Making the rules for the final frontier

Time Markers

00:23 – Guest introduction

00:43 – What’s your perspective on the evolution of space commercialization?

03:20 – So what was the shift moment for commercialization?

06:26 – In the 2008, 2009 timeframe with the global economic crisis it as like a perfect storm that engender commercialization.

07:54 – What’s the path forward here, in terms of this convergence?

11:09 – Are there steps that that should be taken to preserve the sense of a global commons?

14:03 – What are we doing to move forward domesticly and internationally?

19:33 – What’s the future of the Traffic Coordination System for Space with current layoffs and a forecasted reduced budget?

22:16 – Space Takes on Mars news

30:51 – Space Takes on SpaceX news

34:57 – Space Takes on Black Hole news

Transcript – Richard DalBello Conversation

David Ariosto – Richard DalBello, good to see you again.

Richard DalBello – Good to see you again. How are you doing?

David Ariosto – I’m doing. Well, let’s, let’s just jump right into this here.

Richard DalBello – All right, there’d a lot to talk about, there’s like…

David Ariosto – No, no, no, no, no. It’s a rather humdrum type of news cycle here, but, but I mean this, I can’t think of somebody else that might be better in terms of the sheer context of what, what you bring here, because, I mean, you’ve worked across seven different administrations, both Republican and Democrat in various capacities. And I guess that’s a good place to start, right? I mean, what, what have you sort of noticed in the evolution of trends? I mean, you’re, you’ve been at the Office of Space commerce for a long time. The notion that we’re talking about space commerce back during the Reagan era is kind of just almost a head scratcher, in ways, but in some ways, it makes a lot of sense also. But like this evolution of commercialization that we’ve we’ve seen, you’ve kind of had this front row seat to it, so I’m curious, like, what your perspective has been in terms of that evolution.

Richard DalBello – Well, you know, I actually was part of the of the Office of Space commerce in its earliest days. I wasn’t there at the inception, but I was there at the end of the Reagan administration and beginning of the first Bush administration. And at the time, you know, it was kind of hilarious, because we had a little sign on our door that said office of commercial space, and people would actually stop, stop by and ask it, ask us if they could get office space through us, because they didn’t even know what the word meant at the time, right? But if you think about it, I mean, there’s so much going on now that I know it’s like mind boggling to even keep track of it, but I. Back in the beginning, some of the fundamentals were established. Of course, we always had the satellite communications industry, and there was even in the 80s, at the time, it was mostly a government controlled monopoly through COMSAT middle sat and globally, and there was already a big push to privatize and allow the commercial energy to enter that marketplace. We had the beginnings of the remote sensing industry back then, some of the amazing stuff we’re seeing now, like reusable launch vehicles. There were proposals back then for that, and there were, of course, a raft of commercial launch companies. Unfortunately, many of them didn’t survive, but that’s one of the beauties of the system that we have, is that people get to do their best and try to be convincing about what they can do, and they can take their shot. And at the same time, back in the late 80s and early 90s, the basics of the regulatory regime were coming into place that would allow this kind of innovation in a way where the government was meeting all of its international obligations for for monitoring the commercial sector.

David Ariosto – Right. So we’re, you know, I’ve talked to a number of different people about sort of, like, turning points when it comes to the nature of commercialization, and you talk to a lot of people, and that it’s you often hear this sort of steady drum of like, different iterative changes over the years. But there were some, some crucial moments. You know, I’m thinking what happened after Columbia in 2003 cancelation of constellation. You know, different efforts during the the second Bush administration, efforts with the Obama administration in terms of questions about commercialization. And, of course, you have Elon and Jeff working at reusability and sort of developing these viable, sort of upstarts in the early 2000s being SpaceX and Blue Origin. But like from, from your vantage point, where, where was a shift moment in terms of when you all of a sudden, sort of looked as like, Okay, this, this is the new direction.

