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Arms Regulations Damaging US Space Industry
athe!st writes "International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR) are a major headache for companies trying to put their satellites into space, so much so that some companies are using 'ITAR-free' (aka free of US technology) as a selling point. The European Space Agency is trying to reduce its dependence on ITAR components, and the regulations are also threatening the nascent space tourism industry."
Our company used to buy a certain kind of component from the US to put into the products we make. Every single one needed an export licence and an import licence. That is an export licence from the US and an import licence from the UK. If something goes wrong with the component and it needs fixing, we need an export licence from the UK and an import licence to the US to return it for fixing or replacement. Again, that replacement needs another import/export licence. That's just for traffic between the UK and the US. If you're then going to export your product to a third country, you need another export licence and possibly another import licence for that country too. It's so bad we actually hire people just to track what's going on with all of the difference licences!
To cut a long story short, we switched supplier to a European company who make similar components. Now of course we need an import licence for the US if selling to the US, but in general apart from countries like Iran, we can freely export our product without the nightmare stack of licences and yes, it is a factor you talk about when giving sales presentations.
Yeah, that's pretty much the case. I used to work in an aerospace company. We liked to use the adjective ITAR'ded.
you may find this recent article enlightening. From the article:
The impact of export controls on the high-tech industry have caused problems for everyone from browser makers—who once ran up against restrictions on their encryption software, despite its wide availability outside the US—to hardware makers; Apple once advertised that its G4 processor fell under export control due to outdated definitions of what constituted a supercomputer. But they also affect more mundane items. In the announcement that outlines the reform efforts, the White House notes that the brake pads for the army's M1A1 tank are essentially identical to those used in fire trucks, but only the former ends up under export controls; "Under our current system, we devote the same resources to protecting the brake pad as we do to protecting the M1A1 tank itself."
Which is why our current foreign policy is complete bullshit. Rather than maintaining honest friendships and alliances, we instead seek to keep other countries in the stone age and use diplomacy only when they gain equal technology.
Rather than encouraging the development of technologies, we try to hoard them based on a stupid belief that if we do this we will prevent other countries from developing weapon technologies, instead we cripple ourselves and are a laughingstock in front of other countries.
Think of how much more we as humanity could do when artificial barriers to trade are eliminated. It doesn't make us safer, it alienates us from the rest of the world and prevents us from doing beneficial things. Rather than having an unsustainable foreign policy of making sure that no one else other than the US gets technology, we need to have alliances and diplomatic principles that make it so when countries -do- get advanced technology they won't use it against us.
Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.