DeSantis Signs Bill Shielding Musk’s SpaceX From ‘Spaceflight Entity Liability’

Here's the bill: https://www.flsenate.gov/Session/Bill/2023/1318/BillText/er/...

I'm no fan of DeSantis but it seems pretty reasonable? As I read it, it basically says that participants in space flight can waive away their ability to sue for injury or death. Seems like basically saying that the same sort of waiver you would sign for skydiving will be legally effectual for commercial space tourism.

The article mentions damage caused by a launch last month, but I don't see anything in the bill that would reduce SpaceX's liability for that sort of damage.

You can read an analysis of the bill here [1], and the bill itself here [2]. This applies to all space launches from Florida and has nothing to do (directly) with SpaceX. The bill itself is extremely short. It passed the Florida House 107-5, and the Senate 39-0.

It prevents suing launch companies for liabilities in cases where there's no reasonable claim that the company itself was clearly at fault. It does not prevent lawsuits in cases of gross negligence, disregard for safety, knowledge of unsafe conditions, and so on. And these new protections are only valid if a participant signs a waiver acknowledging/agreeing to such.

[1] - https://www.flsenate.gov/Session/Bill/2023/1318/Analyses/202...

[2] - https://www.flsenate.gov/Session/Bill/2023/1318/ByCategory/?...

"It's a big club, and you ain't in it." ~ George Carlin

https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/964648-but-there-s-a-reason...

"The bill defines the term “crew” to have the same meaning as the federal definition, which defines the term as any employee of a licensee or transferee, or of a contractor or subcontractor of a licensee or transferee, who performs activities in the course of that employment directly relating to the launch, reentry, or other operation of or in a launch vehicle or reentry vehicle that carries human beings. The bill revises the definition of the term"

Am I reading this right that it potentially also includes the ground crew or any employee that contributes to a launch? Does this include the people building a rocket?

[1] https://www.flsenate.gov/Committees/BillSummaries/2023/html/...

Imagine the outrage if Twitter’s CEO hosted Hillary’s campaign announcement.

Too bad for tesla investors musk has software derangement syndrome:

https://arstechnica.com/cars/2023/05/massive-trove-of-tesla-...

https://www.platformer.news/p/inside-twitters-failed-space-l...

https://www.bbc.com/news/business-65717731.amp

They've been scratching each other's backs for a while:

https://edition.cnn.com/2023/05/24/politics/elon-musk-ron-de...

Ah, so this was the political favor in exchange for the large platform for the announcement.

> The law exempts “spaceflight entity from liability for injury to or death of a crew resulting from spaceflight activities under certain circumstances.” The measure also requires “a spaceflight entity to have a crew sign a specified warning statement.”

Maybe NASA should consider other locations if their astronauts have to sign this.

[insert Captain Renault meme here]

"SpaceX aircrafts" ?

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.

Glad to see we're back to being OK with corporate cronyism.