Promethea Invicta

Science Fiction.  The Sovereign Republic of Texas contains a rising star, a company called Helios, a spacefaring enterprise that vertically integrates single-stage-to-orbit (SSTO) transport, mines the lunar regolith for helium-3, and is on the verge of providing nuclear fusion power. But even the break-away state of Texas can hinder commerce with bureaucracy.

We know that Monalisa Foster’s Promethea Invicta is alternate future history because of the space law clues it provides us. In Promethea, the Outer Space Treaty itself, rather than U.S. (or Texas) domestic law, requires strict oversight of each commercial launch and reentry. Apparently, when Texas seceded from the United State sometime in the middle of the 21st century, it obtained UN recognition only by agreeing to abide by all the treaties that the U.S. had already signed. Hence the problems posed by the Outer Space Treaty despite Texas’ status as an independent nation.

The novella is meant for those who yearn for all the opportunities that space offers. It offers us in turn a driven heroine and those who stand against her, all wrapped intriguingly in a tale that mirrors the legend of Prometheus himself. Good stuff.

Like other such tales scrutinized here, the story also offers an opportunity to look closely at all the bureaucratic rules that the book’s heroine fights against. I will, however, stick to our current timeline and universe because it would be too hard to reverse engineer (reverse lawyer? Is that a thing?) what is going on in Promethea’s timeline. One of the big issues that Theia, Promethea’s protagonist, confronts is a requirement that each launch or reentry obtain a permit or approval. The Outer Space Treaty provides the source of this constraint in the fictional timeline. In ours, the Federal Aviation Administration’s regulations can impose such obstacles—but not always.

The FAA.  Does the FAA require a new license or permit for every launch or reentry? The official, legal answer is no, but for some it can. As regular readers of this blog know, under the law passed by Congress anyone launching from the United States, or a U.S. entity launching anywhere in the world, must first obtain an FAA license.

The law Congress passed isn’t big on detail. Instead, Congress delegated the job of filling in the gaps with administrative and actual safety requirements to the Secretary of Transportation, who then delegated the job to the FAA. In this circuitous fashion, Congress tells the FAA to issue licenses and experimental permits.

If you have a big launch vehicle with enough launch history to fill in the blanks for a risk assessment, you apply for an FAA license. A license allows you to charge money for carrying people or cargo. If, on the other hand, you are still in the research and development or testing phase of a reusable suborbital rocket, you might find it easier to apply for an experimental permit. Unfortunately, you don’t get to take compensation for the carriage of people or cargo under a permit. But it’s quicker to get. Quicker by 60 days. Also, you don’t have to have a flight history by which to determine your probability of failure for your risk assessment.

But to return to the topic of whether you need to apply for one of these authorizations every time you want to launch, let’s look first at the license. The FAA offers two types of licenses for a launch. The first is called (at least until next year) a launch operator license, and it lasts for five years. It applies to a particular category of launch vehicles, a particular launch site, and particular categories of payloads. For example, you may launch your Atlas V launch vehicles from the Cape taking up communications satellites as payloads over and over again for five years. You do not need a new license every time. However, if you are a new operator and the FAA wants to get to know you and your rocket, or if you keep changing your rocket, you should probably apply for a launch specific license.   That way, the FAA can look at each of your missions and configurations until it gets to know you, and you will get to apply for a license a lot more frequently.

Think of the launch operator license as a driver’s license. You get your license and you get to go, so long as you remember to file all the other forms required for each launch. A launch specific license is a little more strict than a learner’s permit. You have to tell the DMV—I mean the FAA—all about each of your missions before you go; but if you’re lucky you might get several launches—all called out by mission name in your application—covered by the launch specific license.

Congress tried to make things easier for experimental vehicles.  Congress declared that an experimental permit had to apply to an unlimited number of launches.  51 U.S.C. § 50906(e)(1).   Nonetheless, the FAA limited the length of the permit to a duration of one year. (Taxpayers aren’t the only ones who can find loopholes.) Under the FAA’s logic, you may have an unlimited number of launches within a year. After that, come on back and renew your permit.

SSTO could pose quite the administrative conundrum. You need a license to launch. You need a license to reenter.  Do you need two licenses?  Not according to 14 C.F.R. § 431.9.  A mission license for a reusable launch vehicle such as an SSTO authorizes you to both launch and reenter.

Prometheus.  Does all this come back to Prometheus?  Maybe.  Remember, after Prometheus brought fire to mankind, an eagle came and tore out his liver every day.  Every night he grew a new one.  He had a pretty bad time of it, all things considered.   “The Eagle has landed” probably meant something different for him than for us.

Is applying for FAA approval for each launch or reentry that bad?  Probably not.  It’s not even at the same level of frequency now, but if you had daily launches and had to get a license or permit every day you might start feeling it. If and when we get quick reusability of a launch or reentry vehicle, maybe the FAA should consider moving those operators into the operator or mission license category and not letting them languish too long in the launch or mission specific.