I believe the space tourism industry is one that is solidly viable and is only being held up by heavy economic stipulations involved with new spacecraft and attention to the highest level of safety possible. Currently, we are lacking vehicles that are both economical to operate and reliable enough to lend confidence to public tourists (Bekey, 1998).
(1)There are written publications that show the idea of space tourism dates back as far as the second century AD. There are numerous novels written in the 1950's and '60's that explore the ideas of humans occupying and living in space. Furthermore, television shows and movies such as Star Trek and Star Wars have given humans visual interpretations of life aboard space craft and even other planets.
Physical implementations of these ideas peaked with the government space race in the 1960's between the US and the Soviet Union. The lack of re-usable spacecraft lead to the development of the space shuttle, which completed 135 missions over it's 30 year employment period. NASA had to extend the space shuttle operation 15 years past what it was designed to do based on the lack of an affordable better option and the need to maintain the international space station (ISS). Currently, they are working on a multitude of other programs to continue their space flight, but the aerospace community has began to expand to tourism operations and manned commercial cargo operations to the ISS also. These programs, such as Virgin Galactic's, are still in the process of developing a system that is ready to be used publicly on an every day basis. They have run into setbacks with funding, legal support, and even catastrophic disasters like the one Virgin experienced on October 31, 2014. That being said, Virgin has raised over $800 million in deposits from future tourists and they've completed a handful of successful flights prior to their complete mission failure last October.
(2)The current rules regulating commercial space tourism originated from the Commercial Space Launch Act of 1984, an act passed by congress giving the Department of Transportation and the FAA's Office of Commercial Space Travel the ability to govern the people and equipment that would partake in space flight. That act was amended by congress in 2004, in an attempt to govern modern emergence of interest in space tourism for profit.
In 2006, the FAA released a notice of proposed rule making that included the regulations that are not CFR, title14, chapter III, parts 400-460 (FAA, 2015). These rules regulate the safety items required on spacecraft and the ports they travel from. The regulations also establish requirements for crew notification, medical qualifications and training, as well as requirements governing environmental control and life support systems (FAA, 2007). The government has, however, been mostly hands off in the process of building and testing equipment, according to Bloomberg business. They believe that is going to have to change drastically before people like Richard Branson begin actual flights with paying members of the public on board these spacecraft. The regulations we currently have are that way in order to allow, even encourage, innovation in the face of some risks that we all know come along with human space travel. I agree with the industry leaders in that further restrictions right now would inhibit that innovation, and I believe it's something we won't just enjoy in the future, but it's something humans are going to need.
(3)The time frame for space travel to become something the public uses is the hardest question to answer. What I believe we can bank on is the fact that there's profitability in the industry, as well as a negative economic impact domestically when we outsource space travel to other countries (FAA, 2010). We lose billions in sectors like manufacturing, information, and professional scientific services when commercial space flight is at a low. These reasons, publicly available via the FAA, will continue to drive public interest in commercial space travel. I believe currently, it's a one-time bucket list activity, or two times if you've made a personal fortune of billions on Microsoft software. This is, I believe, one of the initial steps toward every day space flight for colonizing space in the name of human kind. I do not believe we'll see that until close to the end of our lifetimes, perhaps into the early 2100's, but I really think the science fiction we've seen is going to come to fruition, in some form, around that time.
(4)Qualifications to work as a pilot are relatively strict. Virgin Galactic's pilot teams least experienced member has 8,500 flight hours in 90 different aircraft (Virgin Galactic, 2015). These are pilots that have flown in the military, the space shuttle, and most have degrees or advanced degrees in aerospace engineering. Some of these pilots have had leadership responsibilities in other organizations, and they've been test pilots on classified aircraft as well.
