Government too oppressive? Can’t find a free country anywhere on the face of the Earth anymore? What’s a freedom-loving person to do? Leave the planet, of course. But the Federal Aviation Administration wants to require any U.S. person or company offering spaceflights from anywhere in the world to get an FAA license.

While the option to live on the moon is probably a century or more away, you (or your grandchildren) just might have trouble getting there in the first place. The FAA’s proposed regulations would require these companies to get experimental permits to develop and test their suborbital launch vehicles, and then licenses to actually operate them commercially.

According toFlight International, the FAA has to do this because of existing international treaties which make governments responsible for spaceflights launched by anyone from their own soil or by their citizens anywhere in the world.

Spaceports will have to be licensed, too.

UK-based Virgin Galactic has partnered with US firm Scaled Composites to launch a suborbital service initially from California’s Mojave Spaceport in 2008 and then New Mexico’s Southwest Regional Spaceport in 2009. Test flights could begin in Mojave within the next two years. Virgin Galactic has already spoken to the UK’s British National Space Centre, which is involved in the UK’s launch licensing process. The centre is also to involve the UK’s Civil Aviation Authority in discussions.

Nield says the Southwest Regional Spaceport has environmental work to complete to obtain its licence. He adds that the Mojave Spaceport will probably have to renew its operating licence, which was specifically granted for the 2004 flights of Scaled Composites’ air-launched SpaceShipOne, even if Virgin Galactic’s successor SpaceShipTwo is similar in configuration. — Flight International

Most of the licensing processes being proposed focus on safety, which to me seems absolutely ridiculous. As with everything else government tries to regulate for “safety,” the product will be less safe than it could be as a result.

Space travel is inherently dangerous. Once you go up there, there’s a chance you might not come back down alive — or at all. Nothing can legislate away that harsh fact. The only thing which can truly mitigate the risks is the free market, where consumers of space travel can choose their space carrier after weighing the risks and the companies’ safety records for themselves. This is a case where interfering in the free market is going to get people killed, and because the government interfered, there will be no recourse for the survivors.