Comment by IAmEveryone | Hacker News Reader

Comment by IAmEveryone | Hacker News Reader

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Your narrow-minded anger is ill-informed.

First, there are quite a few very obvious reasons why it's in humanity's interest to regulate space missions. You want to minimise space debris, for example, because it could result in a series of collisions making near-earth orbits a wasteland you can't cross.

That's why there are rules on the size, structure, orbits, data sharing, disposal mechanisms and other features of space missions. These are set out in international agreements and enforced by the operator's country of origin. Greenland is a territory of Denmark, and your proposed "pirate launches" would be regulated by the European Space Agency. Problem (really) solved!

There's also stuff like the Outer Space Treaty, a valiant (and mostly effective) effort of international cooperation preventing a wasteful and dangerous arms race in space. Yeah, Trump seems to be reneging on that as well, go figure.

"Extremely small office" is simply a fact. There are three people working on this subject. Since most people will agree that SpaceX's videos really isn't much of a problem, nobody is actually complaining about past non-enforcement. Therefore, the lack of enforcement really isn't a very strong argument for increased funding, is it?

Providing a potentially understaffed office with the resources it needs isn't a "bribe". These people would not personally get any money. They are not asking for money from SpaceX or any other interested party.

Regarding this specific licensing requirement, a good read is https://www.nesdis.noaa.gov/CRSRA/files/15%20CFR%20Part%2096.... It's the result of a public deliberation and shows the different goals, stakeholders, and experiences underlying the regulation, and how they have to be balanced.

> All these years of watching Star Trek universe (series & movies) taught me nothing!!!

indeed...

>First, there are quite a few very obvious reasons why it's in humanity's interest to regulate space missions. You want to minimise space debris, for example, because it could result in a series of collisions making near-earth orbits a wasteland you can't cross.

Preventing space debris is not related to this topic in the least. Neither is preventing a "space arms race".

>Providing a potentially understaffed office with the resources it needs isn't a "bribe".

It seems to me that the best way to solve this problem is to get rid of this useless office.

>Regarding this specific licensing requirement, a good read is https://www.nesdis.noaa.gov/CRSRA/files/15%20CFR%20Part%2096...

I don't think it's good discussion etiquette to link to an unreadable wall of bureaucratic text and not give any context. I.e. at least state one good reason for this regulation.

> Preventing space debris is not related to this topic in the least. Neither is preventing a "space arms race".

The relation is OP's complete and naive refusal to entertain the possibility and usefulness of regulating private activity in space.

> It seems to me that the best way to solve this problem is to get rid of this useless office. > I don't think it's good discussion etiquette to link to an unreadable wall of bureaucratic text and not give any context. I.e. at least state one good reason for this regulation.

See: it's this attitude that keeps the level of such discussions at a kindergarten level. The linked document contains text, yes. But it's perfectly readable English. The first paragraph is headlined "SUMMARY" and contains this justification for the regulation and the office implementing it:

They are intended to facilitate the development of the U.S. commercial remote sensing industry and promote the collection and widespread availability of Earth remote sensing data, while preserving essential U.S. national security interests, foreign policy and international obligations.

You can easily find a later section entitled "Purpose" that expands on it:

(1) Preserve the national security of the United States;

(2) Observe the foreign policies and international obligations of the United States;

(3) Advance and protect U.S. national security and foreign policy interests by maintaining U.S. leadership in remote sensing space activities, and by sustaining and enhancing the U.S. remote sensing industry;

(4) Promote the broad use of remote sensing data, their information products and applications;

(5) Ensure that unenhanced data collected by licensed private remote sensing space systems concerning the territory of any country are made available to the government of that country upon its request, as soon as such data are available and on reasonable commercial terms and conditions as appropriate;

(6) Ensure that remotely sensed data are widely available for civil and scientific research, particularly environmental and global change research; and

(7) Maintain a permanent comprehensive U.S. government archive of global land remote sensing data for long-term monitoring and study of the changing global environment.

