Alternatively
Alternatively, how about a "waiting for the LOHAN tankard" collector mug?
LOHAN unleashes 'waiting for the FAA' collector mug
It's fair to say that waiting for US Federal Aviation Authority approval for our Vulture 2 spaceplane launch is a bit like sitting blindfolded in a room twiddling your thumbs while trying to imagine what paint drying on the wall of an adjacent room looks like. Suffice to say, we're doing our best to gee up the FAA snail - but …
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Monday 16th March 2015 15:47 GMT Pet Peeve
Re: Alternatively
Yeah, what ever did happen with the drinking glasses? The last message we got was "don't do anything if you haven't gotten one, we'll take no reply as you haven't gotten it". So, I rushed right out and didn't do anything.
At the rate the FAA is going, I probably STILL will be able to tip the glass to you at launch day even if it's another month or two, but I'd really like to have it.
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Friday 13th March 2015 16:53 GMT Dave 32
Re: What is the actual hold up?
It's those pesky FAR 101 rules (14CFR101):
<http://www.ecfr.gov/cgi-bin/text-idx?c=ecfr&sid=8b5584c0cf53c0a4f4a5615491e1be66&rgn=div5&view=text&node=14:2.0.1.3.15&idno=14#14:2.0.1.3.15.1.9.1>
Specifically, it's probably 14CFR101.7(b):
"(b) No person operating any moored balloon, kite, amateur rocket, or unmanned free balloon may allow an object to be dropped therefrom, if such action creates a hazard to other persons or their property."
And, the rocket could always poke someone in their eye, which would make it a hazard. :-(
Oh, there may be other issues, too, such as altitude limits on model rockets, etc.
The usual way these things are handled is to get a waiver from the FAA, which can take forever and then some, assuming that it's granted at all.
Dave
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Friday 13th March 2015 22:29 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: What is the actual hold up?
Sometimes it is better to seek forgiveness that permission. But perhaps not in a country with as many lawyers and law enforcement agencies. As for the comment about meeting BATF's SWAT people, I did meet some once and had a fascinating pub conversation with a bunch of different agents explaining how inter-agency stuff works. Most of the time. The Bureau of Booze, Smokes, Guns & Fireworks sounded the most fun though.
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Sunday 15th March 2015 10:58 GMT DiViDeD
Re: What is the actual hold up?
Oi reckons it's cos some merkin team is still putting the finishing touches to their own ballocket project (31.276531cm? Is that about a foot and a bit? Pass me a No 3 hammer and I'll MAKE it fit!) and LOHAN won't get approval until the merkins have snatched victory from el Reg's trembling fingers.
Launch and be damned say I.
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Monday 16th March 2015 16:34 GMT Dave 32
Re: What is the actual hold up?
Actually, the Americans did it not quite 20 years ago:
http://www.asi.org/adb/06/09/03/02/106/halo-launch.html
This was a team led by Bill Brown. But, in order to get around those obnoxious regulations, they had to rent a barge, and go 100 miles off-short, so that they were launching in international waters.
Dave
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Monday 23rd March 2015 15:13 GMT WalterAlter
Re: What is the actual hold up?
The current administration, known far and wide for taking names and keeping score, may find The Register's chronic libertarian philosophical criticism of basic human stupidity and occasional jibes at liberal shibboleths to put them in the same bathtub as conservative groups trying to get their non-profit status or right wing gun nut trailer trash getting their tax returns endlessly audited or whistleblowers in general. I'm thinking that a six figure donation to the Democratic Party Platform Committee might limber things up.
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Tuesday 17th March 2015 14:12 GMT Tim Jenkins
Re: What is the actual hold up?
Possibly something on the lines of an aversion to having a bunch of foreigners, some bearded, and all with very strange accents, gathering on a US aeronautical facility to carry out the last stages of a complex plan involving flying things, lots of which was discussed and refined in a very dubious internet forum by people with weird nicknames?
Just a thought...
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Friday 13th March 2015 15:25 GMT A. Coatsworth
All the articles about Cash'n'Carrion in the last weeks got me wondering: is it possible to get these goods directly in Vulture Central? (and by the way is it *possible* to visit Vulture Central?)
Shipping and handling fees are prohibitive for a lowly computer-botherer in the wrong side of the pond, but if said commentard just happened to be visiting the Capital of the Empire later in the year....
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Friday 13th March 2015 18:54 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: Just launch it
The added bonus of this course of action would be the chance to meet your local FBI and Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms SWAT teams (great guys!), followed by an all-expenses-paid Carribean vacation at Club Fed Guantanamo Bay.
(Icon shows LOHAN launch team member being fitted with complimentary orange Federal Bureau of Prisons jumpsuit--tres chic!)
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Saturday 14th March 2015 01:40 GMT John Brown (no body)
Re: Is it still possible to apply for Spanish permission?
IIRC, the "Spanish problem" wasn't a slow bureaucracy but the condition that to "import" the rocket motor from Germany into Spain one has to own and operate a fireworks factory.
Quite how this "import" thing from one EU country to another jibes with the EU free market and free movement of people and goods eludes me right now.
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Biting the hand that feeds IT
