Main Engine Cut Off - T+247: International Partnerships (Live from Space Symposium 2023)

Episode Date: April 26, 2023

Live from the Redwire booth at Space Symposium 2023! I talk about the state and future of international partnerships in space with Mike Gold (Chief Growth Officer, Redwire) Masami Onoda (Director of Washington, DC Office, JAXA), and Josh Wolny (Foreign Affairs Officer, US Department of State).This episode of Main Engine Cut Off is brought to you by 36 executive producers—Fred, Joonas, SmallSpark Space Systems, Ryan, Frank, David, Donald, Tim Dodd (the Everyday Astronaut), Matt, Dawn Aerospace, Pat, Simon, Kris, Lee, Steve, Lars from Agile Space, Brad, Stealth Julian, Warren, Bob, Theo and Violet, Harrison, Robb, Jan, Tyler, Joel, Benjamin, Pat from KC, Russell, Chris, The Astrogators at SEE, Moritz—and 845 other supporters.TopicsInternational Partnerships - YouTubeThe ShowLike the show? Support the show!Email your thoughts, comments, and questions to [e-mail] @WeHaveMECOFollow @[e-mail] on MastodonListen to MECO HeadlinesJoin the Off-Nominal DiscordSubscribe on Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Pocket Casts, Spotify, Google Play, Stitcher, TuneIn or elsewhereSubscribe to the Main Engine Cut Off NewsletterMusic by Max JustusArtwork photo by John Kraus for RelativityWork with me and my design and development agency: Pine Works

Hello everybody, welcome to the first ever Main Engine Cut-Off live show here at Space Symposium. Thanks so much to Redwire, first of all, for having us out here. They made the questionable decision of having me sit here for five hours over the next two days. So that should be a lot of fun. We've got two sessions today. We got this one here. We'll talk about international partnerships. And then in about an hour, we'll have Lori Garver and Karina Dries of the Commercial Spaceflight Federation joining us for some space policy talk. And then back here tomorrow, starting around 1230 local time, we'll have three episodes of MECO and then an episode of Off Nominal Live around happy hour.

So there's going to be a lot of talking about what's going on here and elsewhere in the space world. So to start, we're here to talk about international partnerships. We've got a great cast here. We've got Mike Gold of Redwire, Masami Onoda of JAXA, and Josh Walney of just wait till you hear the department of the State Department he works in because he will literally have to pull out a business card

to tell you how long that is um so to start let's go around the horn just to hear uh the kinds of things that you spend your day-to-day on um what it is that keeps you up at night that kind of stuff mike i know you've got a role here at redwire but there's also the artemis accords connection that i feel like we should talk about a bit as well so start us off hey thanks for having me it's amazing to be on the inaugural live episode of the MECO podcast. Who's ready to talk international relations? I forgot to mention Mike is totally the best hype man. So this was a good choice. Oh, well, who wouldn't be excited about international relations, right?

And it truly is critical to space development. It's one of the things that I've always liked about space. Space is so difficult and challenging that it forces us to come together, not just as Republicans or Democrats or even as Americans, but as humans. both the benefit that we'll enjoy on Earth and is necessary to bear the non-trivial costs and dangers, as well as share in the wonders and science and awe that we'll get out of space exploration globally. So to me, it is one of the great benefits of international relations, both substantively and in terms of being able to actually execute the activities. both substantively and in terms of being able to actually execute the activities. At Redwire, what's been exciting to see is the internationalization of commercial activities. For example, at Redwire, you'll see I have an American flag here, but that could just as easily be a Belgium flag from our offices in Belgium that's doing amazing work from bioprinters to the international birthing and docking mechanisms for the IAB,

as well as our group in Luxembourg that is developing robotic arms to literally bring us together. And we're seeing this across the industry, that commercial space, I believe, is actually an engine for international development, international relations. We just returned, actually actually from Tokyo recently, a trip over there, talking to everyone from Mitsui to Mitsubishi and Kanamatsu

and so many great friends that we're hoping to execute projects with. Congratulations to Team Samurai, to Tokyo and Japan for winning the World Baseball Classic. Having written the Artemis Accords, I can tell you that Japan is both better at English and baseball than America. So, you know, we've seen that there. So, again, on the private sector side, what keeps me up a little bit are barriers to this incredible development in commercial, particularly export control, is still an issue.

