[inaudible conversations]

[inaudible conversations] >> good afternoon. [inaudible conversations] >> good afternoon, everyone, thank you for joining us -- [inaudible] who has been leading the group of folks who organized this group today, and behalf of all of us here at hudson, i want to welcome you to the kickoff of what is going to be a series of

symposia -- [laughter] we brought you here today because the topic is not just timely, it's of critical national interest. this, the people here in this room really don't need to be told that there are currently on the drawing board plans to be launching in the next few years over 15,000 satellites into orbit, and that certainly is only going to go north from there -- [inaudible] this explosion of entrepreneurial effort promises to transform the way we live on earth. there are technical challenges to overcome, to be sure, but the biggest challenge to realizing this revolution is not engineering, it's the legal framework. and we at hudson hope to be a part of fixing that.

as industry insiders know well, it is common that launching a satellite into space may require a license from two, three, four, five separate agencies. that might have worked when a launch campaign took many years and only a few satellites were being launched per year. it most certainly does not work as we're going into what we'll call launch 2.0. the legal framework is obsolete and needs a profound rethink. when i was a fall -- small part of a group at the national security council, we transferred commercial communications satellites from the munitions list to commerce department's licensing jurisdiction. that was a vital down payment for the reforms we need to consider today. it's an area where u.s. national security and economic interests could be in profound alignment if we get it right, and we need

to get it right. if we don't fix the legal structure, the full scope of the opportunity presented will either be frustrated or -- [inaudible] offshore with very real costs to national security. so to kick off today's event, it is my great pleasure to introduce my friend and colleague, the president and ceo of the hudson institute, ken weinstein. ken? [applause] >> thank you. really want to thank you for the extraordinary effort you put into launching what is a major initiative for hudson institute. those of you who don't know, brant is the former general counsel of incutel, a distinguished record of service at both the department of homeland security, the department of defense, serves on numerous federal advisory boards at the department of state and commerce and played a very critical role in the nsc in his

last stint there in moving satellites off of the itar list which is an important thing for this industry. hudson institute is a think tank dedicated to promoting american leadership and global engagement for a secure, free and prosperous future. critical to american leadership is american technological leadership, and that's core to our mission, core to what we do. our founder, herman khan, was a great visionary and saw the interaction between strategy, technology and demography as critical to shaping the future in ways that near-sighted analysts couldn't imagine. we do significant work on defense transformation defense trade, on i.t. communications, and we're delighted to add space now to this mix. and to have such an august group of ceos, ctos, thought leaders from the space-related industries here with us today to launch this new and important institutional initiative.

i especially want to thank the members of our advisory board, joe, pierre, dale, all legendary figures in their own right for the significant time they've put in, and i want to most especially thank dr. margaret whitehead for encouraging us to undertake this major initiative on space and drawing on her insights and contacts as well. margaret has been nothing short of a force of nature in moving us forward, and this is also a labor of love for her. her late husband, tom, who was a beloved trustee, was a pioneer and visionary in the satellite world at hughes communications where he launched the galaxy satellite system and with the -- [inaudible] and on that note, we are especially honored to have dr. scott pace key note our event today. and he needs no introduction, i think, to those of you who follow space issues. scott is, of course, the

executive secretary of the space council, an important new initiative that is putting great emphasis on the future of u.s. endeavors in space. he's the former director of the space policy institute and professor at george washington university. he's held senior positions in the commerce department, the white house and in nasa. most recently at nasa he was associate administrator for program analysis and valuation under nasa add -- administrator mike griffin who spoke here less than two weeks ago in his new capacity as undersecretary for the department of science and engineering. scott is extraordinarily well suited as a creative and future-oriented thinker to help shape an american strategy that, to help shape a u.s. strategy to advance american space capabilities to advance our geopolitical interests. without any further ado, i want to turn the microphone over to

