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Comment by twtw | Hacker News Reader

It's a bit of a farce to classify these cameras stuck on the side of a rocket with horrible resolution and which are clearly not designed to effectively image the surface of the earth as "remote sensing systems."

The definition in the law even specifically excludes "Small, hand-held cameras shall not be considered remote sensing space system," i guess so that astronauts don't have to get a license 12 months before every mission. SpaceX cameras providing the video for the webcasts are certainly small and could be "handheld," so it seems to come down to the fact that no human is up there with them.

Remote sensing systems are a thing, and there are good reasons to regulate them. Tiny cameras stuck to the side of SpaceX rockets should not be classified as "remote sensing systems." When I think of remote sensing satellites, Landsat series and friends come to mind, not an off the shelf camera stuck on the side of a rocket.

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It's a farce that you need a license to take pictures at all. I'm sure Russian and Chinese satellites already take photos of the US military bases regularly.

They’re not under the jurisdiction of a US agency.

Which makes it even more dumb, the people we don't want taking pictures do so at will while the people we don't mind taking pictures are banned.

I don't know about you, but Facebook is under US jurisdiction, and I'd rather they didn't launch a remote-sensing satellite without going through some regulatory hoops.

It's also dumb because it gives them incentive to just move to another country that doesn't care.

Welcome to most laws.

Speak for yourself - i dont want companies taking pictures.

But they do, commercial satellite imagery is a big business (anyone who has used Google Earth knows this). It's just not the business SpaceX is in so it's not worth going through the hassle.

That wasnt the main idea of my statement.

I contend that my desire differs from parent comments claim

What gives that agency jurisdiction over things in orbit? This whole thing seems really strange.

The US Government has granted NOAA that authority over American companies and the things they put into orbit.

They don’t have that authority over things OTHER countries and their companies put into orbit.

They have jurisdiction over the SpaceX as a US company, thus the power to force them to adhere to regs

They better as fuck not be : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strategic_Arms_Limitation_Talk... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/START_I https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-Ballistic_Missile_Treaty

Those have all either expired or weren't ratified, and the current treaty (New START) explicitly allows satellite monitoring.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_START

depends on the type of monitoring

Since we're talking about cameras and not missiles, I ctrl+f'd for "picture" and "camera" on all of those links and didn't see any results. Do those treaties prohibit cameras?

depends on the camera, IR is pretty well forbidden

Just as US military satellites take pictures of Russian and Chinese facilities as well. Both can play this game

I don't think anyone contested that...?

So it would be pretty silly for Russia to ban similar cameras for fear of state secrets being uncovered, right?

Oh no, don't get me wrong, I think the regulation is totally stupid. Why bother regulating something over which you have no control of? It is just putting unnecessary barriers for domestic innovators while your real competition is not wasting precious cycles.

> Tiny cameras stuck to the side of SpaceX rockets should not be classified as "remote sensing systems."

I would say they should not generally be classified as "remote sensing systems." 'Cause you know someone would push things too far.

Can't think of anyone that ever take a situation and abuse it, push it too far, do something it wasn't intended to by its initial design... definitely wouldn't consider anyone such as law enforcement agencies or city, state or federal government doing any such thing... because you know, people are reasonable, right? </sardonic sarcasm tag>

I guess abusing loopholes is the monopoly of authority.

Sure, I was thinking of this specific case only. If someone starts to use tiny cameras in a way such that they are actually useful for remote sensing, then by all means regulate them.

Why should this be regulated at all?

SpaceX just needs to make some silicone hands that hold the cameras and they'll be set.

> Remote sensing systems are a thing, and there are good reasons to regulate them.

I'm curious. What do you consider those to be? More importantly, do you consider the First Amendment to supersede these laws?

When you fail at your job, you can always complain about something.

These are excuses and attempts to get press. Nothing more.

Sorry, could you clarify your comment? Who has failed at their job, and who is making excuses and attempting to get press?

>SpaceX says it is working to obtain a full license for its cameras to prevent having to shorten future launch webcasts.

SpaceX told NOAA that they were recording, NOAA didnt know, they are short staffed. This let SpaceX complain about 'not being able to record'.

Knowing that SpaceX is Elon's PR company for Tesla, its just another way for him to get in the news without doing anything.

I question if they were waiting on 'using this' for a bad mission. One where they didnt want to show the video, but still get press points.

SpaceX has always been a very heavily marketed company. You should be skeptical whenever they get headlines.

> SpaceX has always been a very heavily marketed company. You should be skeptical whenever they get headlines.

I don't understand how SpaceX deserves any more skepticism than any other company's headlines at this point.

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