Practical Considerations and the Convention

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chapter 22 Practical Considerations and the Convention

22.1 The Once and Future Aerospace Object

In the regime established by the draft Space Delimitation Convention, a vehicle that demonstrated sustained flight within a very high band of altitudes, but not straight and level flight at a particular altitude, would be treated as an aircraft and subject to the Chicago Convention.1 Dean N. Reinhardt speculated about such a vehicle in 2005:

HyperSoar is a concept developed by the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. It would be powered by rocket-based combined-cycle (RBCC) engines, one component of which is a supersonic combustion ramjet (sc- ramjet). It would take off horizontally from a standard 10,000 foot (3 km) runway. After accelerating to Mach 10 and climbing to about 130,000 feet (25 miles or 40 km) its engines would be turned off and it would coast up to an altitude of 40 miles (64 km) or more. The vehicle would then descend back into denser air, to an altitude of around 20 miles (32 km), where aerodynamic lift is possible. It would then restart its engines to start the process over and continue doing this repeatedly to “skip” along the upper atmosphere. About 2.5 cycles would cover approximately 620 miles (1,000 km). A flight from Chicago to Tokyo, approximately 6,290 miles (10,100 km), could be completed in 18 cycles and only 72 minutes.2

HyperSoar,3 to which Reinhardt referred often throughout his paper, would not be in level flight during any phase of its operation at high altitudes; however, it would demonstrate an ability to pull out of a dive at 32 kilometers (105,000 feet), and thus its capability for level flight at that altitude could be inferred. However, as an aside, this author wonders what the business case is for this vehicle? Although possibly feasible in terms of aerospace technology, it has the making of a human factors disaster. How many passengers would want to go

1 Convention on International Civil Aviation, 7 December 1944, 15 UNTS 295, http://www.iasl .mcgill.ca/airlaw/public/chicago/chicago1944a.pdf. 2 Dean N. Reinhardt, The Vertical Limit of State Sovereignty (2005), LL.M. thesis, McGill University, http://www.dtic.mil/cgi-bin/GetTRDoc?AD=ADA436627. 3 Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Bringing Hypersonic Flight Down to Earth, https:// str.llnl.gov/ str/Carter.html.

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2018 | doi:10.1163/9789004366022_023 460 chapter 22 from Chicago to Tokyo in 72 minutes badly enough to be subjected to climbs and descents of 30 kilometers (98,000 feet) every four minutes? This requires an average rate of climb of 15 kilometers (49,000 feet) per minute, followed by an average rate of descent of 15 kilometers per minute. This author has neglected to calculate the G-loadings at the upper half of the climb and descent (probably zero) and the pullout from the dive (probably two or greater), but this sounds like the Vomit Comet4 on steroids. How much of the vehicle’s payload is allocated to a huge stock of motion sickness bags? On the other hand, con- siderable weight would be saved in that such a short flight would obviate the requirement for inflight meal service, which, as well as being impractical to serve, would not go down well (and, more importantly, would not stay down well) in this flight regime.5 This author’s point is that legal scholars need not chase after every gleam in an aerospace engineer’s eye, as with the legal pro- fession’s 1990s fascination with “aerospace objects” such as NASA’s Rockwell X-30,6 the European Space Agency’s Hermes,7 the United Kingdom’s HOTOL,8 Germany’s Sanger,9 and Japan’s HOPE;10 first, let them come to full term.11

4 The KC-135 aircraft used by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration for astro- naut training purposes flies a series of parabolic arcs in order so that its occupants can experience about half a minute of microgravity at a time. In recognition of its propensity for in inducing motion sickness in trainees, the aircraft has acquired the moniker “Vomit Comet.” 5 This harrowing experience would be far outside the comfort envelope to which corporate executives have long been accustomed aboard Gulfstream jets. For that matter, this author would be interested in hearing reports of how pleasant the passenger compartment of Virgin Galactic’s SpaceShipTwo smells after a few operational flights. 6 Mark Wade, X-30, Encyclopedia Astronautica, http://www.astronautix.com/x/x-30 .html. 7 Mark Wade, Hermes, Encyclopedia Astronautica, http://www.astronautix.com/h/ hermes.html. 8 Mark Wade, HOTOL, Encyclopedia Astronautica, http://www.astronautix.com/h/ hotol.html. 9 Mark Wade, Saenger II, Encyclopedia Astronautica, http://www.astronautix .com/s/saengerii.html. 10 Mark Wade, HOPE, Encyclopedia Astronautica, http://www.astronautix.com/h/ hope.html. 11 The dubiousness of space tourism hyperbole that has been prevalent since the SpaceShipOne flights in 2004 could hardly have been underscored more forcefully than by Wernher von Braun in 1960: “It is entirely conceivable that within our lifetimes rock- etships will be transporting people to vacations in space, and that some of the famous European spas will be competing with new spas on Venus.” See Wernher von Braun, What I Believe, 1 Space World 20 (November 1960). Conceiving is always the fun part, but it is a long journey from conception to delivery.