This evening at the ERPS meeting, Dave Masten reported on the Space Frontier Foundation's "The New Space Economy: A Financial Panel Discussion," which was apparently a combined meet-n-greet and gripe session about high launch costs and no markets. He noted that Jim Schulz complained that ITAR is a major headache because every space launch is an export. Mr. Schulz' information is badly dated for someone attending such a panel, and I'm afraid I wasn't very polite in refuting Dave's secondhand assertion.
Several years ago, there was indeed an ambiguity in the law about whether a launch constitutes an export. Nobody knew. So Congress told everyone (actually, I understand the bill was written by San Diego L5 - it's an excellent piece of legislation): a launch is not an export, and a reentry is not an import. They made it pretty darn explicit. But the great thing about the Web in an open democracy is that you don't have to take my word for it. HR 1702, the Commercial Space Act of 1998, passed as Public Law 105-303 on 27 Jan 1998, states in part, >SEC. 102. COMMERCIAL SPACE LAUNCH AMENDMENTS. > >(a) AMENDMENTS- Chapter 701 of title 49, United States Code, is amended-- > >(15) in section 70117-- > >(C) by amending subsection (f) to read as follows: > >'(f) LAUNCH NOT AN EXPORT; REENTRY NOT AN IMPORT- A launch vehicle, >reentry vehicle, or payload that is launched or reentered is not, because >of the launch or reentry, an export or import, respectively, for purposes >of a law controlling exports or imports, except that payloads launched >pursuant to foreign trade zone procedures as provided for under the >Foreign Trade Zones Act (19 U.S.C. 81a-81u) shall be considered exports >with regard to customs entry.' So Dave, sorry for yelling at you, but you can see why I got exercised about it. :-) -R -- No electrons were harmed in the creation of this message PETE - People for the Ethical Treatment of Electrons Randall Clague [EMAIL PROTECTED] _______________________________________________ ERPS-list mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.erps.org/mailman/listinfo/erps-list