Richard DalBello – Well, I think it’s only recently that the the government, both the both NASA and the Defense Department, have really made a conscious effort to fully use commercial space capabilities, but commercial space has been a through line through the story of the space program. Really back to the beginning. I don’t think it was fully appreciated. Obviously, at the beginning there was just this idea. Hey, wouldn’t it be great if we could let people try these amazing new ideas, and then to the long arc, which led to today, which is where the government is actually looking in key national security programs and in key NASA programs, where the government is actually looking to the commercial sector to deliver core capabilities. But if we go back in time, second Bush administration was the beginning, I think, of the really important step with NASA saying, I think we can trust the commercial sector to do something that is repeatable, that we can define. And this was a learning this was a learning process on both sides.

David Ariosto – There was also, this was a lot of pushback in terms of the traditional players. I mean, I remember …

Richard DalBello – Mike Griffin was, I think the NASA administrator at the time, was the concept of commercial cargo, and then the Obama administration. All the turmoil, turmoil notwithstanding around the canceling of constellation, there was again the through line where we’re trying to push the commercialization. I know Laurie Garver was one of the big advocates in NASA as the NASA Deputy there to push that to to the next level, to do commercial crew as long as well as commercial cargo. So I think that was the first time we really saw a government entity say, I am as a, you know, we are going to rely on the commercial sector to do something which we’ve determined to be critical to the US government program. And that was a real the in those two administrations. I think there was a real turning point.

David Ariosto – It’s interesting to just think about it in terms of the context of what was happening at that time. Because if you think about like, 2008, 2009 and we’re the country, and indeed that the world is sort of reeling from the effects of a global economic crisis, and priorities are starting to be shifted around. And you know how that sort of plays into sort of that this confluence of not only new companies, but new technologies that are starting to make these things a little bit more palatable and reusability, and just like the cost to launch is all dropping it just, it just strikes me as like, almost like, this perfect storm that’s just sort of happening, or coalition of factors that’s happening all simultaneously, to to to engender this. Is that? Is that fair?

Richard DalBello – Yeah, I mean and, and in agree, and what? What’s amazing is that the the commercial sector, actually stood up and delivered at that time. I mean, there’s a there’s an alternative way that story could have ended, which is the government put a whole lot of faith in commercial enterprises which which didn’t succeed. You know, we had on the commercial cargo program, very reliably, Northrop Grumman and SpaceX delivering cargo to Space Station, proving the point, and then following it up with with the Commercial Crew Program. So I think it is number one, amazing that the government made it to that point, and got to the point where they really were looking to the commercial sector deliver, and more importantly, the commercial sector actually delivering.

David Ariosto – Right? Well, in the context of that delivering, I mean, you and I have talked about this before, but it strikes me as sort of like three main components of what’s happening now, right? There’s this, there’s growth in satellites, talking about Starlink and Kuiper, and the two Chinese systems and European systems. And, you know, just a sheer volume of space assets up there. And, you know, oh, by the way, questions about debris that will, I think we’ll get to. But then you have, like this technology aspect, which is we just sort of alluded to, which is the AI that sensing, machine learning, the tracking. And then you have all this new global competition, and not all of these systems are necessarily talking to each other in that context. So like, what’s, what’s the path forward here, in terms of this, this convergence.

Richard DalBello – Wow, there’s an awful lot there. I think, first of all, on commercial I always like to differentiate commercial ventures that are responsive to truly commercial marketplace. In other words, like satellite communications, where you’ve seen a dramatic uptick in the adoption of Leo services. A lot of dialog this week was the satellite show in DC. Lot of dialog in the show about, you know is, is low Earth orbit communication is going to take over everything, or is there still a life in geo for for commercial operators, but again, amazing technologies coming to the fore to allow new capabilities driven towards a truly commercial marketplace, as opposed to some of the things we’re seeing in the government, whether it’s on the national security side or the NASA side, where the government is saying, as a primary buyer, I would like to rely on commercial operators, and that’s a different that’s a different thing. So what they’re doing on the lunar surface, and when people talk about the lunar economy, I think we have to keep, first of all, in our minds, separately, that that there, there are true commercial markets, and then there are, then there’s this new thing that we’re trying, which is a sophisticated and highly efficient way to do government acquisition, which is different, and those are different and and one of the big questions on the commercial side is, you know, we’ve got dozens of new firms, which have announced they’re going to offer a range of services, everything from manufacturing and space to refueling to fuel depots, repair services, debris mitigation services. And the question is, where will there? Will there be a commercial marketplace? And if so, when will that develop? You know, we saw in the late 90s, not to use a somewhat tortured analogy, we saw in the late 90s a huge growth in creative uses of the internet, some of which would come to fruition, although much later. And so we had this huge buildup of investment which resulted in a bubble, and then that bubble burst, and then there were a few years of resetting. Ultimately, a lot of those ideas did get implemented in a very creative and productive way. Where we are in that process is hard to say right now.