scott. [applause] thank you. >> thank you, ken. great to be here and particularly, ken, on behalf of the chairman of the national space council and vice president mike pence, thank you for the opportunity to speak here today about work of the council and what we're doing to advance american leadership in civil, commercial and national security space sectors. there's no doubt that the u.s. is a preeminent space-faring nation in the world. there's no country more capable in space, nor is there any country that's more reliant on space for its security, its economy, its place in the world. and today under the leadership of president trump and vice president pence, the united states is leading a return to the moon with international and commercial partners not just to leave flags and foot prints, but to expand the economic sphere of human activity. in contrast to the space race of the 1960s, leadership today is measured by what -- not by what we can do alone, but what we can

get others to do with us. and so one of the greatest successes of the international space station, for example, is the thousands of close working relationships we have with major space-faring countries including russia. as others are willing to work with us in space, we can create new opportunities to advance our foreign policy and our economic goals. there are more global actors today than ever before, serious and growing counter-space threats from capable adversaries and private sector capabilities that offer lower costs and higher productivity. as the exploration and utilization of space becomes more complex, however, it's more important than ever that we have a whole-of-government approach that recognizes how space issues cut across a wide range of national interests. international cooperation, space commerce, national security space are all interconnected and part of larger elements of national interest. the early years of the space age saw the creation of several landmark treaties. some have been an outstanding success such as the 1967 out e

or space treaties, others failures unratified by the major space powers. some have been, fortunately, unused, such as the agreement on the rescue and return of astronauts. some international legal experts are calling for new treaties today, and the united states, however, does not believe that new treaties are needed but does believe we should be working closely with other nations to promote norms of safe and responsible behavior in space. what this means is rather than a top-down treely negotiation, we should take more of a bottoms-up approach with civil and commercial space operators to define best practices that can be developed into non-binding, voluntary guidelines. as such guidelines become more internationally accepted, nations -- including the united states -- can then choose to codify these guidelines into national policy, law and regulation. these positions, this positions the united states to lead international discussions from a

pragmatic position of experience and expertise readier than -- rather than theory and polemics. the trump administration under the leadership of the chairman, vice president mike pence, is determined to insure the united states expands american preeminence in space. the president's decision to reinvigorate the national space council after nearly a quarter century hiatus reflects the administration's resolve to insure the united states will lead in space. executive order 13803, signed by president trump last summer, creates the framework for our council and each of the members of the national space council in turn represents different aspects of the nation's interests in space. the challenge then is to combine and align those sometimes-despairing, competing interest into a unified whole as any of you in the interagency process has ever experienced. you know the process. the administration's goal is for the united states to be the indispensable nation in every space sector, civil, commercial, military. and one of the biggest challenges to insure that government priorities, policies and regulations are then

supportive and up-to-date and relevant to the changing market. technical innovations and international conditions. this is a theme, of course, of the 2.0 discussion today that things outside of the tech, outside of the regulatory world are moving much, much, much faster than that regulatory world has ever had to deal with before. and so this is the challenge for a lot of our discussions today. at present we're focusing, therefore, on the most urgent regulatory reforms, the streamlining of u.s. commercial space launch and reentry regulations at the department of transportation and the updating of commercial remote-sensing regulations at the department of commerce. now, it's not enough to deal with existing regulations, but also we need enabling regulations that are for new space development such as satellite servicing, private space facilities and space mining operations. some of those are farther out, but you can see them coming. it takes a long time, we need to prepare to have them. so no regulations is not the answer, but a light touch regulatory environment is what we're trying to create for a

more predictable world. the administration has assigned the department of commerce to lead for developing and consolidating space regulations not otherwise to assigned. so if an activity transits national air space, for example, the department of transportation has the lead -- as it should -- for anything going up and down. the department of commerce is responsible for all of that which is outside. and, of course, we still have the fcc as the independent regulatory agency for spectrum. so we're trying to reduce and consolidate, but we're probably not going to get down to one agency. now, virtually all private space activities require radio spectrum, as i mentioned, and the fcc -- while not a member of the national space council due to their independent status -- is one where we're strengthening our relationship as allowed by law. so improving the form of communications back and forth and, certainly, being respectful of ex parte requirements and such. the united states needs strong and innovative space industries. if we limit, however, space

