Comments on: More obstacles ahead for export control reform?

By: Doug Lassiter

Doug Lassiter — Sun, 04 Jul 2010 03:59:44 +0000

“ITAR is, from start to finish, us shooting ourselves in the foot.”

Exactly. Especially for a space program that needs international cooperation. What incentive is there for ESA, for example, to partner with an agency that is strapped by export controls? We wouldn’t be shooting ourselves in the foot if what ITAR was regulating was really nuclear weapon technology. But when you’re bashing projects because they’re letting a Russian student screw in a mil-spec screw, you know something is wrong.

By: vulture4

vulture4 — Sun, 04 Jul 2010 02:52:07 +0000

Just look at any ad from Thales or Arianespace; they brag about being “ITAR-free”. The motivation for ITAR was to punish Russia (our ISS partner) for supplying nuclear weapon technology to Iran (no evidence this even occurred, as the technology Iran got was from our ally Pakistan). ITAR is, from start to finish, us shooting ourselves in the foot.

By: Doug Lassiter

Doug Lassiter — Fri, 02 Jul 2010 12:35:54 +0000

I see in SpacePolicyOnline that the administration just announced the other day that a single “Export Control Agency” will be established to oversee export controls. That means a lot, as a good part of the problem has been that Commerce, State, and Defense don’t know how to talk to each other. I also see that the GAO is looking into how other countries avoid getting hamstrung by such regulations as we manage to do. This suggests that the leadership I was looking for is actually starting to appear.

By: Rhyolite

Rhyolite — Fri, 02 Jul 2010 06:58:12 +0000

For all of the harping on the FY11 HSF budget, ITAR reform is going to have a bigger effect on the success of the US space industry over the long run – especially the commercial parts of it.

By: Doug Lassiter

Doug Lassiter — Thu, 01 Jul 2010 19:02:35 +0000

It would be interesting to understand how the new space policy, which emphasizes international cooperation, depends on ITAR reform. In many respects, current regulations could stymie innovative plans, or even make them vastly more expensive than they would be otherwise as the project management is engineered to run all the export control traps.

It would seem that for the new space policy to be actionable, we should be seeing some leadership on ITAR reform. Until the latter happens, the former certainly won’t. In this new space policy, ITAR reform becomes the tall pole.