Comment by zelon88 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by zelon88 | Hacker News Reader

I'm inclined to agree with those who think the FCC is overstepping it's boundaries, although I understand the logic of those who explain why they're not overstepping their boundaries.

To me it seems to be a question of capability. America in this situation sounds like a skrawny lifeguard yelling at big burly surfer dudes to stay out of the deep end. We want the authority to regulate across borders and to maintain our margin of superiority, but do we have that ability? If we don't have the ability to lead this industry, we shouldn't be granted the authority to regulate it either. At least not globally from within a vacuum.

If America wants to regulate what other countries put into space, maybe we should have enough of a presence in space to be an authority figure.

I haven't seen the U.S. government put a fair proportion of their effort into space technology in decades, yet we still expect to be the global harbinger of regulation. If a private company can make a 5cm X 5cm X 5cm satellite and we can't track it maybe the responsibility should be on us to improve our tracking abilities rather than sangbaggging everyone else to support our faux superiority.

> We want the authority to regulate across borders

A U.S. regulator regulating an American satellite, made in America by American engineers working for an American company, whose orbital damages are the liability of the American taxpayer, is being too internationally ambitious?

> I haven't seen the U.S. government put a fair proportion of their effort into space technology in decades

We're the largest backers of the ISS, have the largest civil and military launch industries, have the largest concentration of private launch and satellite companies and are one of a handful of countries in the world with a civil space agency.

Literally yesterday, a reusable American rocket (the only of its kind on the planet) put a NASA exoplanet survey satellite into orbit [1].

[1] https://tess.gsfc.nasa.gov

> We're the largest backers of the ISS, have the largest civil and military launch industries, have the largest concentration of private launch and satellite companies and are one of a handful of countries in the world with a civil space agency.

And while we're #1 in overall spending we're second to Russia in terms of percentage of GDP. Considering our military budget is more than the next 10x countries combined and considering we pay into that budget regardless of our GDP I'd say we're putting in minimal effort. You're also giving credit to the US government for research, engineering, and labor that was done by private industry. That's where this problem becomes a problem.

Our government can't keep up with private innovation. We've got a car company who can make a car that gets 120 MPG but the DOT won't let it through the red tape because their required emissions testing equipment isn't sensitive enough to read it's emissions. So you deny the car and tell the company to come back with a shittier one they can read.

So instead of letting innovation happen, we're going to stifle it because we, ourselves, don't want to do our part to regulate it properly and in a timely fashion.

> A U.S. regulator regulating an American satellite, made in America by American engineers working for an American company, whose orbital damages are the liability of the American taxpayer, is being too internationally ambitious?

So when your private sector tech outpaces your public sector's ability to regulate it you just disallow advanced technology and keep regulating the same way you've always done? That sounds exceedingly bureaucratic.

> So when your private sector tech outpaces your public sector's ability to regulate it you just disallow advanced technology and keep regulating the same way you've always done? That sounds exceedingly bureaucratic.

Or maybe the new tech just isn't very good because it doesn't take society into account. Others are innovating rapidly and don't run into the same issues. Because they listen to, learn from, cooperate with, and propose new rules to the regulating bodies that govern them.

Do you have a name or a link to more information for that 120MPG car? Because that sounds like conspiracy theory nonsense....

It is complete horse crap. It’s one of those anecdotes anti-regulation people love to repeat because it sounds great. But it’s fabricated nonsense.

Emissions too low to register? Not in America! We pollute for our Freedom!

That's so bullshit that it invalidates the entire post. Anybody who believes that can't be trusted with objective truth.

> Our government can't keep up with private innovation. We've got a car company who can make a car that gets 120 MPG but the DOT won't let it through the red tape because their required emissions testing equipment isn't sensitive enough to read it's emissions. So you deny the car and tell the company to come back with a shittier one they can read.

...This is disproven by the mere existence of electric cars.

This isn't America regulating space and ignoring other countries. This is America complying with existing international treaties regarding space.

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