David Ariosto – Well, you know, I think that that’s a, that’s a, really, it’s a good leaping off point, because so much of this sort of dovetails of the outer space treaty that was signed, you know, in 1967 two years, frankly, before, before the first astronauts touched down on the moon. So, you know, this has been a sort of a long standing agreement. But the question I think I have is regard, in terms of its interpretation, with with regard to what’s clearly growing privatization and growing militarization in space. And, you know, we saw push back against this, this, this sense of being space is almost this sort of global commons during during the first Trump administration, and, frankly, during the Obama administration, to some extent, but, and I wonder if that, that that mindset has been, you know, since abandoned elsewhere, right? And so like, Are there steps that that should be taken to preserve the sense of a global commons, that it’s accessible and beneficial to all different countries, not just sort of the the major space powers or the sort of few corporate giants that that might. Be might be privy to make use of it the most.

Richard DalBello – Wow. There’s a lot of elements of your question. I mean, I throw a lot at you with these things, yeah. I mean, there’s the, let’s start with the beginning. Go all the way back in time to the 60s. The Soviet Union at the time, it was not Russia, it was the Soviet Union. The Soviet Union and the United States were in disagreement about whether nations could allow its citizens to operate independently of the governments. We were arguing for this, the Soviets were arguing against the middle ground that they found was to say the governments could allow their commercial sectors to operate in space, independent of those governments, as long as there was some sort of continuing authorization and supervision. And those words are captured in the 1967 Outer Space Treaty, and pretty much the rationale for governments, monitoring what people do in space goes back to that sort of first principle, which is governments are responsible for their actions, of their of their citizens. So we’ve implemented that in ways that I think are very flexible and creative. We have, you know, we of course, have FCC that has done tremendous work over the years and creating essentially…

David Ariosto – Because SpaceX is launching from the US. The US is ultimately responsible for what SpaceX does in space.

Richard DalBello – Correct, yeah, there are lots of ways. Yeah, the issue of the issue is still a little murky about who, whose actual citizens, but let’s not get into that. But in basic terms, yes, if you’re a US launch company, and you’re launched on a US launch vehicle, the United States has responsibility there. Get it gets complicated when you get in the FCC jurisdiction and spectrum and stuff like that. But…

David Ariosto – Well, I think this is actually a really important point, because I don’t want to dig in on the sort of the granular aspects of this, but like the sense of the sense of interoperability, the sense of the sort of rules of the road, as it were, when it comes to to different competing companies and competing nations that that might be operating in different spaces, companies that are operating obviously in different different different countries. And you know how that kind of plays into the sense of international cooperation and security, and really, just like the long term sustainability of space operations as we get more and more of these assets up on orbit, I think that that’s the question that I think I most want to know about. Because when I when I think about just there’s no one regulatory body for space at the moment in the US, right? That, in of itself, is complicated. But then when you try to work across China, with China, they have their own sort of bureaucratic machinations. There’s there’s, you know, questions with regard to the wolf amendment, how that plays into all this? So there’s just like, lots and lots of hurdles here in terms of actually getting those, getting those systems, and it almost strikes me is that you either need some sort of outside body or just a real commitment at at the highest levels, with within both sort of major space powers to kind of get some sort of semblance of rules of the road forged. Here is that? Is that what you’re thinking or seeing?