activities of governments, we would handicap ourselves and cede a key american strength which is the private sector. if we unleash private enterprise in partnership with government, there's really no limits to what the u.s. can accomplish. and this is why the space council has prioritized the development of policies at the interface of public and private sector interests. these include policies in space traffic management, new space technologies, regulatory reform and insuring there are opportunities for private enterprise in space exploration and improving space resilience. so, again, as you might have heard recently, discussions about lunar exploration. one of the parts of that story which is still not fully appreciated is the range of commercial opportunities that are being provided for sending instruments and so forth to the lunar surface be using private partners. today space sector revenue is continuing to be dominated by telecom firms, however, an increasing number of entrepreneurial firms are requests sectors. space launch, remote sensing,

global broadband via large constellations, news services such as subor bittal human light -- suborbital human flight. and in this environment, what can we do to preserve the u.s. strategic advantage in space, and the answer is fairly simple. the united states needs to take those actions that help generate our advantage in the first place. that is, leading by example in a stable and transparent regulatory environment with government and industry in partnership. and i want to touch just briefly on a few of the sectors that we're working on. in space launch innovative american companies are changing the character and expectations of our launch services. in recent years, for example, spacex has helped the u.s. gain back martial share against -- market share against foreign suppliers. in looking at the number of launches, however, taking place, the speed of them, the days of doing a launch and that's it and then waiting a few months and doing another launch is somewhat gone. so when you look at regulations built for expendable rockets

launched a few times a year, they're really not up-to-date as to what you need for multiple rockets that are reusable happening. so we're also looking at trends for more satellite owner-operators for smaller satellites, market for medium and light lift is growing tremendously, and there's a new energy among providers with new entrance, new vehicles and new platforms. but again, the same old regulations. so again, as a priority for change, that's one of the first on our plate. since the first u.s. licenses of commercial remote sensing were issued in 1993, there's been a dramatic increase in access to observation data and a variety of resolutions and repeat time. new constellations for privately re-owned remote-sensing equipment with rapid revisit times, and was own -- one of the guys there in '93, the regulations are grossly inadequate to what we're trying to do today. ing so guilty.

in the past only national security organizations feel that extremely high resolution platformses, but that difference, of course, for the commercial sector is continuing to erode. and in some cases revisit times that the private sector is offering are capabilities that have really never been available before. so it's producing a new challenge of understanding how to assess those capabilities. and while the u.s. has pioneered the development of a licensing regime for commercial remote sensing, technical and market innovations have made it difficult for noaa to keep up. new license applications involving large numbers of satellites, new technologies restraining the ability of noaa to meet its compliance requirements, new capabilities such as in-space imaging are taking longer to assess, and we simply can't take that long. if we want to make sure the united states continues to be an attractive home for commercial remote sensing, we need to make sure that our licensing regime is supported. and we can't take this for granted. because these companies need

stability, predictability that can only come through a responsive and open government decision-making process. we can have another discussion about how satellites communications licensing migrated offshore and what might be done to attract that back to the u.s. so no one, again, should take remote sensing for granted. the space environment is becoming increasingly congested, contested. these trends present challenges for safety and stability, sustainability. again, sounds like alliteration. not too much, but -- today the department of defense tracks over 20,000 space objects, and that number will increase dramatically as space situational awareness and things such as, capabilities begin operation. now, established companies -- boeing, one web, laser light, spacex -- all have announced plans to launch communications. several of them are already in orr obit. as the number increases, both the probability of collisions and also the competition for spectrum allocation for commercial endeavors will become

