Arms Regulations Damaging US Space Industry 184
athe!st writes "International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR) are a major headache for companies trying to put their satellites into space, so much so that some companies are using 'ITAR-free' (aka free of US technology) as a selling point. The European Space Agency is trying to reduce its dependence on ITAR components, and the regulations are also threatening the nascent space tourism industry."
It's not just satellites.... (Score:5, Interesting)
To cut a long story short, we switched supplier to a European company who make similar components. Now of course we need an import licence for the US if selling to the US, but in general apart from countries like Iran, we can freely export our product without the nightmare stack of licences and yes, it is a factor you talk about when giving sales presentations.
Old News (Score:2, Interesting)
Yeah, and this has been the case since, oh, 2001? Well, at least it seems that's when it started to be enforced more strictly. I've heard rumblings that the administration was going to change it, but who knows how likely that is.
Hmmm... I wonder if we could correlate the US's drop in space proficiency with when ITAR for space components started?
Damaging to Academics as well (Score:5, Interesting)
I was part of the CubeSAT program at my university. We were designing a 1 foot x 1 foot x 1 foot satellite to be launched. To track the satellite, we needed a GPS module on board. However, due to the ITAR components on the module, the student in charge of software couldn't touch the GPS code or schematics, because he was not a US citizen.
Re:Sounds like... (Score:3, Interesting)
It's not really very hard to take a space launch system and turn it into an ICBM system, after all the opposite transition is basically how the space industry got its start int he first place (strap a capsule on the top of an ICBM and give it a bit more oomph to make orbit). Now I think that the argument is over what is and isn't commercially available from other countries without export restrictions, and whether the controls should be the same regardless of who you're selling to (does it really make sense to require the same paper work to send a rocket to the UK as it does to say Pakistan?). IMO, once a commercial equivalent to a piece of technology is available, a device should be taken off the ITAR lists, but that isn't the way the system works.
Re:Sounds like... (Score:5, Interesting)
Nope. Sorry. The big aerospace companies do plenty well by suckling off of the government teat. ULA doesn't bother to sell to non-domestic customers because they know they have a near monopoly on government contracts, and dealing with ITAR is a pain. They don't need ITAR reform nearly as much as tihe small companies, who have to jump through ridiculous hoops for dumb things.
My favorite example is when Bigelow was preparing to launch one of their test habitats aboard a Russian proton. For assembly, they needed a table, so they grabbed some aluminum slabs out of their warehouse and bolted them together. Turns out this particular variety of aluminum falls under ITAR restrictions, so while in Russia, the table made out of scrap aluminum had to be watched by two armed guards at all time.
I'm not a tea-partier, I believe that in many cases good regulations make the market much more robust. However, ITAR is not good regulation. It is out of date, it places undue legal and financial burden on small startups, and partitions our space industry from the rest of the world. If we're not careful, we will become a backwater of mediocrity in the high frontier.
Re:You couldn't be more wrong (Score:3, Interesting)
Unless it makes it on CNN or FOX, I say you're wrong, Football season just started.
As another poster quoted the administration, ITAR treats the M1A1 Abrams tank brake pads as controlled exports even though they are the same brake pads used in firetrucks. Clearly the process needs going over, lots of things that were grandfathered in need to be scrubbed, and common sense applied to what is a weapon and what isn't.
Security theater doesn't make us safer, but a strong economy and industrial base does.
Re:Sounds like... (Score:2, Interesting)
There are a handful of commercial companies that can build ICBMs. You can restrict them using ITAR. it works.
Imagine if companies like boeing, raytheon and lockheed martin would be allowed to sell weapons directly to Iran or to south korea. Would make those tyrannical state's job that much more difficult.
Currently, they are indeed developing their own versions - but it's a long process and that give you time to either develop countermeasures or to somehow stop them.
Also, the first version of anything will never be as good as a polished version 20.0 of the same thing. I believe that applies to ICBMs as well.
Re:It's not just hardware (Score:4, Interesting)
Where I work we deal with both EAR and ITAR equipment. Since I have been here I have seen a lot of different points of view. Currently, as I understand it, we treat any mechanical or un-programmed electrical hardware as EAR. Unless there are special circumstances (i.e. specific customer requirements).
Electrical hardware doesn't become ITAR unless it has ITAR software/firmware on it. Sub-assembly and top level drawings are EAR unless they call out a piece of hardware that is ITAR. Once a lower level drawing calls out an ITAR item all higher level assembly drawings have to be ITAR as well. While, an ITAR assembly drawing can call out either ITAR or EAR items, an EAR assembly can only call out EAR items in the BOM.
Old Issue (Score:2, Interesting)
ITAR has been around for my 10 years in space systems and was around before me. European companies are just using it as an excuse to award European only contracts to kill off American competitors. It's actually been greatly improved in recent years, with a majority of commercial space components being put under the Commerce Dept rather than ITAR.
Re:It may not be perfect (Score:2, Interesting)
Embraer KC-390 (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Sounds like... (Score:2, Interesting)
Wow, to hear you tell the story, I'd say ITAR is doing a great job at driving innovation. I say keep it in place! Of course, I'm not american, either.
All kidding aside, I think it would be helpful to americans if they could distinguish between what helps their country and what helps certain powerful interests in their country. I don't see much evidence that many of you folk can.
Re:It's not just hardware (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:More on security and moving past irony... (Score:3, Interesting)
Nuclear weapons are ironic because they are about using space age systems to fight over oil and land
Wrong. Nuclear weapons are ironic because they are nearly useless as weapons. They are actually too powerful to be very useful. And they would render whatever land you wanted to acquire uninhabitable for a very long time. What's the point of land where no humans can live for a hundred years or so. I don't really see them even as much of a deterrent because no modern nation is going to be stupid enough to actually use them. For weapons that have only ever been used a couple of times when they were first invented (more as beta testing than anything else) I don't really see why so many people are impressed by them. They really aren't all that great. UAVs and robot soldiers OTOH really are strategically important. The idea is to kill as many enemy soldiers as you can without endangering your own soldiers and while avoiding as many civilian casualties as possible. Whoever has the greatest number of remote controlled, bullet resistant, and well armed robot soldiers will have the advantage in future wars. And the nice thing is no humans really have to die until all the robots from at least one of the sides have been destroyed. The US is a military badass not only due to the sheer amount of money spent, but also due to technology. Technology is make or break in a real war against any kind of serious adversary (Afganistan and Iraq were pushovers precisely because they were lacking in military tech). Afghani soldiers actually are pretty badass, but they don't have the technology to compete. If the other side is using arrows we want to be using firearms. If the other side is using firearms we want to be using bulletproof robots with particle beam weapons and xray or gamma ray lasers etc. Even without superior technology you need to have better manufacturing than the other side. It takes more than soldiers to win a war. It takes a whole lot of guns and bullets too.