We've made great progress, but we need to do more on that front. We appreciate the Department of State, as well as the fact that, and this is a good thing, that entrepreneurialism and commercial space is outrunning policy. That actually the inflection point that we're at with commercial space stations, eclipse landers, we're about to see ice space, land on the moon. When I was at NASA, we executed the first purchase of regolith from a private sector entity. That was with ice space. We did it almost as a policy precedent-setting exercise.

So the fact that our policy precedent-setting exercise is now going to turn into reality is nothing short of astounding and is so emblematic of what's occurring. I do hope that with the Artemis Accords that we work hard to not only sign more countries, but to engage with them substantially to become part of the Artemis program. And let me just say on that front, then I'll shut up because I could go on forever. While it's phenomenal to be partnered with Japan, a founding member of the Artemis Accords, and France and Canada are traditional partners, I was so excited in December to see Rwanda and Nigeria, the first African countries, join the accords because Artemis is intended to be the broadest, most diverse human spaceflight program in history. And the fact that we didn't

have Africa represented was a real problem because there's such energy, there's such creativity and dynamism on the African continent. They must be a part of Artemis. And to see the first two countries sign, and I hope just the first two will be continuing on with more, was absolutely wonderful to see. So with that, I can't wait to hear from my other friends, and it's wonderful to see our stage with Masami and Josh. Thank you. Thanks so much for having me here

and putting together all these amazing speakers. This is a real pleasure to be able to speak to the audience, too. So I am Masami Onoda, the Japanese Space Agency JAXA representative in Washington, D.C. I've been there in D.C. from 2018, so now it's been five years. Usually it's a three-year rotation, so I'm doing a long run now. Still running.

Casually saying I've been doing a really good job, so they kept me on a couple years. So I hope so. And it's just like the most exciting time to be in Washington, D.C. and in America. And also, I happen to be the first woman ever in Washington, D.C. from our organization. That's also something that I, yeah, take as a challenge, but very naturally. take as a challenge, but very naturally. And I'm glad that I, this is probably the most exciting job that I've ever had. And I'm enjoying it immensely with the great partnership and the

so welcoming community in DC to work with. And that's probably what makes my life so easy and doesn't keep me awake at night is that we have such a welcoming, nice community, space community in Washington, D.C. and the whole of America, which I want to also try to make in Japan when I go back. And so thanks to

all the companies, the industry, state, and NASA also formally to be so welcoming. So in that we do work on, well, in my job I work from exploration, space science, earth science, aeronautics. So everything down to taking care of my travelers from japan um like i have to do a week this week um and we have a couple dozen um jacks of people here this year and also from our cabinet office from our ministry of education and science and technology from um the Ministry of Economy and Trade and Industry, what else? Oh, Ministry of Defense, and the industry, so I don't even know how many that makes,

probably a couple hundred. So thank you for having us here. And up front now in my job, I am working on the Artemis program, of course. We worked to sign the Artemis Accords back in 2020. It's been three years since then, and a lot has happened, and a lot is becoming true. and a lot is becoming true. We had the launch, successful launch of Artemis I and now hopefully to get a Japanese astronaut land on the moon by late 2020s is our aspiration.

So that's very exciting to make that happen, grab that before I go back to Japan. Or not, but anyway. So yeah, I'm immensely enjoying. So it's even hard to think about anything that keeps me awake at night. But it's probably my congested and contested schedule now that I could take the whole day,

it could take the whole day for me just answering RSVPs for invitations. And that's, but it's a great problem to have. And I think that we're having so many entrants into space, Japanese and in the U.S., and Japanese who want to come into the U.S. So what keeps me awake at night is my busy schedule, but I should take some sleep also, I guess. Yes, I would recommend that, Emily.

All right, Josh, pull out that business card and read it off to me because this is a real doozy. I could not believe this when I saw this in the email. It's unbelievable. I'm going to try to do it. So the Department of State has many bureaus. That's kind of our organizing unit. And our bureau, its acronym is OES, and it stands for Oceans and International Environmental and Scientific Affairs.

And I got that right. I can keep working there. And we just call it OES because we work on oceans, environment, science, and space issues. It's almost like you could shorten the name. We possibly could, but I think legislation has it at what it is now. And I'm not very good at changing that kind of stuff. But, yes, thank you so much for having me here. My apologies first.

