(Not quite as transcendently cool as Friday Flybys, but get 'em while you can...)
First, greetings to everyone in Los Angeles this week for California Space Authority's Transforming Space 2007, including lawyer and government space folks like Shana Dale, Jane Harman, Adam Schiff, Ken Calvert and Doug Griffith, as well as newspace gurus Elon Musk, Peter Diamandis, Anousheh Ansari and many others. Congratulations to all the CSA 2007 SpotBeam Awards recipients, including Space Innovation Award winner XCOR Aerospace. Hoping for a few recaps from LA, if not perhaps a couple of glossies from the event's smokin' space fashion show (where, as I had promised, no lawyers would be modeling space lawyer suits and couture. If we're lucky.)
Flybys (in no particular order or trajectory, as usual) . . .
Power space: We've discussed space solar power and the NSSO Interim Assessment, now Col. Coyote Smith wants your comments. (Hat tip: HobbySpace)
Space race v. auctioning: Sam "big advocate of space property rights" Dinkin replies to Prof. Reynolds.
NEO's hit Congress: A reminder, the House Science Committee’s space subcommittee rescheduled hearing, Near-Earth Objects (NEOs) - Status of the Survey Program and Review of NASA’s Report to Congress is now on for Nov. 8th, 10 am.
Andrei Kislyakov comments on the row over Baikonur.
Reach to Space 2007 - Space Commercialization Conference - Coming up Nov. 12-13, 2007 at George Washington University in Washington DC, and featuring a number of space lawyer speakers: Franceska O. Schroeder of Fish & Richardson P.C., Del Smith of Jones Day, Tara Giunta of Paul Hastings, along with government space folks such as Kenneth Wong, of FAA and Ed Morris of the Department of Commerce's Office of Space Commercialization (or is it the Office of Space Commerce? ;)
Fly over to FAA for the October COMSTAC meeting presentations. (In case you missed Clark's link last week.)
Space station law 101: Nice little recap of discussions at the recent Humans in Outer Space conference in Vienna where space lawyers Ulrike Bohlmann, Frans von der Dunk and others noodle about applicable law on Europe's collaborative Columbus space laboratory (scheduled to launch Dec. 6th). Law is easy, getting the thing out there is what amazes me. (For a good overview, see ISS legal framework, courtesy ESA.) Space lawyers love this stuff.
Space strike over: NASA shuttle launch workers get new contract. (Helmet tip: NASA Watch)
NASA unhijacks airline safety data, (but it may be keeping other secret stuff some people believe the agency has. Hmm. I'm not sure. More FOIA requests, Dick? ;)
Spaceport America predicts FAA license by Sept. 2008: Spaceports blog has an update. (Hi, Jack ;)
Police radar gun vs. teen's GPS tracker: Traffic court gets techier.
Yes and no: Yes, it is interesting that the judge granted the defendant astronaut's motions to suppress key evidence, and no this is still not a space law case. (And see videos linked here for a clip from a hearing in which Nowak is asked, "what is a lawyer?" Notice she is not asked, "what is a space lawyer?")
Just say no?: Iain Murray offers his analysis of Why America doesn't ratify treaties (Oct. 17, 2007).
This blog is not Space Food Probe, but the blog, Japan Probe (that's right, but no relation as far as I know) has a tasty tidbit about JAXA-endorsed space curry for sale. Yum. (Hat tip: NASA Watch, which has the space curry video.)
Out of his lane: Dennis Kuchinich gets 24.3 light years per gallon.
A few accolades:
Congratulations to China on Chang'e-1 entering lunar orbit: the nation's first circumlunar satellite.Congratulations to SpaceX on ground breaking at Space Launch Complex 40 (SLC-40) at the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, "opening a new era in commercial space operations." Looking forward to Falcon 9's maiden launch in late 2008.
And double thumbs up on the launches of Space Angels Network and International Institute of Space Commerce. Give us a holler at SLP if you want to meet friendly space lawyers, any time. Space means business.
Finally, it's probably way to early in the week to contemplate but black holes may harbour their own universes. Yup, even more space lawyers needed.
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IMAGE CREDIT: XCOR Aerospace.
// posted by Jesse Londin @
1:45 PM 
