Inside the high-level strategic briefing rooms of the Federal Aviation Administration in Washington, D.C., the mood was one of cold, absolute paralysis.
The sky outside remained calm, orderly, and standard. But on the digital terminals sitting before the agency's highest-ranking administrators, the published text of the Nova Express announcement sat like an unyielding, irreversible decree.
Senior flight directors, airspace policy analysts, and regional traffic administrators surrounded the primary conference table, their eyes locked onto the operational parameters of the off-world delivery network.
For eighty years, civil aviation authorities had governed the skies through an absolute monopoly on flight permissions. Every commercial jetliner, cargo transport, and private aircraft on Earth was bound by strict altitude corridors, mandatory transponder tracking, weather holds, and pre-approved flight plans issued by ground controllers.