more intense. now, this dramatic increase in the volume of commercial space assets expose the deficiencies in our current process for managing space traffic and spectrum allocation. and in light of these, the national space council hases developed and recommended a space traffic management policy. it's the first u.s. space policy to address this issue. the vice president talked about this briefly in colorado. and is as the saying goes, it's on that large piece of furniture known as the president's desk. so i'm hoping we can have an announcement fairly soon. but it's been a productive process of discussing with the interagency, and i think we reached a fairly good consensus. now, as we look at this, this new policy sets priorities for ssa and space traffic management which we hope will encourage the growth of the space sector, promote safety standards and norms across the international community. and it really will align

agencies to do really what they're supposed to be doing best. the commerce department for talking to industry and interfacing with rapid changes and the defense department is keeping of a single catalog, the authoritative catalog but freeing up some time and attention to focus on space war-fighting capabilities which, sadly, are increasingly needed as we move forward. so we're getting the roles and missions of our agencies in alignment. as i had mentioned earlier, the domestic and international demand for mobile broadband continues to grow, and there are a lot of companies eager to provide services for this. i should mention that this is not unrelated to the competition for 5g. the role of china in 5g competition also has a space aspect to it. because in addition to our terrestrial communications industry, the united states has a strong and entrepreneurial satellite communication industry available to engage in global competition. and to insure we retain the strategic advantages afforded by space services, the united states needs to continue to open and promote competitive markets

and protect spectrum allocation for space services to compete. since radiowaves, as you know, don't stop at borders, unfettered terrestrial wireless network use in one country could certainly preclude the use of satellites in neighboring countries. a global approach is necessary to protect u.s.-based commerce. a logical solution would be for all companies to globally or at least regionally seek harmonized communications for trees trial and satellite -- terrestrial and satellite services. there's an urgent need to provide reasonable protections for satellite gateway earth stations and certain frequency bands as well as protection for satellite end use arer terminals -- end user terminals. the national space council is examining how the department of state, commerce and fcc can better coordinate to insure the protection and stewardship of spectrum necessary for space commerce. again, not just for space purposes and its unique uses, but also to make sure that we're competitive in terrestrial areas

as new technologies like 5g come along. export controls, mentioned also earlier, need to be kept updated with advances in existing space sectors as well as new capabilities. burdened and outdated parameters can incentivize space industries the move overseas and more manufacturers to change their supply chain. the space council is discussing how the administration might review items, components, technologies and services related to civil and commercial space activities and spacecraft missions. and in particular, providing more regular updates and reviews of those characteristics so that we make sure we don't fall behind the nature of the technology and markets. we're interested in hearing more, of course, from industry perspectives and how to insure these regulations remain relevant and effective in a changing world. again, more on that to come. in conclusion, the challenge of space leadership today is really to manage in the face of rapid change. and while we're facing new commercial and military

competition, the most important factor affecting the u.s. in space is not what orr countries do, but what the united states chooses to do or fails to do. the space council is committed to taking the initiatives necessary to sustain and expand a u.s. position of leadership in space. and thank you, and with that i'm happy to take questions. [applause] >> the gist of this question is how do you regulate without crippling innovation, and it's obvious that there's great need for regulation below geostationary orbit. but if you begin to consider things like laser communication instead of rf, then the rules are completely different and, in a sense, much easier to

generalize. and that extends even more so to beyond g.o., how do you keep from crippling innovation when we are interested in permanent colonies on the moon? because things such as nuclear propulsion and so on make a lot of sense for that application and also getting to mars in 30 or 60 days instead of a year. >> sure. okay. a lot there. so one of the things i would say is the balance is to you need to have a regulatory structure, but you should not try to make it more detailed than necessary. we talk about a light touch regulation. you've heard maybe some of the concepts about mission authorization. to be wonky for a moment, article vi of the outer space treaty says that member states such as the united states are responsible for providing authorization and continuing supervision to the activities of their nationals. be well, that can mean a full-up licensing regime like remote sensing or commercial satellites, or it can mean a

