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International Space Commerce: Building from Scratch

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This work explores the important issue of commercial space policy; and the relationship of that policy to the international community. This is an important area that has not received the attention that it deserves. By investigating the nexus between politics, economics, and technology Roger Handberg, University of Central Florida, makes an important contribution that is unique, especially with his emphasis on the international aspects of this relationship.

While this is an area that has not received the attention it deserves, it is becoming more important with every passing day. No longer may we view spaceflight as the purview of NASA, overseeing it for the United States. Instead, it is cooperative, and sometimes competitive, in a business sense of the term. Business comes together for individual projects and divorces when appropriate. At the same time there is still a nationalistic tenor to the effort, as individual nations make decisions about what they will allow and will not allow in international ventures based on a host of prerogatives that are usually decided on the basis of politics and national priorities rather than on business grounds. In the post 9/11 era this is especially significant because space technology has military applications that need to be weighed in any given context. For example, the U.S. International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR) regime has been a significant development in recent years when concerns over technology transfer have come to the fore.

Roger Handberg approaches this subject in a relatively straightforward and sound narrative fashion, and this seems to work reasonably well overall. While he is a political scientist, and this is a work of political science, he emphasizes an historical approach. His work, accordingly, is essentially descriptive rather than prescriptive.

"International Space Commerce: Building from Scratch," offers a three part study of international space commerce that is quite useful. In the first part of the book the author explores the origins of a control regime for international space commerce that was created in light of the cold war international prestige agenda of the first decade of the space age. Accordingly, space commerce was always viewed as a subunit of a larger cold war agenda and political barriers to commercial activities always fell prey to those other concerns. In the post-cold war era, as the author shows, there is an enormous set of opportunities for expanding commercial space activities. At the same time, U.S. commercial space policy must move in new directions. As the author states, "one of the subtexts running through this analysis examines the phenomena of the United States belatedly and hesitantly adjusting to an international space commerce environment in which it is clearly no longer the dominant player" (p. 6).

The author's second part deals with the internationalization of space commerce currently underway and traces how it has gotten to where it is at the beginning of the twenty-first century. In this context the U.S. might not be leading the transformation, in no small part because of the nation's "wedded-ness" to longstanding policies inaugurated in the cold war. Handberg notes that other nations may actually have an advantage in setting up policies conducive to international space commerce because they do not have longstanding policies, and institutions supporting them, that are not easily changed. Such organizations as NASA have a strong voice in shaping any space policy and as an organization it has priorities and positions that oppose commercial activities. The author reports that the commercial space transportation sector in 1999 accounted for $61.3 billion and 500,000 employees, a number that dwarfs NASA and other U.S. government space activities. Clearly, there is a lot of activity underway in space commerce with growth expected in all arenas for the foreseeable future.

Finally, Handberg explores the extent to which international space commerce may be viewed as an engine for fostering economic change and growth in both the U.S. and elsewhere. Many people in the U.S. government view space commercialization as a great boon that will open the space frontier and end the government "stranglehold" on the sector. Accordingly, some members of Congress and policy leaders in Washington want to reduce the power of the federal government and enhance the opportunity for entrepreneurs to advance the cause of spaceflight. Agencies such as NASA view themselves as under attack by these individuals. There are similar moves afoot in other nations as well. It is, of course, part of a larger "privatization" agenda that seeks to let the "free market" reign.

These three themes work well and the author carries them off quite capably. Accordingly, this is a quite useful work that will offer insight to all readers. In the interest of full disclosure Roger Handberg is a colleague and friend, but regardless I would rate this a valuable work that explores a topic that is growing in significance.