My boss was going to join, but she couldn't make it. And so she said, get up there on stage and make us proud. So, you know, I'm maybe just a little nervous now. Feeling good. So, yeah, I work at the Office of Space Affairs in OES. And our job is to be the liaison across the U.S. government for space issues with our international partners and also into all the other departments and agencies and then also into the State Department, into our embassies around the world and helping them do the diplomatic work of space.

So I say that like NASA, NOAA, DOD, other departments and agencies, they have their own international affairs offices that we liaise with a lot, but we are the Department of State's space office. So our job is to make sure that folks like NASA, NOAA, USGS, that they are working with the right international partners, maybe. They can make contacts at a place like this, but are you truly talking to the decision makers in that government? So we have the ability to reach into other countries and make sure that the connections are good and that they are fruitful.

I think the thing that probably keeps me up at night is making sure that our policy and our diplomacy infrastructure can keep pace with Mike, specifically Mike. And I think what that looks like is something that Masami and I have worked on is there's a lot of bilateral dialogues that our office helps execute. So we have a meeting where we bring together all of the departments and agencies on our side, on their side to discuss our civil space issues. And that is a huge lift. It takes a lot of energy and a lot of countries want to do that. And so in order to do that, we either need to make my office a lot bigger. Okay, I could do that. Or

we need to actually invest in our embassy personnel and their knowledge about space so that they can make it something that they do in their day to day. And it doesn't have to just be these special moments so that we can facilitate all of the growth that we all want to see in the space industry. So Artemis Accords is a topic that we wanted to talk about. And I'm not sure we have a better cross-section of people to like, you know, when a bill becomes a law, figure out how the Artemis Accords actually works. Because for a lot of us out here, we see another country signed onto the Artemis Accords and it's like, great, it was probably a nice dinner and they signed the paper and then they went

home or something. But there's like all this, it was probably a nice dinner, and they signed the paper, and then they went home or something. But there's like all this, that's like the tip of the iceberg part, and then there's the whole underneath the water part of the iceberg. So maybe we could go, might not go directly down the line, depending on the order of these things that have happened, but back in the day when the Artemis Accords were starting up, there's more than it's just like a NASA-led program. It has to go through people like Josh to organize this

to the other national partners to make their way to Masami and all that. So maybe we could just take an example of how Japan signed on to that and what that flow actually entails from the Artemis Accords being a thing that were created through to somebody putting their pen to paper. Maybe I can start out on the U.S. side. Relative to first why there was an Artemis Accords, that NASA has failed to sustain a beyond low Earth orbit human spaceflight program since Apollo.

You look at me, I've got a little bit of gray hair here. I have not lived to see a sustained beyond Leo human space flight program. At NASA for that activity, failure wasn't just an option, it was a certainty. I've got a drawer full of t-shirts with canceled NASA programs. Jim Bridenstine was well aware of this when he came in and said that for a program to be sustainable, we need two things. Bipartisanship, which he brought as a member of Congress. Jim spent more time talking to Democrats than he did Republicans.

But he also looked across the way to the International Space Station, which has been a crown jewel, a foundation of human spaceflight. And he always believed that the reason for that was because it was international. And he knew for Artemis to move forward, we needed it to be a truly global program and hopefully the largest in history. And also, because the return to the moon was so popular, and I know hearing from Masami and others in the space community globally, that that's where they wanted America to be, to America to lead, to go back to the moon. That we saw an opportunity to not only bring these countries on board, but to establish norms of behavior that would ensure a peaceful and prosperous future in space for all of us.

So we got to writing, and this is where the Department of State came in, that before we could unite the world, we needed to unite Washington. And we needed NASA and Department of State working together. And at the time, kudos to Jonathan Margolis, who was previously at OES. I won't even try the acronym. It'll take up the rest of the time. Noted Red Sox fan, Jonathan Margolis. Let's just say that the accords were global.

It was brought to you by Red Sox fan. Let's just say that the Accords were global. It was brought to you by Red Sox Nation. And Gabriel Swinney, who was one of the first people I called, you know, relative and come to NASA, we're going to do this with the Accords. He's a Harvard educated attorney, not a recovering attorney like myself. And we developed the idea, worked hand in hand with state in the bowels of NASA headquarters, developing the initial text. I remember Jim coming down at 7 p.m. at night saying, I'm glad I don't work for Mike. I see what's going on here because we were not leaving until we got it hammered out.

