Slashdot has an interesting story on a group of amateur rocket scientists wanting the FAA to cut the red tape that prevents private suborbital flights. One of the issues keeping private space groups like John Carmack’s Armadillo Aerospace and Dick Rutan’s Scaled Composites on the ground is a mishmash of regulatory environments that make approvals for suborbital flights nearly impossible.
With NASA foundering and unable to meet critical deadlines safely, the real future of manned exploration lies with these new pioneers – unfortunately it may be more a matter of red tape than gravity that keeps them earthbound.
