The regime allowing a passenger to fly after written acceptance of an uncertified risk, in the absence of any occupant safety standard.
Commercial human spaceflight rests on no airworthiness certification comparable to that of air transport, for want of the statistical base needed to build one. American lawmakers therefore adopted a transitional solution, the so-called learning period, which suspends the making of occupant safety rules and substitutes a regime of informed consent: the passenger, described as a spaceflight participant rather than a carried passenger, receives in writing the record of known vehicle and system failures and formally accepts flying despite them. The logic is that of hazardous sport rather than public transport, and it shifts the safety question into the contract. For insurance it produces two opposing effects: the operator's liability toward the participant is heavily restricted, while liability toward third parties on the ground remains entire and subject to compulsory cover, and individual policies bought by participants themselves run into the aviation and hazardous pursuit exclusions of ordinary life and accident contracts.
The American informed consent regime for participants in commercial human spaceflight was created by the Commercial Space Launch Amendments Act of 2004, and the moratorium on occupant safety rulemaking has been extended repeatedly by Congress.
informed consent, participant au vol spatial, spaceflight participant, consentement éclairé