Contributor's contribution: Space cowboys

In space, no one can hear you regulate.

Daniel Porras is a career space lawyer. (Yes, we are jealous, too.)

Editor’s note: As they say, everyone wants to go to heaven. Nobody wants to follow rules. In this very serious and very actual policy brief for the commercial space industry, friend-of-Bupkes Porras reminds his industry that, you know, you maybe want to look where you’re going.

While this very serious and very actual policy brief is intended for a niche and technical audience, it is chock full of delightful tidbits that any general and specifically Bupkes audience will enjoy. We mean, the headline alone!

And such excerpts:

As surprising as it may be, there is no official directory for space that provides a point of contact (PoC) for all operators. If, say, a spacecraft operated by a US company were to come into close range of a Chinese satellite, it is very likely that neither operator would know whom to call to coordinate collision avoidance manoeuvres. Likewise, if a commercial US ISAM spacecraft were to come “close” to…