More Than Norms, Perhaps Space Needs Rules

Will norms of space behavior be enough to protect the $469 billion-dollar and growing space economy, the government-funded exploration and science programs, and the critical defense assets in orbit? Perhaps what’s needed is a bit stronger and binding. Like rules. Laura Winter speaks with Kevin O’Connell, the former Director of the Office of Space Commerce at the U.S. Department of Commerce, under the Trump Administration; Mir Sadat, a Nonresident Senior Fellow at the Atlantic Council, and an Adjunct Scholar at West Point’s Modern War Institute; and Julia Siegel, the assistant director of the Forward Defense practice in the Atlantic Council’s Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security. Together they discuss Sadat and Seigel’s policy paper, “Space traffic management: Time for action”, which you can read here: https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/in-depth-research-reports/issue-brief/space-traffic-management-time-for-action/.