Then we had to go through what these are the letters and numbers that scare me more than any others, the C-175 process, which is where you have to take a policy that you're trying to push forward in the U.S. government. And it was like defending a thesis. We're there in the White House and the Situation Room and basically having commerce state. And this is why it was so important to have state on our side. FAA, transportation, the intelligence community picking at the accords and what's good, what's bad, et cetera. And we got through that process in record time. I remember everyone congratulating me like, that's phenomenal.

The accords are done. Like we hadn't even spoken to a single international entity yet, but everyone was so thrilled to get through C-175 that, you know, it was an accomplishment just doing the amount of time we had to again thank you to state for helping us. Then we took it to a core group and this was the balancing act that we had to do that we didn't want so many countries that it would either dilute the accords to the point of not being substantive but not so small as like well Japan and the U.S. agreed. So we had to find that Goldilocks zone. And of course, Japan was an important part of this.

And that's when we first reached out to the initial accord signatories to say, we have this concept. We'd like to manifest your explicit participation in the Artemis program and establish norms behavior that will support a peaceful and prosperous world. And of course, the first person that I called was Masami. And I just want to say, if not for Masami, I don't think there would be an Artemis Accords. And I don't think there would be a gateway. Because we talk a lot about the accords, we don't talk about the gateway. The gateway MOUs, the binding agreements,

were just as difficult, just as challenging, and just as much of a success and a triumph as the accords. And we had to do both at the same time. And that's where the relationship with JAXA, with MEXT, with Japan really came in handy. So I'll turn it over to Masami then to talk about what happened once we contacted and started working with the international. Wow. Thanks so much for those words Mike and almost made me blush but yeah but this was the time of COVID 2020 and we were in an unusual time of course but still we were trying to get back to the moon and beyond and also this was

different from before that there was industry and international partners that was very different so it's basically the first time for international partners so we had been negotiating the gateway agreement over the year, and it was still underway at the time that the Artemis Accords came up. And this was like summer 2020, the height of COVID, when personally I was back in Japan because of that for a couple of months to see how it folds out. And then Mike would call. So this wasn't easy. It wasn't like normal times. And but somehow I think it made things our relationship even closer, strangely.

So this does happen. A lot of people were saying that COVID, you know, keeps us apart. The relationship becomes, you know, distant and all of that. But I think it's actually in our case, it brought the space reps in Washington, D.C., like Kness and ESA and DLR India. They all have reps in Washington, D.C., and we have a very tightly wound team right now, I think because partly because of COVID. And so then we would we would have to relay that also online or remotely to our governments and everything. And so this was a very different way of working, although it worked even in a more powerful way than usual, I think. And this was also in the U.S. time of transition in elections, and we had to be even tighter together. And as a Washington rep, I felt that we have to, as a partnership,

work together to get through this transition, get the space policy through to the next administration, because that will also help the whole of the space program, and in turn will help our Japanese space program so that's that's how we worked I'm curious to hear how it how it landed for people back in Japan because you know I'm in America and a good majority of my listener base is so a lot of times when we hear about international partnerships it's much in that way of you know we're we're kind of doing this program and we're bringing other partners on

to help contribute to it, to make it more of a thing that is politically viable in the U.S., that it tends to, like the International Space Station, parts of the shuttle program, they're much more viable when you have international partners. And notably are some people who did not sign the Artemis Accords who said that the Gateway is much too American-led. And obviously there's a lot of political stuff behind that, but yeah, think real hard, Josh.

But for Japan, JAXA has been a real darling of the space community. Hayabusa 2 was one of the most beloved missions I think I witnessed online. Everyone was enthralled by that impressive budgets on the planetary side that JAXA's been just pulling off amazing stuff

with very little money compared to other missions that are out there. You've got astronauts flying up the ISS that are fun to follow along with. For people in Japan, though, when they look at something like Artemis, are they excited by it? Is it something that they're excited about

the contribution to it, or does it feel like, okay, I guess they're excited about, the contribution to it? Or does it feel like, okay, I guess we're going along for the ride and it is to American-led? Like, what's the vibe on that? Well, we were very quick, I believe, when the draft was shown to us to support, to have overall support for it. And, like, during this space symposium,

we had the agreement for the Martian Moon Exploration, MMX, mission signed between NASA and JAXA. And so that's also an excitement. It's, in a way, it's Martian exploration, so you would think it's moon to Mars, but actually it's asteroid to Mars, in a way, it's Martian exploration, so you would think it's moon to Mars, but actually it's asteroid to Mars in a way because it's a sample return. So in our missions, it's an extension of Hayabusa 2. So thank you for mentioning that.

