"Must be a US citizen – compliant with ITAR (22 CFR §120.15)"
I was always sad about NASA's "US Citizens Only" policy for astronauts. I had hoped that commercial spaceflight would change this, but apparently not.
(Not that I meet many of the other requirements for the job, mind you. I'm guessing most of the recruits will be former NASA astronauts, at least at first... there's enough of 'em around, and they'd be good for publicity.)
You should assume that ITAR is completely random and non-sensical in what it restricts. My spouse used to design power systems for civilian communications satellites and because of ITAR was forbidden from showing her client, a South Korean telecom company, an analysis indicating that the satellite they had purchased would not run out of power during its lifespan. The reason that ITAR came into play? The analysis involved calculating the satellite's orbital trajectory and eclipse schedule, and such information cannot be shared with foreign nationals under ITAR. What if the Chinese found out? They've only been predicting eclipses for a few centuries (millenia?) after all....
ETA: Technically ITAR shouldn't cover stuff like that, but in practice, the attorneys at my spouse's employers felt very strongly that it forbade disclosure.
> The analysis involved calculating the satellite's orbital trajectory and eclipse schedule, and such information cannot be shared with foreign nationals under ITAR.
Kepler was a foreign national. I think the cat's out of the bag on that one.
It's about access to technology: SpaceShip 2 includes a lot of technology which can be used to build less benign things like ICBMs. In order to fly it, you need to understand the systems. They can only teach you the systems if you have a proper security clearance, which you can only get (in this case) if you are a U.S. citizen.
I had the opportunity to tour Scaled Composites about a year ago. None of their astronauts were former NASA astronauts. All of them were former test pilots, mostly (but not exclusively) military. However, they were also in the process of growing their own: with the exception of the former test pilots, most of the engineers working on the design were young. Many of these young engineers were also private pilots, and some of them were just as proficient at flying the SpaceShip 2 simulator as were the astronauts. They also have the advantage of being very familiar with the system. I'd be willing to bet that some of them will cross over to Virgin Galactic as operational flights get closer.
I know that non-citizens can train in the SS2 simulator...so to say they can only teach you the systems if you have proper security clearance isn't necessarily correct. They just can't operate it.
How did you arrange the Scaled tour? Would love to do that at some point.
They can teach you some of the systems, but not everything you need to know to operate it safely and effectively. For example, the details of the propulsion system are probably off-limits.
There's a huge difference between being able to operate the systems on a complex aircraft (or spacecraft, in this case), and knowing the systems well enough to be able to handle emergencies effectively. The former just requires you to have a basic understanding of which controls do what, the latter requires you to have a deep understanding of the guts (both hardware and software) behind the panel so that you can troubleshoot effectively. To give one example, I would imagine that the details of space navigation systems are also off-limits (you could use such knowledge to build an ICBM guidance system), so you could teach people the basics of using the nav system on a space ship, but they would probably need security clearances before you could teach them how the nav system works under the hood. Going back to the propulsion system example, you could give anybody a basic explanation of how it works, but security clearances would probably be required for the level of understanding a pilot would need in case of emergencies.
The main concern driving these restrictions is proliferation. Just letting someone operate it is not a significant proliferation risk--you just have to vett the individual well enough to be sure he won't try to land it in Mexico.
Similarly, using it as a suicide weapon is also a minor concern because similar thorough vetting will weed out anyone inclined to deliberately crash it into a major population center.
Proliferation is much tougher to control, because once a foreign national returns to his home country, we have no recourse if he decides to start sharing what he learned. It's easy to screen out people who would do extreme things like steal a space ship or use it as a suicide weapon, much harder to be sure that someone will keep unenforceable promises not to tell secrets.
The tour was arranged for a group of students, myself among them. Some of my classmates were foreign nationals and they weren't allowed to come.
I learned the other day that this is because technically ITAR classifies SpaceShip2 as a missile.
Because they've never dealt with a private spacecraft like this before, they haven't developed a specific set of regulations for a private spacecraft. This also means they have to be very careful about who can take pictures of the interior, etc.
ITAR basically sets the restrictions for who can use things that are on the Munitions List. That includes rockets, satellites, sensitive data etc. That's in addition to the usual missiles and bombs and whatnot.
I know in WW2 they tested pigeons and chickens. It really doesn't put you in an esteemed class if you're classified as a missile pilot; I mean astronauts had chimps, that's cool. Chickens? Not so much.
I would expect the most common applicant would be someone with some number of years as a military or civilian test pilot.
On a more startupery/hackerish note have folks been brainstorming what sort of business opportunities there are going to be in a world with space tourists? Clearly souvenir barf bags (joking) but more seriously, perhaps one-off altitude tracking devices, an iPhone app that tells you when you are "in space" or not "in space", an eligible singles who can afford to spend the afternoon visiting space kind of thing.
People will eventually be spending more time in orbit, are there applications there? Zero-g 'flicks' when holding your iPad to make it to do things like move to the next page.
Exactly, I know a guy, Dr. Mark Sheppard, who has been working his whole life to be an astronaut. He has (5) degrees so far is a trauma surgeon (or something) and is in the airforce.
It is REALLY hard to become an astronaut -- so I sent this to him as it might be a great alternative.
Doesn't say anything there about customers needing to be citizens. Obvious next step is to go make a fortune so you can spend a chunk of it as a passenger.
Well given the shuttle program is coming to an end, there would probably be a far better short term outlook for those astronauts in a position like this. Is NASA keeping all it's astronauts or downsizing given the limited opportunities of the next few years.
Very few. But I can easily imagine that a lot of the retired military test pilots and retired astronauts out there would be very happy to take this job. And it's not like they need to hire many... they could probably get away with three (one to fly White Knight, one to fly Spaceship Two, and one spare).
"Must be a US citizen – compliant with ITAR (22 CFR §120.15)"
I was always sad about NASA's "US Citizens Only" policy for astronauts. I had hoped that commercial spaceflight would change this, but apparently not.
(Not that I meet many of the other requirements for the job, mind you. I'm guessing most of the recruits will be former NASA astronauts, at least at first... there's enough of 'em around, and they'd be good for publicity.)