payload review and author. so when we look at emerging capabilities like private space platform or even satellite servicing that we can provide more of that light touch where there is an authorization, there is a government role, but we don't try to be overly prescriptive down to technical details in an environment that's still changing. it's a matter of, first of all, being humble in the face of how quickly change is occurring but not to go for zero because that can mean a lack of predictability for the industry. really dramatic changes such as laser com are terrific because the sooner you can get out from, you know, under the kind of the constraints that the itu and spectrum regulation traditionally gets you and get into a new area, that's, of course, a wonderful place to be. but in doing that, this also raises the need for norms of behavior, voluntary guidelines with other space entities that also may be doing laser

communication. you don't want people shining lasers where, you know, you don't want them. similarly, this is why the best practices i mentioned earlier are really important, because rather than having a, say, a compulsory regulatory regime developing voluntary best practices that countries can individually implement, can adapt to this change more quickly. you mentioned nuclear power. the united states has been part of a discussion on voluntary guidelines of use of nuclear power in space for many, many years. and what it essentially boils down to is we can do nuclear power sources in space, there's nothing internationally that would bar us. but we don't want to turn the reactors on until we're headed outward. we don't want what happened, of course, with the old soviet satellites coming back into canada and spreading waste. you want to be very, very safe and protect the biosphere, use those nuclear power sources but only as they're headed outward. so i think they have a crucial role in space, i think we've developed a lot of these

guidelines with our other international partners and that national law and regulation will be sufficient to go from there going forward as long as we don't put too heavy a hand on it. in the back. >> thank you. sandra irwin with space news. on the remote sensing industry, a lot of the companies are banking on government contracts to recoup their investment, and most of the spending in the government is from the intelligence community, military, dod. so i was wondering if you have any thoughts on how they would be able to market their products being unclassified, and they insist that the only ones -- [inaudible] unclassified information. does it have to be a change in the government maybe being more open to unclassified remote sensing data as opposed to mostly classified?

>> um, i guess i would challenge the presumption a little bit. i mean, one of the reasons that the agency is a gigantic buyer of commercial data is precisely because it can be widely shared with friends and allies as opposed to classified data. so i think there are already fans of that kind of data. i think the tricky part is finding non-governmental customers for this data. and the government, of course, is quite good at processing the data and producing it into other products that it knows and uses. what has been more of a challenge -- and i know it's been long debated in the industry -- is how far down the value chain to go. so if you switched from looking at this as a space issue but more as a geospatial information technology issue, you find lots of other higher value-added projects. and the question to which satellite companies want to integrate themselves down into those kind of market areas really is the challenge for them. if they want to remain purely

satellite suppliers and selling simply wholesale, unclassified data, they can do that, but there's only going to be a relatively few buyers at that end which is going to be largely the government. if they want to go in and be part of a value chain selling to more niche markets which requires different expertise and, therefore, is hard, i think there are opportunities, higher value opportunities for those services but of which the supply of the data itself is going to be relatively small part of it. so that's really a business structure decision that they're struggling with. >> thank you. .. a couple of times referred to the outer space treaty and its foundation. we all know that for the legal policy structure of activities in outer space today, but i

wonder if you could discuss a little bit more the relationship between the outer space treaty and this administrations goals and objectives are in the military aspects of outer space. obviously there are things permitted and not permitted under the outer space treaty, but you pointed out earlier that if they're going to be changes they should be incremental, let norms develop and then you can decide whether they should be taken into a treaty but could you discuss a little bit more the vision of this administration where you would see things ten years from now on the military domain? clearly there's a lot of rhetoric flying around about outer space being the next military domain, next warfare domain, et cetera. thank you. >> so being the former professor that i am, i would refer you to the text of the national security space strategy, section