Those seem to be seven good reasons. If you want to argue their merit, you should start with a good-faith effort to understand them.

I really don't see any of those reasons as being sufficient to cover SpaceX launch videos other than in the most narrow bureaucratic sense.

(1) Is dubious at best in this context, given that they do permit the first couple of 10's of KM up and only after that does this office's authority come into play. By then any imagery at HD video resolution of the United States has zero implication for national security. (2) and (3) are neutrals by my interpretation. And it actually flat out contradicts (4), (5), (6) and (7), since it isn't promoting it but actively tries to reduce it and blocks the public dissemination of the live streams they were already making available.

GGGPs arguments made no sense, yours are more verbose and seemingly better founded but they also make no sense.

This is just a nice example of a bunch of people with no actual stake in the outcome flexing their bureaucratic muscle, the equivalent of the little people behind government institutions little windows in places of 'public service' whose only role in life seems to be to ruin yours and to send you to another colleague behind another window.

> If you want to argue their merit, you should start with a good-faith effort to understand them.

That goes for you too, in particular for stuff you quote.

In reading through the document linked, NOAA is not going off on their own in order to demand this license. US congress made public laws relating to what commercial industry can and cannot do for space sensing. NOAA is the organization in charge of ensuring that the law is actually followed. They do not (and should not) have the ability to decide which companies/people can and cannot follow the law. From the text:

"The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) issues regulations revising the agency’s requirements for the licensing, monitoring and compliance of operators of private Earth remote sensing space systems under Title II of the Land Remote Sensing Policy Act of 1992 (the Act). These regulations implement the provisions of the Act, as amended by the 1998 Commercial Space Act, and the 2003 U.S. Commercial Remote Sensing Policy."

Yes, but for the past three decades this wasn't a problem during space launches and now that SpaceX comes along on their 50th+ launch it suddenly is a problem.

To me that looks like a trumped up reason, if there was any real concern then it would have been noted at launch #1.

> Yes, but for the past three decades this wasn't a problem during space launches

More than likely, that's because the commercial companies who needed the license got the license.

> now that SpaceX comes along on their 50th+ launch it suddenly is a problem.

Probably because the technology on this payload fall under the requirements of the law to need it, and the company who owns the payload didn't get the license. Or, NOAA was unaware of the satellites until now and realize they need to follow up. Since they are a small shop and are not omniscient, that can happen.

EDIT: I misread the article, I meant the launches, not the payloads.

Based on the article text, it looks like it wasn't even NOAA following up so much as SpaceX doing their due diligence at the very last minute and realizing they needed a license too late to get it approved. In which case, it's probably the billion dollar launch vehicle provider whose processes really warrant the most questions and not the three person bureau tasked with navigating license applications through other areas of government.

It's amazing how people can get from a description of that sequence of events to tinfoilhattery about bureaucrats "flexing their muscles" with "trumped up reasons". If anything, a logical explanation is probably the opposite: NOAA doesn't have enough control of the remote sensing licensing process to do a flagship government contractor the favour of forcing a license through, and certainly don't have the power to rewrite the law to accord to people's views that SpaceX's videos aren't sufficiently high resolution to matter.

From TFA

"It appears that NOAA has recently decided to start interpreting or enforcing a decades-old law: "

So yes, SpaceX approached NOAA, as they should. And NOAA did not give them the required license in time for whatever reason.

Given that it's publicly documented[1] that license approval involves coordination with (as a minimum) U.S. Department of Defense, U.S. Department of State and U.S. Department of the Interior and at least 120 days should be allowed, and SpaceX chose to apply three days before a launch I'd have a hard time interpreting the fact the license was not granted in time as the fault of anyone other than SpaceX.

[1]https://www.nesdis.noaa.gov/CRSRA/generalFAQ.html

Given that a few weeks prior there appeared to be no problem it would have been trivial to issue a 'provisional' license until the slow wheels of government could do their job.

Keep in mind that these launches are doing more for American goodwill and image right now than anything else the administration is doing and from that perspective alone they are worth a bit of leniency.