And so we kind of converged that all into MMX, and this is a great international cooperation again. into MMX and this is a great international cooperation again. And so we have overall a very supportive environment in Japan about space. I remember when we did sign a joint exploration declaration of intent. I'm so surprised that I could say that. The Jedi. Jedi, yes. The Jedi.

Jedi, yes. That was back in June 2020 that I had a tweet, I think, from a Japanese that said, oh my gosh, I'm in tears to hear that Japanese will someday land on the moon. And this was just some lady out there and I was girl or lady and I was so impressed.

So I think it's overall very, very supportive. So Josh, I don't understand what happens in your office, as we discussed already. So what parts of the Artemis Accords actually make their way to you? Yeah. And maybe even on an ongoing basis, the countries that have been signing on recently might be an interesting test case to talk about. Absolutely. I can give another little history piece that Mike touched on. He used the phrase dilution, which, yeah, that's a possible word to use. But I think what he's referencing is, so our office represents the U.S. government at the U.N. Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space, or COPUS.

And if I'm introducing your audience to COPUS, I'm going to try to cement that pronunciation because there's others out there and I don't want anybody else to use them. So at COPUS, there's over 100 member states, and it's the body that drafted all of the space treaties, the Outer Space Treaty, the Astronaut Rescue and Return Agreement, Liability Convention, Registration Convention, and there was another that the U.S. didn't sign on to. I wonder if that other international partner was into it or not. Yeah, no, not many were.

And so that is a place where a lot of work has been done in the international space community, but it is a very large body, and it works by consensus. And so you have to get all 100 plus member states to agree on things. And so the last process that they did that came to consensus was called the Long-Term Sustainability Guidelines. And this took about 10 years to generate 21 non-binding guidelines about what are best practices in space activities. And it is a fantastically powerful document because all 100 plus members agree that this is what it looks like, including Russia, including China, including other partners from all across the world said, this is what we value.

And so in our work, that is what we hold ourselves to. When it came to exploring the moon again, When it came to exploring the moon again, we knew that there were some unanswered questions from the legal regime of the space treaties. And we would be fundamentally answering those questions by going and doing lunar activities, saying, can you use lunar resources? What does it mean to be in a safe zone near another object? How do you register space objects that go to the moon? And so there were all these legal questions that if we were to pursue the route of going and making a treaty, it would have taken longer than it would have for us to get to the moon. And so we wouldn't want to be setting precedent without consulting with others.

And so we said, here's what the Artists Accords can do, is they can be our positive affirmative statement that says, this is how we are going to hold ourselves accountable and bind ourselves to these principles to say, we are going to set up things like, this has been a controversial topic, called safety zones or zones of deconfliction, because there are fundamental technical limitations on how close you can land a space object next to existing objects on the moon. I believe we landed some of the Apollo missions next to some of the Surveyor missions and almost completely destroyed those landers.

So as two countries are possibly working next to each other on the moon, you don't want to hurt that infrastructure that's already been there. And so grounding this political statement in something that's very technical and engineering wise is what we wanted to do with the accords. And so now today, what that looks like is folks in my office and in NASA's office of international interagency relations work to talk to any country in the world that is interested in joining the Accords because it is not a U.S.-owned document. It is open for signature. We are just the repository. And so often what that does is the U.S. or other Artemis partners can go, Accords partners rather, because the Accords are distinct from the program. I have to say that every chance I get.

Other Accords partners can talk with other countries and say, this is what it is. It's a non-binding political commitment to say we are committed to the principles of the Outer Space Treaty and the other laws, other treaties, to say how we're going to act in space. And so those conversations evolve. There's a lot of questions. I've answered that safety zones question a lot of times. And then countries want to come on. They want to sign the accords. And there has been a history

of the U.S. doing signing ceremonies because we have the infrastructure. We have the people to be able to staff this kind of stuff. And people are excited to come meet with the NASA administrator, with my bosses, and to celebrate more folks joining this coalition. When it comes to getting countries to sign on, are there, do you find that there are, I'm not sure, you all might have a little bit of different perspective on this, but are there certain aspects of the Artemis Accords that you find are stickier to explain and get agreement on, or what? Let's talk about safety.

