How Will Space Commuters Navigate A Thicket Of Air Traffic?

FACET An image of airplane traffic from the simulation tool FACET. Juan Alonso "When space traffic becomes routine, there's going to be significant conflict between commercial air traffic and space traffic," says Juan Alonso, a Stanford professor of aeronautics and astronautics. Right now, orbital launches are infrequent -- about 70 per year around the world. So if there is, say, a SpaceX Falcon 9 launch scheduled from Cape Canaveral, the FAA decrees the area to be a "special use airspace" and b...