on space and the national space strategy which has actually some sections in a multilateral cooperation and the need for that in all areas. i cannot just the military areas but across a range of activities in space, not just the outer space treaty but, of course, technical controversy and so forth. i think the view is the united states views of the current set of treaties as broadly permissive and, therefore, were able to do whatever it is we really want to do in space. what has changed is the nature of the adversary environment. so back maybe a decade or two ago i think people still talk about space of potential sanctuary. and what would the u.s. do or not do to change that. that discussion is gone. the discussion is gone and it's gone because it's been changed by the actions particularly of russia and china and counterspace system and i can refer you to the testimony from intelligence and defense

communities what's happened. the first priority is to make sure that in this environment which we were very reliant upon that we are more resilient to making sure that it's not that satellite systems will ever be invulnerable. that the function can want them to carry out are going to be resilient against a wide former challenge. then we have capabilities to respond across domain and other areas if necessary to any challenges or threats to that capability. what you're seeing now is really a rethinking over the changes that have been occurring for some time but which now is more openly recognized in this administration. so i think you are seeing more open discussion of it. i think, certainly an ideal situation for the united states is for space treatment to makey peaceful and calm environment because that is deeply in our national interests. i think as i also said in other areas, one should not assume because space is a war fighting

domain that inevitable war will occur there. we have nuclear combat skills and nuclear combat capabilities, and we've tried mightily for decades to make sure that deterrence is reserved and that we never use those weapons. and so i think preparing for and ensuring we have resilient systems and abilities to respond in order to deter or prevent warfare in space as i think our top priority. so i would hope and another ten years space continues to be a calm and peaceful and it even less cluttered environment where everybody can operate. but it's going to take more work to ensure that deterrence prevails in light of changing additions. [inaudible] >> so that it could be recorded somewhere, right? sounds good. question for you here in this world that we live in with the

new space and space 2.0, we are still intentional jamming, and a wonder if there's anything that the administration, the space council, yourself, the groups you deal with, are thinking about ending new responses to intentional jamming? >> the short answer is i probably can't really respond with any deep substance on that. certainly even unintentional jamming is actually a problem, and working to reduce that. trying to get to a point where we can reduce the amount of unintentional jamming, such that any actual and deliberative attempts of intentional jamming stick out and become very, very noticeable, i think is something a lot of us would like to see. because if there is intentional and open jamming, and you can assure yourself that it is not an accident, then you have a variety of options you can take

a penny on the state of international conditions against that. if however you have rather noisy environment then it becomes much more difficult. this is one of the reasons why i think a lot of people, myself included, are very keen to keep satellite spectrum very clean and pristine. not simply for performance reasons but because in a clean environment any bad actor kind of sticks out fairly clearly, where as if it's a really noisy environment it's sometimes hard to find that actor. so good spectrum management is not only good for commerce, it's good for national security. >> gel, former dean of international station and also gw. two issues were discussed early this morning. one was that of spectrum allocation and the other one -- [inaudible]

on the issue of spectrum management, one of the things that's been discussed is the extent to which for the millimeter waves, they could be sharing. of course that's not a clean environment but it's also given the preponderance of pressure for 5g. looks like that satellites may have to do sharing, just comments on that. and also on the debris. i just got back from a conference in south africa where it was proposed that we should have automatic deorbit commands that they would be validated each week to say, it still operating, don't deorbit, because some satellite systems 40%, you've just lost communications capability to command the orbit. just comment about any

innovations we can make on orbital debris that makes sense. >> i do really want to make sure that the use finger is on any button that didn't automatic deorbit. [laughing] just me. what eventually control that. -- dash i shouldn't comment abot millimeter wave or some of the debris issue because some of those things in fact, by the subject of open rule makings that the commission is engaged in. what i think i can say is that it will important we have specific protections for satellite services, that the worst outcome is that we be uncertain about what the global standards are for protection of a satellite service. one may agree or disagree about protection level in a particular case, say with millimeter wave or rulemaking but the larger issue is satellite services deserve, need, require protection limits. that's true on a global basis or

