Guest: Michael Listner. Topics: U.S. National Space Policy, commercial/private space, & its impact on national & international space law/activities. Please direct all comments and questions regarding Space Show programs/guest(s) to the Space Show blog, http://thespaceshow.wordpress.com. Comments and questions should be relevant to the specific Space Show program. Written Transcripts of Space Show programs are a violation of our copyright and are not permitted without prior written consent, even if for your own use. We do not permit the commercial use of Space Show programs or any part thereof, nor do we permit editing, YouTube clips, or clips placed on other private channels & websites. Space Show programs can be quoted, but the quote must be cited or referenced using the proper citation format. Contact The Space Show for further information. In addition, please remember that your Amazon purchases can help support The Space Show/OGLF. See www.onegiantleapfoundation.org/amazon.htm. For those listening to archives using live365.com and rating the programs, please email me as to why you assign a specific rating to the show. This will help me bring better programming to the audience. We welcomed back space attorney Michael Listner to discuss the importance of the U.S. National Space Policy, both nationally and internationally. Please refer to the document Michael prepared for this show which you can find on The Space Show blog, "NATIONAL SPACE POLICY A PRÉCIS OF FUNDAMENTALS & PURPOSE." Michael's document is essential to understanding the significance of our national space policy, both on the home front and internationally so don't skip over it. We used it extensively during our discussion as Michael used the exact policy language in his document to make his points. During the first segment of our 2 hour 2 minute show, Michael explained the origins of this show given my challenge to him from a few weeks ago to tell us why national space policies are important given that many of us, myself included, just view them as political rhetoric or something like that. Michael did a fantastic job of connecting the dots from back in the beginning with President Eisenhower through to President Obama, showing us the evolution of commercial/private space and much more. He also connected the dots on why our national space policy is significant on the global scene. Here, he used the definition of space as an example. After you listen to this program and read Michael's paper, you will have a very clear understanding of the emergence of the commercial space industry as it is today, including government subsidies, plus many other parts of our space program, including the national security space program. During this segment, we went through the presidents starting with Eisenhower to see how each new presidential national space policy helped to create the legal and policy structure of today's space industry, public and private. Michael explained policy from both the global view and the geo political view, again connecting the dots for us to what is happening in the space industry today. He was very clear in showing how the birth & development of SpaceX for example, was due in part because of our space policy and the laws congress enacted to support the goals of our national space policy which included private space and later on, even government subsidies. In the second segment, we started taking more listener questions. Carl asked who actually creates the Presidential National Space Policy. Barbara asked if space property rights could be established through our space policy. This prompted another excellent discussion by Michael on the subject. June asked about our space policy enabling tourism and even visits or settlements on the Moon or Mars. Another question came in regarding the US having no jurisdiction over private companies but Michael referred everyone to the Outer Space Treaty, Article 6 as this gives jurisdiction to the states (government). Michael then had a few words to say about the significance of treaty law. Michael was asked if the president could be lobbied regarding specifics of a national space policy. Our guest received several emails thanking him for this program, saying it was extremely helpful and valuable. Toward the end, he was asked about other countries having a national space policy. Check out page 24 of his document as he has a chart showing the countries having or planning to create a space policy. Near the end, a listener asked him if the space policy could be used to help establish a new business or industry. Michael said yes, then provided us with an example relating to space debris. Don't miss this discussion! As the show was ending, Michael gave a shout out to the George C. Marshall Institute which is noted in the references in his paper as they have available all the space policy documents and more that Michael discussed plus those we did not have the time to address. This is a superb resource and Michael was right on to give a shout out to this organization (http://marshall.org). Please post your comments/questions on TSS blog above.
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