Thespaceshow's Blog

Michael Listner, Monday, 1-2-12 January 2, 2012

Michael Listner, Monday, 1-2-12

http://archived.thespaceshow.com/shows/1681-BWB-2012-01-02.mp3

Guest:  Michael Listner.  Topics:  National and international space law issues including property rights, the Moon Treaty & more.  You are invited to comment, ask questions, and discuss the Space Show program/guest(s) on the Space Show blog, http://thespaceshow.wordpress.com.  Comments, questions, and any discussion must be relevant and applicable to Space Show programming. Transcripts of Space Show programs are not permitted without prior written consent from The Space Show (even if for personal use) & are a violation of the Space Show copyright.  We welcomes Michael Listner to the program to discuss national and international space law issues and related matters.  We started out discussing the new Austrian domestic space law and inquiring of our guest why we should take note of this Austrian law here in the U.S.  As you will hear from Mr. Listner, the new Austrian law relates specifically to the UN space treaties and plays a role in international space law.  Our guest wrote a recent article on this subject in The Space Review on Dec. 12, 2011.  You can read his article at www.thespacereview.com/article/1988/1.  Another interesting article of his you might value is in DefensePolicy.org from July 7, 2011 and titled “TCBMs: A New Definition and New Role for Outer Space Security.”  You can download it at www.defensepolicy.org/2011/michlis/tcbms-a-new-definition-and-new-role-for-outer-space-security. Our discussion then focused on launching country issues and liability, satellite operations in different countries and both the Liability and the Registration U.N. Conventions.  This discussion led us to talking about the European Code of Conduct for Outer Space Activities and Michael updated us on the status of this voluntary agreement, both on the international front as well as here in the U.S.  Other issues discussed in this segment included space debris and the Draft Russian Chinese Treaty On The Prevention Of The Placement Of Weapons In Outer Space (PPWT).  We also talked about the Chinese GPS system covering Asia, its military focus, and Chinese geo political intersects.  Michael then introduced us to Transparency and Confidence Building Measures (TCBMs) as alternatives to treaties. This prompted several listener questions and comments about “so called” government transparency, the word of governments, and their effectiveness so far.  This was an interesting discussion, especially when I asked our guest for his personal opinion on these types of agreements.  Space tourism became a subject and we spent some time on the liability issues and the states that have passed liability protection laws for the space companies.  Jack from Virginia was listening and provided us with important information about the Virginia law which he largely authored and which has become a model for the laws in Florida, Texas, and New Mexico.  We spent the rest of the first segment talking about liability and space tourism issues. In the second segment, Helen asked if funding levels for NASA and space interests correlated to up’s and downs in space policy.  As you will hear, most policy is driven by politics, not funding levels.  There were lots of questions about the legality of the Moon Treaty and its applicability to commercial space, even Google Lunar X Prize contestants.  We fielded questions on lunar mineral extractions as well as messing with Apollo artifacts on the Moon.  We then jumped over to property rights and what this actually means regarding space issues.  As we were nearing the end of our discussion, I asked Michael if space law was largely an academic field or if it was becoming a career choice field in terms of practical application.  He said it was becoming more and more practical and more and more schools were offering commercial law classes.  If you have comments or questions for Michael Listner, please post them on the blog URL above.