120 days to approve something that has been going on for the better part of a decade might seem reasonable to you but it does not seem reasonable to me, there is a segment of the population that feels that yellow pieces of paper are more important than reality but I'm not a part of that segment. Paper should serve the people, not the other way around.

> it would have been trivial to issue a 'provisional' license until the slow wheels of government could do their job.

I don't think it's ever "trivial" for a license-stamping body to make up a new kind of permit, particularly not over a three day period and when it's bodies like the Department of Defense they're cutting out of the picture.

Ultimately, if SpaceX wished to take the view that the existing law was not well drafted, not relevant to their particular filming, something they may have already breached without consequence and not in the US government's interest to pursue, they were perfectly entitled to take the risk of leaving the cameras on and seeing if anyone did anything about it. Quite why you think it should be incumbent on NOAA to breach the law on their behalf I have no idea.

> Quite why you think it should be incumbent on NOAA to breach the law on their behalf I have no idea.

Because up to that point nobody had shown any good reason why the license was required in the first place and 10's of launches had been done without the license. This is too little, too late and doesn't serve anybody.

No harm was ever done by transmitting low resolution images from space.

Anyway, enough indents.

> Paper should serve the people, not the other way around.

I definitely agree with you on that, and I agree that the government can be over burdensome and take too long. However, NOAA is the one charged with enforcing the law on it, they did not write the law. If you disagree with the law, I encourage you to write your congressman and see what it takes to change the law.

I think there is a fundamental disagreement on the intent on what NOAA is doing. I personally don't see it as hostile, nor do I think they are flexing their muscle.

If it was true that SpaceX only came to them 3 days before the launch, I think that is unfair to NOAA to ask for a license so quick. If they did follow the 120 day policy and NOAA didn't give them a license, then the fault is on NOAA.

What I find odd is NOAA's own statement says: "SpaceX applied and received a license from NOAA that included conditions on their capability to live-stream from space."

So is SpaceX violating their license? I think there is much more at play when just what the article says. Personally, I have a feeling another government agency saw what SpaceX was doing, saw they didn't have a license, and NOAA got in trouble because they weren't enforcing that law, and now NOAA is caught in the cross fire.

> More than likely, that's because the commercial companies who needed the license got the license.

More likely: they just woke up to the possibility of showing the world they exist.

> Probably because the technology on this payload fall under the requirements of the law to need it, and the company who owns the payload didn't get the license.

I don't see what it has to do with payloads.

> Or, NOAA was unaware of the satellites until now and realize they need to follow up.

It's not about the satellites, it is about the launches, specifically video from orbit.

> More likely: they just woke up to the possibility of showing the world they exist.

I mean, the only evidence we've got is an article which quite clearly states that (i) SpaceX were the ones who contacted NOAA (ii) NOAA did not contact SpaceX regarding other launches, say it was SpaceX's responsibility to contact them and they don't think they have the resources to go chasing unlicensed remote sensing companies anyway (iii) Cameras on launches SpaceX carries out for government don't actually need permits anyway, which probably applies to a lot of SpaceX launches

So I'm not sure what gives you the confidence to confidently assert that it's "more likely" the precise opposite happened?

You are conveniently leaving out the bit from TFA that states that NOAA only recently started to enforce this particular part of their charter.

That is why SpaceX contacted them. If they had not and they had launched without obtaining permission and streamed the footage there would have been a nice 'gotcha' moment and they tried to avoid that.

> Cameras on launches SpaceX carries out for government don't actually need permits anyway.

So what's the point on restricting them on other launches? That proves this whole thing is high grade bullshit.

I am "conveniently" leaving it out because it is a vaguely worded "appears..." piece of journalese which contradicts the rest of the article and established fact. Nobody has disputed that SpaceX contacted NOAA first, there's no dispute that they process 40-odd applications every year, no dispute that the policy of licensing remote sensing has been in effect for a long time, amended more than once and that recent moves in the legislature (recent as in a couple of years ago, so SpaceX really had time to notice) have been proposals to relax it rather than to strengthen it.