least a wider regional basis as possible. because unlike terrestrial systems you really can go administration by administration to work those things out. i think in a very short of high level that the u.s. should support those kind of global protections in international environments with the subject of what they are to be part of her own national processes. >> we have time for one more question. >> thank you for being here. hudson is honored to have many major satellite ceos here today, and major american innovators. and i wonder what you can tell us them and us about this time

game that is going on in terms of this marvelous emerging industry that some -- is so important to our country, and how the impulse to over regulate it or correct, reform the space policy before they -- how is all that going to unfold in industry and what is at the trump administration going to do about it? >> would want the commercial industry to drive of the wanted to be a global leader because it serves of right of our national interest not only economic growth but national security and also the ability to shape and influence what the rules are. people have known my phrase which rules are made by the people who show up, not by the people who stay behind. so we need to show up at these meetings and standards. i think that, one of the biggest threats to the space industry is not a question of whether an

agency or whatever it is supported or not. i think everybody is broadly supportive. what happens is really the coordination of it. so you can have people quite well-meaning going down a particular path on a standard or working a problem that can have an impact on the satellite cyberspace side that simply is not recognized, or the attempt to apply a model that works in one domain of technology and try to miss apply it to the space domain. and, of course, a natural reaction is everyone always pleads wider special so natural reaction is to say just another special interest group is why they should have special treatment. being able to actually go more technically deeper with the regulatory agencies and with the department agencies as to why you need to work certain problems differently on the space side then what you would do in the terrestrial

communication side, or non-communications capabilities. i think that's really the hard question. the space council i think provides a good mechanism for doing that, , for bringing the leadership to bear but the leadership doesn't always know what's happening on the front lines, and industry or the technology and out of the markets and cutting edge. that's not necessary their job. so our job in white house is to make sure we present the administrations agenda down. we adjudicate issues in public september. one of the ways that i would urge that industry can kind of help us in that regard is to go in and a gate with department and agencies, go to your customers or go to the people in defense department and in nasa, in transportation, and commerce, and make sure they know how the equities are being affected. this i would also say this is most effective if it's done as an industrywide effort rather than an individual effort. when was in the commerce department, the gps market was

just sort of starting and one of the first things i said to the companies was on the smart enough to understand all your competitive strategies with each other. what i need you to do is go and form a trade association and come back to me with industry position. because of the interest in favoring any one company or not. i'm interested in having an industry viewpoint that's in the commerce department they can act on. so the importance of groups like the satellite industry association, plug, and other groups to go into the department of agencies, that something gets into the interagency is when commerce comes and says we've got a a problem. defense says we got a problem. something that is easier for me to deal with. i can hear from industry and i want to hear from industry, but i'm in a position where you first need respond to what my boss wants and then what the departments and agencies are saying. but they become advocates, you know, for an approach that is broadly shared across the

industry, then it's much, much easier for us to engage. >> well, thank you very much. [applause] >> want to thank scott pace for this characteristically deeply insightful remarks. we can see why the vice president has entrusted him with being executive secretary of the space council, which is a signature initiative of this administration, won the president himself has entrusted our old friend vice president mike pence with, and i can remember conversation with the vice president going back to 1994, 1995 on space issues that we had. i want to thank you, ken, not a better way to launch our space 2.0 2.0 initiative. to the evergreen here. thank her c-span audience. we were adjourn now for lunch and we will reconvene at 1:30 p.m. at with the panel discussion. lunch will be served right outside. thank you very much. [applause]

[inaudible conversations] >> taking a break at the hudson institute and continuing the discussion about the future of space exploration and commercial satellites in about 45 minutes. when did you return around 1:30 p.m. eastern time we will be hearing from a former sec commissioner and from officials with the faa and the commerce department. while there industry will take a look at a hearing from last week, the senate rules and administration committee took of a measure from oklahoma senator james lankford to limit debate time in the senate for presidential nominees to speed up the confirmation process. >> ready? the quorum being present,