Its Saber Rattling Time Again

I am no ITAR/export control expert, but if you read the article, it doesn't sound like anything is actually illegal here.

quote: "...European satellite operator Eutelsat was a cutting a deal with Beijing for a launch on a Long March rocket. Incidentally, Eutelsat sells tens of millions of dollars worth of satellite services
to the U.S. Government through DISA contracts."

Eutelsat makes a deal with China. They also, seperately, provide the US services. Unless there are specific US built hardware on Eutelsat's satellites, then I am failing to see the concern here. Anyone care to elaborate on this?

What the hell, we've sent everything else to China. Why not send them our launch capability too? By the way, do you want fries with that?

The concern is Congress doesn't want to admit it's own responsibility in messing up ITAR. ITAR was originally intended to cover equipment such as, say, a fighter airplane, a satellite, a rocket, etc., not every single component. The bureaucracy is so cumbersome (and absurd) that international operators have instead developed their own technology without relaying on U.S. component, and then openly market it as 'ITAR-free'. The consequence has been two fold:

1) ITAR has actually encouraged proliferation through increased R&D efforts in other nations.

2) U.S. companies have been impeded from participating in these international activities, even from exporting non-sensitive hardware or basic industrial expertise. The internationals simply won't bother anymore in waiting for weeks/months just to see if Boeing or Lockheed can get an approval for a specific component.

So, on all counts, it's been a lose-lose situation for the U.S. That's what Congressman Dana R. and buddies should be addressing instead of making lame threats to industry.

I wonder how he voted on giving Communist China Most Favorite Nation trade status? I agree with him but it' so hypocritical from a congressman, the biggest give-away BS artists to 'free trade' with Communist China. The time to scream about this type of treason has been for the past 15 years, when we've given them LOTS of our Wal-Mart money to fund their space and military programs, while de-industrializing ourselves. Too many DC suits have been snowed and bought out by their corporate sponsors for too many years to get this situation to this point. You reap what you sow.

Lowly Contractor has it right. Congress (in general) and Rohrabacher (in specific) really screwed American industry with the intensely restrictive ITAR regulations, that mean that these days European aerospace companies are actually proud to advertise "no American parts!" in their satellites. Rohrabacher is desperately trying to make some headlines to pretend that his ITAR regulations actually do something useful, other than strangle the Aerospace industry.

Basically, ITAR says that everything is a weapon, and that you can go to jail for selling it overseas if you don't spend a million dollars, a year of delay, and a few man-years of labor to clear it with the State Department. (And there's no "ignorance" defense-- you can't say "I didn't think that solar arrays were a weapon". Well, they are-- if you can put them on a satellite (and you can put anything on a satellite)-- or use them to test a satellite, they're a weapon.) If you wonder why American Aerospace is having problems, there it is.

Yes, this is a poorly disguised attempt to force satellite owners to fly on American built rockets. Even if those American built rockets have foreign parts (such as engines). Just because you launch a comm satellite on a booster does not mean that the launching agency gets all the details on how the components are designed or built! Sure they know about interfaces, but that is a long way from being able to reverse engineer things. And if they wanted to reverse engineer components it is easier to do a document search.
Rohrabacher has just made American components harder to sell.

Dana Rohrabacher is showboating again (it's what he does best). A decade ago he was all in favor of the tightened ITAR restrictions. Now that the obvious has happened and other countries have developed their own components & capabilities so that they can build "ITAR-free" satellites, NOW he is beginning to glimpse the problem. But he still doesn't understand it if he thinks that a EUTELSAT spacecraft with no American content falls under the United States Munitions List.