Space Tourism - A Viable Industry?

You could say that if the birth of spaceflight had a date it would be April 28, 2001. On that date Dennis Tito became the world’s first space tourist, which he had paid $20 million dollars for a ticket to the international space station (Wall, 2011). Since that date there has been 6 more space tourists that have gone through different agencies and paid different prices for their flights (Wall, 2011). One of the biggest hurdles for space tourism is obviously the cost, if the cost can be lowered drastically then the use of space tourism could be great. An accomplishment that could be a result of space tourism is the development of hypersonic travel (Hollingham, 2014).

As far as rules and regulations go toward space tourism, they are very lax outside of the training that a passenger must undergo to be on the flight. They are basically getting written consent from the passenger letting them know that there is a risk. The flight crew on the other hand must have the proper training to take care of the passengers during space flight and must also be certified to fly the spacecraft (Superville, 2005). These rules and regulations were developed in 2005 due to the increased talk of developing space tourism as an actual attraction (Superville, 2005). I think that there needs to be much more restriction in this new industry. It seems as thought the government has passed the situation into the hands of the FAA and they are going to look at it from a reactive approach. The FAA won’t make a rule or regulation until something almost goes wrong or something does go wrong and many people are killed in the process.

I think space tourism will take off very quickly once a stable spacecraft can be developed. I don’t think that the general public will be able to touch space tourism until at least 10 years from now, and even then it would be equivalent in price to taking a three week long trip to tour Europe. Once the FAA can manage it properly I think that it will turn into a commercial type venture, as in it will be a fast yet more expensive way to travel. There could also be extended trips into space, which could be considered a one-time “bucket list” adventure.

The qualifications from a management position to work in the space tourism industry are basic understandings of knowing how to run a lucrative business (Livingston, 2001). Also knowing how to handle your finances and making the proper business adjustments to changing economy. The qualifications from a pilot’s point of view are that they must have a pilot’s license, and be trained up to the rules and regulations set forth by the FAA governing space tourism.

References

Wall, M. (2011). First space tourist: How a U.S. millionaire bought a ticket to orbit. Space.com. Retrieved from http://www.space.com/11492-space-tourism-pioneer-dennis-tito.html

Hollingham, R. (2014, April 8). Six reasons why space tourism matters. BBC. Retrieved from http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20140408-six-reasons-space-tourism-matters

Superville, D. (2005, December 30). Gov't issues proposed space tourism rules. Associated Press. Retrieved from http://www.space.com/1904-gov-issues-proposed-space-tourism-rules.html

Livingston, D. (2001, August 26). Space tourism after Dennis Tito. Space Future. Retrieved from http://www.spacefuture.com/archive/space_tourism_after_dennis_tito.shtml

Pilots and Depressions - Trend or Isolated Incident?

On March, 24^th co-pilot Andreas Lubitz, when on a standard flight from Barcelona to Duesseldorf, crashed an Airbus A320 into the French Alps. This was caused by an early decent made by the co-pilot prior to locking the captain out of the cockpit while he had left for the bathroom. Lubitz, who deliberately crashed the plane into the French Alps, was in therapy for suicidal tendencies before getting his pilot's license, Germany's state prosecutor has told Press Association (Sawer, Montabau, & Akkoc, 2015). It ‘s hard to tell if there were any issues that were a result of his mental condition but the cause may have been the fact that his girlfriend that he had lived with had broken up with him recently and he had a deteriorating eye condition that could have caused him to lose his job (Sawer et al., 2015).

In another case, a plane crash in Mozambique in 2013 killed all 33 people on board, was intentionally crashed by the pilot (Capon, 2015). The same situation that had happened to the Germanwings happened here, except the roles had been reversed. The co-pilot had left the cockpit to go to the bathroom and was locked out by the captain. The pilot had been "very depressed" in the months leading to the crash, due to marital problems (Capon, 2015).

Pilots only undergo their normal physical each year or twice in a year depending on their age. A mental screening is done, but it is not done in a professional manor so it is hard for some mental illnesses to be caught by the physician administering the test. I personally do not think that this is a good enough method to test for such illnesses, I feel that there is a need for reform. There should be mandatory mental health screening for every ATP rated pilot, and should be done by a properly licensed professional. These screenings should be done each time a pilot has a physical for the pilot to stay current.

Obviously there will be challenges for the FAA and airlines to implement this much attention to a pilot’s mental health. There would be additional costs for airlines to pay for these licensed professionals to screen or even treat a pilot’s mental health. The FAA would need to create a certification for physiatrists deeming them suitable to properly screen pilots for mental illnesses. In the long run it would make it easier to catch these illnesses before they become another sad news story on television.

References

Sawer, P., Montabau, & Akkoc, R. (2015, May 6). Andreas Lubitz: everything we know about germanwings plane crash co-pilot. The Telegraph. Retrieved from http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/ worldnews/europe/france/11496066/Andreas-Lubitz-Everything-we-know-about-Germanwings-plane-crash-co-pilot.html

Capon, F. (2015, March 27). ‘Murder-suicide’ plane crashes have killed over 600. Newsweek. Retrieved from http://europe.newsweek.com/ murder-suicide-plane-crashes-have-killed-over-600-317236

Personal Introduction

1) Background - how/when did your interest in aviation begin?

It began at the end of my freshman year here at Eastern. I had heard about the program from a couple of friends I had in athletics at Eastern. I took my first flight and fell in love with flying.

2) Current status - what major and when do you graduate?

I am a flight tech major, and I plan on graduating December of next year.

3) Future plans - you must address this specifically. Points will be deducted for answers such as "I will fly anything for anyone".  A more appropriate answer would be something like "I will flight instructor and then would like to fly for Express Jet. Upon upgrading to captain at Express Jet, I would eventually like to retire from Southwest Airlines.". I realize that many of you may not have this narrowed down at this point. That's okay. Just write something specifically. Research shows that having a specific goal provides more motivation and success than non-specific goals, even if the specific goal stated does not end up coming to fruition. You will look at this goal again at the end of the semester and comment about if your original goal has changed and if so, for what reasons.

I plan on becoming a flight instructor here at Eastern to build a lot more hours. After flight instructing for a few years I will then move to a regional air carrier, I haven’t done much research on the smaller regional airlines. The name that keeps coming up for regional air carriers is Express Jet, which is where I would most likely go for. Once I reach captain and I feel more confident to move forward I plan on moving to Delta Airlines to fly 747’s provided that Delta is still using them.

4) As stated, this course is comprised of two parts - career development (which will include a series of guest speakers) and current topic discussions. Please state if there are some specific areas that you would like to be represented by guest speakers. Please address this even if that particular type of guest speaker is already listed in the syllabus. If there is a lot if interest in one or more particular areas, I may try to secure multiple speakers in that area. I would also like you to list at least two areas of current aviation topics that may be of interest to you. Although I have laid out several topics in the syllabus, I am flexible about changing them in order to meet your interests.

A specific area I would like to be addressed by the speakers would have to be the resume and initial hiring aspect. If we could see a relatively new recruit to an airline I would much like to hear about what they had to go through to get hired at said airline.

As for potential topics one would be how a pilot can maintain a healthy lifestyle, while being gone for long periods of time with limited rest. Another topic that I would be interested in is the lack of training found in overseas pilots and how it correlates with an increase of accidents.