Let's talk about safety. Oh, yeah, you've grown at this. Let's hear it. Let's talk about safety. So I know there has been, you know, it is a place where there have been misperceptions, I think, from time to time. But I can't think of a better example

of how the Accords implement the common- objectives of the Outer Space Treaty than safety zones. The safety zone language in the Accords, and the Accords as a whole, and let's start a little bit with COPUS, because I think there's been some confusion there as well. The Accords are meant as a beginning of a conversation, not an ending. And if you read the Accords, and I recommend you do, they're a page-turner. It's short, it's brief, it's exciting. It constantly references that we will take the lessons learned from Artemis, bring those to Coppola to have conversations about future treaties, obligations, etc. The Outer Space Treaty is wonderful.

Over 60 years old, doesn't look a day over 30. And the reason for that is the Outer Space Treaty is wonderful. Over 60 years old, doesn't look a day over 30. And the reason for that is the Outer Space Treaty is a treaty of principles. That the objectives, the goals, the values of the Outer Space Treaty are as real and relevant today as they were when it was drafted in the 1960s. The challenge with the Outer Space Treaty is there isn't specificity. So for example, the Outer Space Treaty says avoid harmful interference. Well, how do you avoid harmful interference? And the Accords have an answer in the form of safety zones, that for any activity by a country, the area with which

that nation could cause harmful interference, that Artemis Accord signatories are agreeing to the obligation of establishing what that zone is, informing the United Nations and the world where that zone is, where they're operating, what they're doing, and then agreeing to coordinate with any country that enters that zone to avoid harmful interference. If there is a better way to implement this value, to avoid conflict, to keep peace than the transparency and communication that safety zones represent, I'd sure like to hear it. So I think a lot of what can be viewed as controversial in the Accords, whether it's space resource utilization, which we talked about as well or safety zones is more due to misperception and a lack of actually reading the Accords than it is to the reality of the substance of the Accords. Yeah so like I

said we were discussing the Gateway MOU at the time and we knew that was, it is, the Gateway MOU is under the ISS international agreement and we saw that because it was kind of an orbiting platform which could be an extension of the international agreement for the ISS. Now landing on the moon and the surface activities cannot be, it would be a stretch to do that, so we would need a new legal framework. And Artemis Accords is, it's not legally binding, but it paves the way towards that. And it bridges between the Outer Space Treaty,

which was signed in the 1960s, to now. And that's a very large leap in which we had modern international law, like environmental law, which elaborate a lot using sort of sunshine methods rather than a treaty with teeth. sunshine methods rather than a treaty with teeth, that is not to be so coercive, but to motivate by managerial techniques, legal techniques, to motivate countries to follow rules. That has been the evolution, I think, over those, what, more than 50 years until now, which space law hasn't been able to catch up with. And I think Artemis Accords has a lot of thinking into, like, safety zones, heritage on the moon,

the moon or other areas, space debris, that need those kinds of tools to be able to manage the real activities that were not there when the Outer Space Treaty was signed. So that's a motivation, I think, that we all need to have. Every single country who wants to have an activity in space needs to think about this very seriously, and we ought to do that together. So I think Artemis Accords is one very good tool to help us do that. I'd love to talk about the commercial side of the market a little bit. We were talking about this, Josh, right before we started. The way that State Department interacts with some commercial companies,

when they start pushing into areas that the government may be uncomfortable with, launch is certainly, you know, there's a rocket over there that's now going to be doing hypersonic reentry vehicles. And it's like, okay, that went from a space launch vehicle to something else pretty quick. Five eyes country, so we're not ruffling too many feathers over there. But the other aspect to talk about is lunar landers. I-SPACE is heading to the moon in like a week, I think, is the first landing attempt. And they've got I believe they're working with Draper,

is it, on some contributions to the CLPS program as well. So there's going to be a lot more commercial stuff going on on the lunar surface, which will ruffle more feathers than launch, maybe. So I would love to hear about when commercial companies come knocking, what kind of stuff they're asking about and what the interaction is

when they are trying to get approval to do certain things. Yeah, absolutely. I think that the international space law legal regime, as we've talked about earlier, and the other agreement is the moon agreement. It's not a bad word. I just, Mike thinks it is. It's a bad policy.