References:
Bekey, I. (1998, October 2). Space Future - Economically Viable Public Space Travel. Retrieved September 29, 2015, from
http://www.spacefuture.com/archive/economically_viable_public_space_travel.shtml
Introducing our Space Pilots - Virgin Galactic. (2015, June 9). Retrieved September 29, 2015, from
http://www.virgingalactic.com/introducing-our-space-pilots/
Levin, A. (2014, November 7). Space Tourists Treated Like Thrill Seekers in Regulation. Retrieved
September 29, 2015, from http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2014-11-07/should-space
travel-be-like-climbing-everest-or-airlines-
New Regulations Govern Private Human Space Flight Requirements for Crew and Space Flight
Participants. (2007, February 7). Retrieved September 29, 2015, from
http://www.faa.gov/about/office_org/headquarters_offices/ast/human_space_flight_reqs/
Office of Commercial Space Transportation. (2015, September 18). Retrieved September 29, 2015,
from https://www.faa.gov/about/office_org/headquarters_offices/ast/regulations/
The Economic Impact of Commercial Space Transportation on the U.S. Economy in 2009. (2010,
September 1). Retrieved September 29, 2015, from
http://www.faa.gov/news/updates/media/Economic Impact Study September
2010_20101026_PS.pdf
Monday, September 28, 2015
Sunday, September 20, 2015
Pilots and Depression
(1)The issue surrounding depression among professional aviators was brought into the limelight following the crash of German wings flight 9525 on March 24, 2015. The details that emerged over the days following the accident all pointed to an intentional murder-suicide by the pilot, Andreas Lubitz. Firstly, the cockpit voice recorder, commonly known as "the black box", was found hours after the crash when the first investigation team arrived on the scene (RT, 2015). It was quickly determined that the co-pilot had locked the captain, and all other flight crew members, outside of the cabin by utilizing the security parameters of the Airbus A320's cockpit door. The investigators from the German Federal Bureau of Aircraft Accident Investigation (BFU) began an investigation into Lubitz's background over the next two days (Almasy and Spark, 2015). Their investigation revealed shredded letters from doctors stating that the copilot was unfit for work based on treatment for depression. Furthermore, the investigators found prescription medications for depression while searching his apartment. Lufthansa, parent company of German wings, stated they were completely unaware of any medical issues, pointing to the fact that Lubitz had passed his medical examination in 2014 (Almasy and Spark, 2015).
As the investigation continued to play out, emails were discovered dating back to 2009 that were sent directly to Lufthansa, from Lubitz, stating he had suffered from severe depression and that was the cause of his 18 month hiatus from pilot training (Clark and Kulish, 2015). The airline allowed him to re-enter training, following the standard initial medical examinations, and placed no extra emphasis on tracking his illness outside of standard aero-medical checks. This was the first indication of past problems associated with his psychosomatic illnesses. A larger red flag should have been established when the American Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) initially denied Lubitz a medical certificate for his training in Arizona (Clark and Kulish, 2015). The FAA aero-medical team, upon receiving a letter from Lubitz's German psychiatrist claiming complete recovery, ultimately cleared him and issued his medical certificate so he could continue training (Northam, 2015). The records found in the initial questioning from the FAA medical team showed he was treated for "severe suicidal tendencies", but those were overlooked with the clearance letter from the treating psychiatrist. The investigation made it clear that Lubitz had failed suicide attempts and denied medical certificates as issues stemming from his illness, all of which was documented.
(2)There aren't a lot of commercial airline accidents with reports specifically pointing to pilot depression or history of mental illness. There are, however, a small handful of airline crashes that are easily identified as pilot suicides. I believe its safe to say that a pilot willing to commit a murder-suicide absolutely has some sort of mental illness, documented or otherwise. The reason I want to focus more on the commercial side of these accidents is because the potential for loss of life, international media attention, and the passing of some type of legislation is far greater when crashing a 777 into a mountain as compared to a C-172 into a swamp. A very similar accident was LAM Mozambique Airlines Flight 470. The accident involved an Embraer 190 that was flown into a Namibian national park intentionally by the captain, Herminio dos Santos Fernandes, in 2013. The cockpit voice recorder was recovered within 4 days, and just like the German wings recorder, banging could be heard on the cockpit door as alarms went off in the cockpit just prior to the airplane crashing into the ground. I think this accident is even more perplexing than the previously discussed accident because this pilot was a 9,000 hour captain with no documented mental illnesses, at least according to reports from the Mozambican Civil Aviation Institute (Hradecky, 2013). Even with slightly less restrictive training programs and medical screening/restrictions, I don't believe this accident would have been less preventable on a Mozambique airlines flight than it would have been on any American airline flight due to the negative impact of self reporting mental illness on our careers here in the United States.
