10 Questions: Space lawyer helps his clients reach for the moon
Are companies promising more frequent and less expensive launches—like SpaceX and Blue Origin—raising new issues?
Yes, more frequent launches will break the bureaucracy. The rules were created on the assumption that we’d have a dozen flights a year—traditionally, it’s taken about five years to launch a satellite. Today, a “cubesat” that’s the size of a loaf of bread is being developed that can be launched in four months or less. NOAA [the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which issues licenses for remote-sensing space systems] has had a 100-fold increase in applicants; and until recently, there was only one person working on applications. The Federal Communications Commission charges an application fee of a half-million dollars for a satellite license plus an annual regulatory fee of a half-million, and it takes three years to get a license. Everyone is stuck in this bureaucratic morass.
Are American companies turning to other countries to build and license their satellites?
I’ve had several clients have to do this. They can go to Luxembourg or to the Isle of Man, which is tax-free and virtually regulation-free. You can get a satellite license from the Isle of Man in a matter of weeks. For several of my clients that include ex-NASA and ex-DOD people, to tell them that they can’t do business here in the United States is heartbreaking.
What about space tourism? Is this a thing?
Space tourism is going to happen; it’s just not going to be the market driver we originally thought. Unfortunately, it’s going to be one of those fields where you know there’s going to be an accident, and that could shut down the industry for a couple years.
Does that mean people won’t be heading into space for a while?
No, there are several proposals out there for private space stations. But it’s not about tourism; it’s about business opportunities like medical experiments and building satellites in space. That way, your antenna isn’t constrained by the size of the rocket. You can build satellites with football-field-size antennas and then push them away from the station.
So I have to ask: Do you think we’re alone out here?
I grew up in Arizona. A lot of funny things happen in Arizona. When I was 11, I saw a UFO—maybe. I was helping my best friend with his paper route. It was 4 a.m., and we saw a light. We thought, “Cool, a satellite!” Then it stopped, and we thought, “Cool, a helicopter!” But then it changed direction, split into two and went different directions in about a second. I am not so slow as to think that we’re the only ones out there. But as to what that means—if it’s bugs on another planet or it’s us existing in another dimension, I don’t know. But I do know that we still have a lot to learn about this Earth and how special it is. And maybe it’s so special that it’s the only one like it and we’re completely alone in all this. How sad would that be?
This article appeared in the October 2017 issue of the ABA Journal with the headline “Rocket Man"