Sure. So the way that that defines the interactions of commercial space companies to states is it doesn't really explicitly say, just like Mike referenced earlier, there's not a lot of explicit language. But from the Outer Space Treaty, there's an article that indicates that states are responsible for the activities of their nationals. And so they should have authorization and continuing supervision of those activities. And what that looks like in individual countries is a regulatory regime. In the United States, we work to authorize launch activities through the FAA. We work to authorize commercial remote sensing through the National Oceanic and

Atmospheric Administration. And the Federal Communications Commission gives out licenses for spectrum use to communicate with satellites or to broadcast. And so that those are the three kind of hooks that we have statutorily from as a government into commercial space activity. And so then as we do new activities on places like the moon or different types of activities in orbit, there are some gray areas and some challenges that have not just, they don't necessarily preclude companies from doing activities, but they definitely don't make it simple. I think Mike has many stories about this, about pushing the boundaries and people like me have to run through a lot of steps to make sure that we are on the hook for this activity. Therefore, the government needs to be sure

that we are not taking undue risk. And so what that looks like when a company comes to us is a lot of consultation and a lot of working all across NASA, the other departments and agencies that are very invested in space activities to make sure that we have all of the assurances that we need as a government. And so you can hear just in my tone, we are more conservative in that way. We get nervous.

And so that's why I'm working to develop the infrastructure to enable Mike to do all of this work. And so please jump in. Well, I do want to thank you, Josh, and correct any misperceptions, speaking of misperceptions. You know, Department of State has been such an incredible partner for the private sector in the COPUS, in the legal subcommittee, in international relations generally. There's a misperception sometimes, oh, state doesn't care about industry, et cetera. Again, some days I think state has done more for commerce than commerce has done for commerce. As a matter of fact- It's a branding thing.

It is. People say state department, and I'm like, is it the State Department or is it the State Department? Well, which State Department are you talking about? That's why we need to work on that name. Right. Office of Science and Commerce. Maybe we had a C to it not to make it longer. Where we do run into trouble.

And the reason that I began talking about Article 6, our favorite article, the Outer Space Treaty, which as Josh references, requires the continuing supervision, is that state didn't want to be in the position of saying no to a commercial activity. That it was Ken Hodgkins who initially came to me and said, I don't care who has the authority. I don't want to be in a position of blocking this terrific commercial development. Please, let's find a solution. And we're still working on that to this day here in the US, but that's actually because state didn't want there to be something blocking that from happening. And as we say, the fear, and this is both a good and a bad thing, is that commercial activities

are outstripping the policy. So with iSpace about to land, and iSpace had some Redwire sun sensors, so we're thrilled to be a part of that, or at Gateway, where you've got the rollout solar arrays by Redwire. Commercial is leading the way, and we're still trying to figure out Article 6. The Artemis Accords are a good first step, but again, a beginning. And we don't have an Artemis Accords for commercial activities. We don't have an Artemis Accords for national security. And I think those are next steps that need to be taken, which we referenced the slow nature of the COPUS,

where we should be creating new coalitions of the willing, particularly in the defense sense. So how close is too close? If we're going to get in a shooting war, let's at least do so intentionally. And I think transparency is the key to avoiding so much conflict on Earth, and that will be true in space. So if we can come together with our allies, with Japan and others, to say that this is how close is too close to a spacecraft, and support what DoD policy has already put out in memorandums, that this is what good looks like, responsible space development, that's very important, not only for who signs, but even as a message to who doesn't sign, so that China, Russia, other adversarial

nations can understand where that line is, so that we don't accidentally get into an incident, because ultimately, that's what we were trying to establish with the Accords. The journey of Artemis is to the moon and Mars, but the destination of the accords is peace and prosperity. He's got the tagline for everything, this guy. That was a really interesting thing to end on there, Mike, about who doesn't sign onto the accords and using the accords as a way to make clear the things that are the countries that have signed, what they've agreed to, what their expectations are. So for the list of countries that are never going to sign the Artemis accords, right, there's some list that somebody could draw up. You probably have your own personal list that

you've drawn up. But unless you think every country on Earth is going to sign the Artemis Accords at some point. Look. I'll give you a minute to state that and then go on with my question. So when I was a child, I grew up. We're going way back. Yeah. Oh, come on. We're running high here. It's like 10 years ago. One minute left on the show. That's great. So I grew up in fear of nuclear weapons and a nuclear holocaust. I lived in Montana near Minuteman missile bases. Yet as an adult, I was on a Russian nuclear base taking a Russian nuclear missile, removing the warhead, putting on a fairing, and using it to launch prototype inflatable

