British MP proposes his government’s vast bureaucratic skills be given the power to regulate all space
“We’re here to help you!” George Freeman, a British MP who was also its minister for science, research, technology and innovation under two previous Tory governments, has now proposed that Great Britain’s great skill at bureaucracy (which has done a great job bankrupting both rocket companies and spaceports) be given the job as the world’s regulatory cop.
Freeman said as space minister he had focused on UK leadership in space regulation, insurance and finance; convening the industry partnership with the UK space sector and Lloyds of London to create the Earth∞Space Sustainability Initiative (ESSI), which aims to set global standards for the sector, and securing the backing of Canada, Japan and Switzerland through the global summit at the Royal Society. “The idea of my space debris regulation and the creation of the Earth Space Sustainability Initiative was very simple,” he said.
… But it isn’t only in the field of satellite technology where regulation will be important. From crewed missions to Mars to the prospect of lunar mining and even creating data centres on the moon, the opportunities space offers are myriad. Regulations around space debris, Freeman said, could act as a gateway to rules in other areas.
“It can gradually evolve,” the MP explained. “You could imagine, say, on space traffic control, that you wouldn’t get permission to launch from aviation authorities unless you’ve got a licence to operate. Licence to operate says you must be compliant with basic standards.
This concluding quote at the link, written by the reliably naive pro-government leftist British outlet The Guardian, says it all:
Freeman added the UK is well placed to lead on such matters. “Space needs a global regulatory alliance led by and headquartered in a trusted nation. You need a country that’s got a long and distinguished history as a trusted partner, a long, 300-year role as a regulator of choice, that believes in and is respected internationally for its legal system and is connected to financial market and international courts and jurisdiction,” he said.
“This is a huge opportunity for the UK. We should seize it.”
The UK red tape this blowhard admires so much — and likely helped create — caused Virgin Orbit to go bankrupt while it waited for months to get a launch license. It has also practically destroyed the business at two UK spaceports because the paperwork makes launching there so burdensome. Rocket companies are going elsewhere for this reason.
The worst thing we could do is give Freeman and the bankrupt regulatory culture he helped create the power to establish similar regulations for the rest of the world. The entire newly-born space industry that is bursting out everywhere would choke to death almost immediately.
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“We’re here to help you!” George Freeman, a British MP who was also its minister for science, research, technology and innovation under two previous Tory governments, has now proposed that Great Britain’s great skill at bureaucracy (which has done a great job bankrupting both rocket companies and spaceports) be given the job as the world’s regulatory cop.
Freeman said as space minister he had focused on UK leadership in space regulation, insurance and finance; convening the industry partnership with the UK space sector and Lloyds of London to create the Earth∞Space Sustainability Initiative (ESSI), which aims to set global standards for the sector, and securing the backing of Canada, Japan and Switzerland through the global summit at the Royal Society. “The idea of my space debris regulation and the creation of the Earth Space Sustainability Initiative was very simple,” he said.
… But it isn’t only in the field of satellite technology where regulation will be important. From crewed missions to Mars to the prospect of lunar mining and even creating data centres on the moon, the opportunities space offers are myriad. Regulations around space debris, Freeman said, could act as a gateway to rules in other areas.
“It can gradually evolve,” the MP explained. “You could imagine, say, on space traffic control, that you wouldn’t get permission to launch from aviation authorities unless you’ve got a licence to operate. Licence to operate says you must be compliant with basic standards.
This concluding quote at the link, written by the reliably naive pro-government leftist British outlet The Guardian, says it all:
Freeman added the UK is well placed to lead on such matters. “Space needs a global regulatory alliance led by and headquartered in a trusted nation. You need a country that’s got a long and distinguished history as a trusted partner, a long, 300-year role as a regulator of choice, that believes in and is respected internationally for its legal system and is connected to financial market and international courts and jurisdiction,” he said.
“This is a huge opportunity for the UK. We should seize it.”
The UK red tape this blowhard admires so much — and likely helped create — caused Virgin Orbit to go bankrupt while it waited for months to get a launch license. It has also practically destroyed the business at two UK spaceports because the paperwork makes launching there so burdensome. Rocket companies are going elsewhere for this reason.
