When passengers reach space inside privately owned and operated spacecraft, they do so backed by U.S. government launch licenses that do not include a safety blessing from regulators. A Congress-imposed moratorium, or learning period, prevents FAA'sOffice of Commercial Space Transportation that Wayne Monteith leads from regulating suborbital and orbital human spaceflights until late 2023, but the increasing number of tourism jaunts similar to the one William Shatner and three others took last month aboard a Blue Origin capsule could make the case for ending the learning period much sooner. I spoke with Monteith via Zoom about whether the U.S. can afford to wait.
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