(3)Pilots have to undergo yearly physical examinations (biennial if they're over 40 and flying for an airline) that typically only examine known ailments that are revealed through self reporting. Due to the privacy act and laws surrounding Dr./patient relationships, obtaining records without written permission from the person they belong too is almost impossible, barring criminal investigations. From a pilot's standpoint, this means my employer, or even the FAA, could have no idea what my captain or copilot might be suffering from when I board the airplane with them for a flight. That's pretty frightening when you think about things that have happened like the accidents above. I do believe, therefore, that there should be some sort of reform. That being said, this is America and we place an extremely high regard on our right to privacy, myself included. I do not believe giving airlines or the FAA unlimited access to medical databases, or any other private information, would be the proper answer. If a pilot releases their information, then the aero-medical team in Oklahoma can have all the access that goes with that, but they shouldn't have special access above and beyond that. It is difficult to say if any type of medical reform would be of great assistance, because people can study for and get around mental examinations out of fear of losing their careers. Also, people are very capable of being fine today, and suffering from PTSD (or something similar) tomorrow, 6 months out from any type of medical exam. There is far too much gray area in the mental health arena, in my opinion, to believe a solution can come from there alone.
I believe the reform needs to be based in a system of redundancy involving crew in the cockpit, and perhaps even automated systems to assist in preventing CFIT as a result of intentional acts of a crew member. For example, the Boeing 757 has a mandatory service bulletin for it's ground proximity warning system to automatically retract the speed brakes when CFIT becomes imminent as a result of the American Airlines Cali, Columbia crash. That being said, autopilot systems can still be programmed to fly into the ground, and they must be disengaged to initiate a recovery from a deadly flight profile. Legislating a greater number of people in the cockpit at any time would be a great start to helping prevent these accidents. Its much harder to program a deadly flight profile with a sane pilot sitting next to you, hand flying the airplane and fist fighting you for the controls.
(4)It's well known that pilots love to fly, and we love to do so for our jobs. It's almost always career ending to report something that can negate our medical clearances, mental or physical in nature. Between that and a pilot's ego, it's hard to self report anything. If the FAA was to lighten up on the career implications tied to these types of ailments, I believe there would be some level of public fear associated with flying on airliners with potentially ill pilots, which would be way over-inflated by the media coverage surrounding that decision. From their standpoint, decisions are based around safety, and compromised to benefit air commerce. The airlines would pitch, extremely vigorously, that the loss of business could be too detrimental, especially to smaller regional airlines. The answer would have to be a multi-faceted compromise that improves on safety, while having a minimal impact (if any) on airline profitability.
I do think that with a combination of legislature allowing pilots that are properly medicated to continue flying, more crew members and/or safer cockpit systems, we could prevent further accidents without losing public business. Knowing there are enough people up front to stop one guy from taking full control would be very comforting, especially following the recent mass media coverage surrounding the German wings flight, and even Malaysia airlines flight 370 not long before that. This would even allow for someone on medication (or not on their prescribed medication) to maintain his career, barring a criminal attempt at overcoming the safer systems in place. The airlines might have to pay a small amount in the form of either another pilot or flight engineer for each flight, but I believe that they would find that a far better compromise than scaring off their business if the FAA were to open up to mentally treated pilots, and this is another way they could combat the "pilot shortage" being predicted for our near future.
References
Almasy, S., & Smith-Spark, L. (2015, March 28). Reports: Antidepressants found at Andreas Lubitz home - CNN.com. Retrieved September 21, 2015.
Hradecky, S. (2013, November 29). Crash: LAM E190 over Botswana/Namibia on Nov 29th 2013, captain intentionally crashed aircraft. Retrieved September 18, 2015.
Kulish, N., & Clark, N. (2015, April 18). Germanwings Crash Exposes History of Denial on Risk of Pilot Suicide. Retrieved September 21, 2015.
Northam, J. (2015, April 30). Documents Show FAA Questioned Mental Fitness of
Germanwings Co-Pilot Andreas Lubitz. Retrieved September 18, 2015.
