1980s when he supported the U.S. Air Force Transatmospheric Vehicle (TAV) studies, the National Aerospace Plane program, and the Delta Clipper Experimental (DC-X) project. In 2007, after retiring from civilian employment with the Air Force, he began to study the need for (and politics associated with) undertaking space solar power. Beginning in the late 1980s, he has published numerous papers and articles on various aspects of manned spaceflight, astrologistics, and energy. His technical papers are located at https://www.mikesnead.com and https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Mike-Snead/research. His blog is at: https://spacefaringamerica.com. His eBook, Astroelectricity, can be downloaded for free here. He can be contacted through LinkedIn or through email sent to spacefaringinstitute@gmail.com.