I am the author of the essay, 'Explosions Are Great, Actually.' https://1517.substack.com/p/explosions-are-great-actually My essay argues that the starship test flight and it's destruction were great signs of an attitude that we should embrace. But in the middle I point out,

> But getting the golden mixture of sanity, knowledge, and craziness right is critically important. It is the same as rocket fuel, the wrong mixture mixed in the wrong proportions will blow up in your face. It is critically important that craziness is *never* mixed with stupidity, or you end up in the desert running away from carelessly handled UDMH and NTO.

I say all this to point out; this could be broadly good but it could cross the border into stupidity depending on how the lawyers stretch/define it. You can read the full text of the bill here, https://www.flsenate.gov/Session/Bill/2023/1318/BillText/er/...

Here's the good, it explicitly allows someone cognizant of the risks of being an astronaut to risk their lives knowingly in the participation of spaceflight.

Here's the bad, there are three cases where the company is liable, based on the bill's final text,

49 1. Commits an act or omission that constitutes gross
50 negligence or willful or wanton disregard for the safety of the
51 participant or crew, which and act or omission proximately
52 causes injury, damage, or death to the participant or crew;
53 2. Has actual knowledge of
54 an extraordinarily a dangerous condition that is not inherent in
55 [deleted]
56 spaceflight activities and the danger proximately causes injury,
57 damage, or death to the participant or crew; or
58 3. Intentionally injures the participant or crew.

First observation, under this definition, NASA would have been liable for the loss of both Challenger and Columbia, which is a good thing. But my second observation is that it narrows the definition of liability and what constitutes negligence. Under the very obvious caveat that I am not a lawyer, the inclusion of, say, Solid Rocket Boosters into a spacecraft's design despite ample warnings that doing so would be incredibly dangerous isn't something an entity would be liable for even if those same SRBs (hypothetically) cause LoC (Loss of Crew) during a chilly morning; provided of course that they hadn't been warned in a conference call the day/night before. At least based on my reading.

It seems that a lot hinges on the words proximately. And depending on how it is interpreted, in my extremely not-a-lawyer opinion, it may remove too much liability away from a private space company.

There should be limits to the liability placed, but there's a delicate balancing act here and I'm unsure how far down the side of the space company this comes down on. For example, if there is a Company X that builds a Space Transport System with Solid Rocket Boosters that does not have an abort mode and they push that out into production... If they are not the proximate cause of a disaster that occurs (it's a freak accident of some kind that triggers disintegration) BUT the lack of an abort mode is what causes the actual LoC, would they be held liable?

I think that they should be. The necessity for abort modes has been apparent since Day 0 of spaceflight and lacking such an essential operational feature is indefensible. On LoC, those who made that decision to forego an abort feature should be held liable in this case.

Expanding the example, if there is an abort mode, and due to a combination of extremely rare circumstances (subcontractor malfeasance), it fails to function during an emergency, then the spaceflight company (in my eyes) should ideally not be held liable for LoC.

This law could be either extremely reasonable and allow willing people (such as myself) to take these risks, or push us down a very dark path depending on how it unfolds.