And yeah, also no dispute that the government grants missions planned by its own agencies a remote sensing license - can't imagine why you would expect it to be otherwise tbh? But agreed, enough indents :-)

My fault, I read it incorrectly.

No problem. It's a pretty messed up article to begin with.

First they state that NOAA only recently started enforcing this, then they talk about SpaceX applying belatedly and finally there is the whole confusion about the bit where NOAA's charter only comes into play when they reach orbit, which removes most of the reasons they could be worried about in the first place.

Yeah this article is very confusing. I said it in an earlier comment, it wouldn't surprise me if another government agency (DoD, NSA, CIA) saw what SpaceX is doing, saw they didn't have a license, and got NOAA in trouble, and now they are trying to do their due diligence and got caught in a cross fire.

That's an interesting viewpoint and maybe explains some of the weirdness around this whole affair.

Even so, it is hard for me to imagine what DoD, NSA or CIA might have in terms of reasons why low resolution video transmission from space would be problematic, especially since for other launches the 'from orbit' videos are not deemed a problem and from where I'm sitting they are functionally identical and potentially more problematic (because they are government launches).

I read most of the relevant sections of the document, and there are good reasons for regulating remote sensing systems. I'm fairly familiar with remote sensing systems (SAR, scatterometry, etc) and I'm most interested in reasons why it makes sense to classify the cameras SpaceX stuck to the side of the rocket as remote sensing systems. While technically accurate according the definition provided in the law, it seems pretty dumb. The law even specifically states that handheld cameras don't count, so the distinction apparently comes down to whether there is a person up there to hold a camera that is easily "hand held" size.

I noticed the regulation says "remote sensing system" - does that mean SpaceX needs a license to record the video?

Broadcasting, at least to me, is not "sensing" - by the time images are broadcast, the "sensing" has already happened (even if by mere microseconds).

Strictly speaking sensing is the act of making a reading from a sensor, the fact that they transmit the video back to the earth already seems to be in violation (since that could be intercepted and since SpaceX apparently does continue to have access to the feed).

So it's nothing to do with recording.

well the danger here is that if US regulation becomes to burdensome then some other country will step up and other countries may just flat out ignore it. Which means an exciting and upcoming area of technology may eventually move off shore and hopefully one day off planet.

so effort will need to be made by pioneers in this area to shape US policy so it achieves the needed goals without being oppressive enough to shift to other sites

> (5) Ensure that unenhanced data collected by licensed private remote sensing space systems concerning the territory of any country are made available to the government of that country upon its request, as soon as such data are available and on reasonable commercial terms and conditions as appropriate;

#5: The forign policy / state dept / military parts of the US govt want to minimize potential risk of domestic US remote-sensing companies accidentally or deliberatly antagonizing a foreign government... seems prima facie reasonable.

To gain leverage during diplomatic negotiations, a foreign power could take the position that one of our "so-called" private civillian satellite companies was actually a front for a state intelligence operation. It would be difficult for state dept to provide evidence to the contrary if they didn't already have contacts with each private space company.

Is anyone aware of a diplomatic complaint ever being made along these lines? Maybe in the cablegate archives?

It seems to me that you're arguing broadly that space regulation, generally speaking, could, in principle, be good. I agree with that.

Now, do you have any arguments in favor of the regulatory restrictions on SpaceX lauch videos?

No, not really. SpaceX's usage is obviously far too trivial to trigger any of the concerns motivating the regulation.

BUT: Exhaustively specifying all possibilities in law is rather impossible, and any attempt would make legal texts even more verbose. Giving an agency the leeway to waive regulations on a case-by-case basis may however appear (or be) arbitrary. Although I suspect the latter may still happen once the agency has had more than three days to think about it.

Otherwise, it may just be preferable for SpaceX to spend a few hours submitting the application. It's really not rocket science.

> Your narrow-minded anger is ill-informed.

Really?

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