As the investigation continued to play out, emails were discovered dating back to 2009 that were sent directly to Lufthansa, from Lubitz, stating he had suffered from severe depression and that was the cause of his 18 month hiatus from pilot training (Clark and Kulish, 2015). The airline allowed him to re-enter training, following the standard initial medical examinations, and placed no extra emphasis on tracking his illness outside of standard aero-medical checks. This was the first indication of past problems associated with his psychosomatic illnesses. A larger red flag should have been established when the American Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) initially denied Lubitz a medical certificate for his training in Arizona (Clark and Kulish, 2015). The FAA aero-medical team, upon receiving a letter from Lubitz's German psychiatrist claiming complete recovery, ultimately cleared him and issued his medical certificate so he could continue training (Northam, 2015). The records found in the initial questioning from the FAA medical team showed he was treated for "severe suicidal tendencies", but those were overlooked with the clearance letter from the treating psychiatrist. The investigation made it clear that Lubitz had failed suicide attempts and denied medical certificates as issues stemming from his illness, all of which was documented.
(2)There aren't a lot of commercial airline accidents with reports specifically pointing to pilot depression or history of mental illness. There are, however, a small handful of airline crashes that are easily identified as pilot suicides. I believe its safe to say that a pilot willing to commit a murder-suicide absolutely has some sort of mental illness, documented or otherwise. The reason I want to focus more on the commercial side of these accidents is because the potential for loss of life, international media attention, and the passing of some type of legislation is far greater when crashing a 777 into a mountain as compared to a C-172 into a swamp. A very similar accident was LAM Mozambique Airlines Flight 470. The accident involved an Embraer 190 that was flown into a Namibian national park intentionally by the captain, Herminio dos Santos Fernandes, in 2013. The cockpit voice recorder was recovered within 4 days, and just like the German wings recorder, banging could be heard on the cockpit door as alarms went off in the cockpit just prior to the airplane crashing into the ground. I think this accident is even more perplexing than the previously discussed accident because this pilot was a 9,000 hour captain with no documented mental illnesses, at least according to reports from the Mozambican Civil Aviation Institute (Hradecky, 2013). Even with slightly less restrictive training programs and medical screening/restrictions, I don't believe this accident would have been less preventable on a Mozambique airlines flight than it would have been on any American airline flight due to the negative impact of self reporting mental illness on our careers here in the United States.
(3)Pilots have to undergo yearly physical examinations (biennial if they're over 40 and flying for an airline) that typically only examine known ailments that are revealed through self reporting. Due to the privacy act and laws surrounding Dr./patient relationships, obtaining records without written permission from the person they belong too is almost impossible, barring criminal investigations. From a pilot's standpoint, this means my employer, or even the FAA, could have no idea what my captain or copilot might be suffering from when I board the airplane with them for a flight. That's pretty frightening when you think about things that have happened like the accidents above. I do believe, therefore, that there should be some sort of reform. That being said, this is America and we place an extremely high regard on our right to privacy, myself included. I do not believe giving airlines or the FAA unlimited access to medical databases, or any other private information, would be the proper answer. If a pilot releases their information, then the aero-medical team in Oklahoma can have all the access that goes with that, but they shouldn't have special access above and beyond that. It is difficult to say if any type of medical reform would be of great assistance, because people can study for and get around mental examinations out of fear of losing their careers. Also, people are very capable of being fine today, and suffering from PTSD (or something similar) tomorrow, 6 months out from any type of medical exam. There is far too much gray area in the mental health arena, in my opinion, to believe a solution can come from there alone.
I believe the reform needs to be based in a system of redundancy involving crew in the cockpit, and perhaps even automated systems to assist in preventing CFIT as a result of intentional acts of a crew member. For example, the Boeing 757 has a mandatory service bulletin for it's ground proximity warning system to automatically retract the speed brakes when CFIT becomes imminent as a result of the American Airlines Cali, Columbia crash. That being said, autopilot systems can still be programmed to fly into the ground, and they must be disengaged to initiate a recovery from a deadly flight profile. Legislating a greater number of people in the cockpit at any time would be a great start to helping prevent these accidents. Its much harder to program a deadly flight profile with a sane pilot sitting next to you, hand flying the airplane and fist fighting you for the controls.