space stations. So I know it looks bad, and it is bad. We are seeing war crimes from Russia. We have to protect Taiwan. But still, believe in the possible. Believe in a better day. I'm a Star Trek fan, right? Where are my Star Trek fans? No matter how bad it seems, if we believe and work towards a better future, we will get there. And I experienced that with Russia and I know it's bad now, but I still believe in the future and that space can be such a catalyst to creating that better tomorrow. Well, so on that note, I thought it was interesting that you were getting to like, if you just write down your expectations, at least we all will have written down our expectations and we can manage accordingly.

Yeah. So, yeah, I just, I don't know. First of all, never say never relative to anyone signing or not signing. You don't know. And I've heard rumors of an Artemis Accords version that China and Russia have written. I guarantee 90% of it or more is the same as what we're doing. And it influences China. And we can hear from Josh.

There's precedent that's set. As a recovering attorney, that precedent is important for what it says to even those who don't sign. Indeed. And that's, I said it earlier, we don't own this document. It's open for signature. If a state wants to join and say, we want to hold ourselves to these principles, we welcome that. Yes. And I'll be affirmative from the People's Republic of China and from the Russian Federation. And the work then of turning this into something that we would take to the Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space

and work to break it down into the granular international law would be small parts of it. One of the sticking points is space resource use. And this was something that developed in a similar way. There was a group called the Hague Space Minerals Resources Working Group that for years worked on a coalition of the willing to say, we want to discuss the challenges around this issue because the international legal regime says

there should be no appropriation of resources. I'm not going to get it correct, so I'm not going to try. It's fine. We can look it up later. the international legal regime says there should be no appropriation of resources or of, I'm not going to get it correct, so I'm not going to try. And so that work then informed now an agenda item at Copious that is working its way towards possible other legally binding things. So they're open. I think it does set good precedents and it brings our draft to say, here's what we want to see happen. Every other country, if you disagree, let's see your draft.

All right. We've got about a minute left, but I just want to thank you all for hanging out and super cool hearing stories from all the different perspectives of this kind of stuff. And we mentioned iSpace.

We should shout them out again because they're about to land on the moon pretty soon. So if you wanted to say something real quick. On the 25th year in America time, I believe. Yes, of April. So, yeah. So that will be awesome. So thank you all so much for hanging out.

And we'll be live again in a couple minutes with Lori Garver and Karina Drees in just a little bit. So thanks all for coming out. Thanks for having us, Anthony. Thanks so much. Thanks. Huge thanks once again to Redwire for hosting this all at their booth on the show floor at Space Symposium. Big thanks to Omar,

Austin, and everyone else from Redwire for an awesome couple of days. And thanks to Mike, Basami, and Josh for joining me for that conversation. It was a really fun time talking with them, getting to know them a little bit, and I'm sure you will hear from them again in the near future. This episode is brought to you by 36 executive producers. Thanks to Fred, Eunice, SmallSpark Space Systems, Ryan, Frank, David, Donald, Tim Dodd, TheEverDashNaut, Matt, Dawn Aerospace, Pat, Simon, Chris, Lee, Steve, Lars from Agile Space, Brad, Stealth Julian, Warren, Bob, Theo and Violet, Harrison, Rob, Jan, Tyler, Joel, Benjamin, Pat from KC, Russell, Chris, The Astrogators at SCE, Moritz, and four anonymous executive producers. You all made this kind of thing happen. You made it possible for me to

travel out there to the show and post up for a while. It was awesome. I got to talk to so many people, spread the word about what we're doing here at Main Engine Cutoff. So thank you all so much. If you want to help join that crew, support the show and make more stuff like this possible, head over to mainenginecutoff.com slash support. Join up. You can get access to Miko Headlines, which is a whole nother show I do every single week, just for the people that are signed up there. I run through all the stories of the week, keep you up to date. It's a great way to stay up to date on Space News, support the show, and keep more of this kind of thing happening in your real life. If you want to reach out, hit me up, anthony at manageacutoff.com, on Twitter at wehavemiko, or on

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hit me up and let's chat about what you've got cooking. But otherwise, thanks again for listening and stay tuned for more conversations from the Space Symposium. There's a lot to go, so you'll be entertained for a couple of days here for sure. And until next time, talk to you soon.