Richard DalBello – Yeah, let me take this in two big pieces. The first piece is, what are we doing now and in the near future, in the US? And the second piece is, what are we doing internationally, the in the US. One of the wonderful things about working in the space industry is it is by and large bipartisan that you know, the disagreements that we have don’t tend to break neatly along party lines. And so there, there is legislation in both draft legislation in both the Senate and the House that’s looking at. You know, of course, we have FAA does launch, and we have the FCC does spectrum, the Office of Space commerce in the Commerce Department does remote sensing licensing, so we’ve kind of split up the responsibilities across the government. And the question is, what are we doing as these new technology commercial low Earth orbit facilities, refueling stations, infrastructure on the moon, mining of asteroids. There’s a bunch of stuff that’s coming at us that we know where the that the government will need to play some sort of overarching role. It doesn’t have to be heavy handed, but the government will need to be engaged. And so I think that’s the debate that’s going on internally in the US right now. And hopefully, I think there’s a, there is at least some probability that we might actually make progress on that in 2025 internationally, it’s a little more complicated. And you alluded to this early in this in our conversation about the increased crowding and orbit, one of the things that we were trying to do with commerce department, one. I was running the Office of Space commerce, particularly with reference to the tracks program, is to try to reach out globally and begin a conversation. One of the most profound ways to do that is through standards. Because in some sense, standards are the regulations that commercial entities apply to themselves, right? Because you want standards, because you want your cell phone to work in Boston, in Beijing, right? So you want standards, and so that’s shared globally. People want to build space tools that can be used internationally. So …

David Ariosto – The standards might be sort of a bit of a wag the dog type of approach in terms of the regulatory framework. Is that right?

Richard DalBello – So starting out where people agree, and then moving from that towards the more complicated issues right now, for example, we put a lot of effort into the issue of, Are people sharing their data, by and large, US operators are open to sharing both their their what’s called Ephemeris, or basically the calculation of where their satellite is at any time and space, sharing both their Ephemeris and their maneuver data where they plan to be, by and large US operators and European operators, too, have been really open for creating an environment where that can be shared. There isn’t today a way to do that easily, and that’s something that we really do need to work on. Unfortunately, not everyone has been willing to do that. I think the big holdout, the most important hold out is China, because they are thinking, of course, of launching a mega constellation. And it’s really important that we have an international dialog that allows us to come to some sort of agreement on this before you get to anything else, before you get to regulation or global norms. I mean just having some basic principles accepted that if you’re flying in space, you’re you should, unless it’s a national security mission, there’ll always be carve outs for national security, but if you’re flying in space, you should be willing to share your information. Just basic principles established …

David Ariosto – In the last, last, you know, minute or two that we have here. I, you know, I’d be remiss if I didn’t ask you about, you mentioned a TraCSS, which is a Traffic Coordination System for Space, right? Sort of a air traffic control space unit, in a way, if that’s a fair categorization. But, you know, we’ve seen both layoffs within, within NOAA, including within the Office of Space commerce. And we’ve seen some, you know, in terms of the broader belt tightening, but we’ve also seen these tariffs that a lot of aerospace is sort of, you know, bracing for, in terms of how it’s going to affect steel and aluminum. And so, you know, I guess my question is, in terms of this path forward with a reduced staff in a commercial sector that’s now sort of facing the headwinds of tariffs in terms of supplies that they need. Like, what is 2025, 2026 start to look like?

Richard DalBello – You know, I’ll just be honest with you, this is something that I that I do spend a lot of time thinking about. I think we don’t know yet, because we don’t know how much of what is going on is permanent, as opposed to sort of the shock and awe campaign of the incoming Trump administration. For example, if we’re looking at a large scale realignment of US European relationships, or US Canadian relationships, or rethinking concepts like NATO or the five eyes, if we’re really thinking seriously about changing our national position on those, it will have profound roll down effects to the commercial space industry and to individual companies, but I don’t know that that’s where we are yet. It could be that two months from now, nobody even remembers the trauma that that is going on right now. I think that it’s, it’s too early that the issues that we’re talking about are such that they are so large in scale, talking about a US European, real, you know, realignment, you know, sort of a rethink of the post world war two alliance structure that we have that questions like, what’s the impact on a commercial space are kind of hard to get to. There’s, you know, it’s kind of like a landslide, and the large boulders are falling first, and the debris that follows We can’t anticipate yet. So the the honest to God answer is, I’ve thought about this a lot. I haven’t, I haven’t a clue.

David Ariosto – Well, I think, I think that is probably a good place to leave it. So I truly appreciate you coming on the show here. It’s always a pleasure talking with you. Richard dalbell. Thank you again.

Richard DalBello – All right, thanks. It was fun.