The legislative proposal divides the responsibility of authorizing and supervising new commercial space activities between the Commerce and Transportation.
"The space industry is evolving, expanding at an extremely fast pace. As new players come on board the number of risk rises but so does the number of opportunities," said French Ambassador Philippe Étienne.
Brig. Gen. John Olson, who advises CSO Gen. Jay Raymond on space logistics issues, believes the US must rapidly act to take the "first mover advantage" for itself to block Chinese ambitions, which could include territorial claims in space.
By
Theresa Hitchens on February 12, 2021 at 5:06 PM
DARPA NOM4D project image
WASHINGTON: DARPA’s new project to research and develop novel materials and processes for manufacturing in space in particular on the Moon is stirring a legal and political dust storm about what DoD can and cannot do in cislunar space under the Outer Space Treaty.
“From an international perspective, DARPA doing anything on the Moon looks bad. It raises suspicions about the intentions of the U.S. space program there, and rightfully so,” Jessica West, senior researcher at Canada’s Project Ploughshares and managing editor of the widely-respected Space Security Index project, said in an email yesterday.