(4)It's well known that pilots love to fly, and we love to do so for our jobs. It's almost always career ending to report something that can negate our medical clearances, mental or physical in nature. Between that and a pilot's ego, it's hard to self report anything. If the FAA was to lighten up on the career implications tied to these types of ailments, I believe there would be some level of public fear associated with flying on airliners with potentially ill pilots, which would be way over-inflated by the media coverage surrounding that decision. From their standpoint, decisions are based around safety, and compromised to benefit air commerce. The airlines would pitch, extremely vigorously, that the loss of business could be too detrimental, especially to smaller regional airlines. The answer would have to be a multi-faceted compromise that improves on safety, while having a minimal impact (if any) on airline profitability.
I do think that with a combination of legislature allowing pilots that are properly medicated to continue flying, more crew members and/or safer cockpit systems, we could prevent further accidents without losing public business. Knowing there are enough people up front to stop one guy from taking full control would be very comforting, especially following the recent mass media coverage surrounding the German wings flight, and even Malaysia airlines flight 370 not long before that. This would even allow for someone on medication (or not on their prescribed medication) to maintain his career, barring a criminal attempt at overcoming the safer systems in place. The airlines might have to pay a small amount in the form of either another pilot or flight engineer for each flight, but I believe that they would find that a far better compromise than scaring off their business if the FAA were to open up to mentally treated pilots, and this is another way they could combat the "pilot shortage" being predicted for our near future.
References
Almasy, S., & Smith-Spark, L. (2015, March 28). Reports: Antidepressants found at Andreas Lubitz home - CNN.com. Retrieved September 21, 2015.
Hradecky, S. (2013, November 29). Crash: LAM E190 over Botswana/Namibia on Nov 29th 2013, captain intentionally crashed aircraft. Retrieved September 18, 2015.
Kulish, N., & Clark, N. (2015, April 18). Germanwings Crash Exposes History of Denial on Risk of Pilot Suicide. Retrieved September 21, 2015.
Northam, J. (2015, April 30). Documents Show FAA Questioned Mental Fitness of
Germanwings Co-Pilot Andreas Lubitz. Retrieved September 18, 2015.
Monday, September 14, 2015
Personal Introduction
Hello everybody!
My name is Kevin Simpson. I am a flight technology major working on the last couple of flights in the commercial syllabus at Eagle Flight Center. If life stays on track, I will be graduating in May of 2016.
I have been interested in aviation as long as I can remember. My grandfather was one of the first people in Michigan to solo at the age of 16 after that FAR was passed, and owned his own plane and business ever since. I remember flying in his light twin when I was as young as 4 years old, not being able to see over the panel. Due to poor life decisions, I never had the money to start flying on my own and I enlisted in the Air Force directly out of high school. I spent 6 years as an Airborne Cryptologic Arabic Language Analyst and Airborne Tactical Systems Operator. I was fortunate enough to gain 700 hours of combat flight time as an enlisted air crew member before getting out and putting my GI bill to work for me. Eastern Michigan University was located perfectly between my original hometown and that of my wife's, and they had an aviation program that was GI bill qualified, so it was absolutely the best choice available to get myself and my family where we wanted to go.
After graduation, my first choice for the future is to commission in the Air National Guard as an F-22 pilot. They tell me there are spots available in Hawaii and Virginia, and I'd be willing to go to either location without question. Not only is the F-22 just flat out awesome, I have a mindset that matches the mission that it is designed to fulfill. I do, however, have a feeling that it's not going to work out for me due to my having ocular hypertension. The liquid in my eyeballs has a pressure that far exceeds the range of normal humans, and therefore I have a high probability of having glaucoma at a young age. The Air Force does not currently have a waiver for this condition, even if controlled by medication because there aren't significant long term studies on people with this condition in a high altitude setting. Therefore, my back up plan is to gain some time instructing here at Eagle Flight Center or possibly at another airport like New Hudson or Howell. Once I have the hours and other qualifications necessary, I'd like to be picked up for a job flying King Air's or small business jets in the corporate aviation sector. I believe the relatively higher amount of down time, along with relatively higher initial salaries, would benefit my family more so than that of the regional airlines. When I retire, I would absolutely love doing acrobatic or old barnstorming air shows similar to those performed by Dewey Davenport, our future guest speaker.
I'm excitedly looking forward to his night to speak. I believe that's a niche in the aviation world that is exciting and very often overlooked, especially from the viewpoint of someone who is looking for a paying career in aviation.
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