The worst thing we could do is give Freeman and the bankrupt regulatory culture he helped create the power to establish similar regulations for the rest of the world. The entire newly-born space industry that is bursting out everywhere would choke to death almost immediately.
Readers!
My annual February birthday fund-raising drive for Behind the Black is now over. Thank you to everyone who donated or subscribed. While not a record-setter, the donations were more than sufficient and slightly above average.
As I have said many times before, I can’t express what it means to me to get such support, especially as no one is required to pay anything to read my work. Thank you all again!
For those readers who like my work here at Behind the Black and haven't contributed so far, please consider donating or subscribing. My analysis of space, politics, and culture, taken from the perspective of an historian, is almost always on the money and ahead of the game. For example, in 2020 I correctly predicted that the COVID panic was unnecessary, that the virus was apparently simply a variation of the flu, that masks were not simply pointless but if worn incorrectly were a health threat, that the lockdowns were a disaster and did nothing to stop the spread of COVID. Every one of those 2020 conclusions has turned out right.
Your help allows me to do this kind of intelligent analysis. I take no advertising or sponsors, so my reporting isn't influenced by donations by established space or drug companies. Instead, I rely entirely on donations and subscriptions from my readers, which gives me the freedom to write what I think, unencumbered by outside influences.
You can support me either by giving a one-time contribution or a regular subscription. There are four ways of doing so:
1. Zelle: This is the only internet method that charges no fees. All you have to do is use the Zelle link at your internet bank and give my name and email address (zimmerman at nasw dot org). What you donate is what I get.
2. Patreon: Go to my website there and pick one of five monthly subscription amounts, or by making a one-time donation.
3. A Paypal Donation or subscription:
4. Donate by check, payable to Robert Zimmerman and mailed to
Behind The Black
c/o Robert Zimmerman
P.O.Box 1262
Cortaro, AZ 85652
You can also support me by buying one of my books, as noted in the boxes interspersed throughout the webpage or shown in the menu above.
one would like to think that an organization that wants to control access to space should be able to at least build and then launch an actual orbital mission. Or at least have granted a launch license.
I suspect these comments are only a glimpse at a small portion of this guy’s ego.
Au contraire! We should provide him and his staff with an early production Starship and launch them into solar orbit, to allow them to regulate the exploration of the entire solar system!! In the spirit of globalism, I’m sure Elon would even do it gratis.
Great Britain’s “great skill at bureaucracy” hasn’t just bankrupted rocket companies and spaceports, it has bankrupted the entire country. British national debt is now twice what it was when Tony Blair came to power in 1997. Basic services, including the vaunted National Health Service, are breaking down. It has lost most of its industrial base — it is shutting down its last steel mill this spring — and its insane Net Zero campaign, beloved of both Tory and Labour, is crippling its economic competitiveness and living standards. The deliberate importation of vast numbers of unassimilable immigrants to artificially pump up GDP numbers to counteract all the foregoing by governments of both parties over the past generation and the bureaucracy that really gives both their marching orders has meanwhile collapsed Britain’s high trust society and badly eroded law and order in British cities, to the point that respected British security analysts are now warning of a looming civil war.
And yet, somehow, we are supposed to trust that they have any clue about how to effectively regulate and nurture a competitive space industry.
The British state of the past age could have done this, perhaps. But that Britain no longer exists.
Sadly, ignorance and arrogance are frequent companions.
Britain won’t be at all relevant on the world stage for much longer with the Islamic takeover.
”Freeman said as space minister he had focused on UK leadership in space regulation, insurance and finance…”
As opposed to rockets, satellites, and telescopes?
”Freeman added the UK is well placed to lead on such matters. ‘Space needs a global regulatory alliance led by and headquartered in a trusted nation. You need a country that’s got a long and distinguished history as a trusted partner, a long, 300-year role as a regulator of choice…’”
OK, Bob. I think you got taken in by a parody account. There’s no way that’s real. No one could be that inane.
mkent: C’mon, how can you think leftist The Guardian is a parody outlet? One of my most passionate leftist commenters just told us today that it is ” a well respected news source.” And we all know leftists are always right!
Richard M et al,
Ditto in all respects. There are times when the obdurate cluelessness of the British left makes our own neo-Marxist utopians look like hard-headed realists by comparison. I guess the parable of The Little Red Hen has been put down the Memory Hole in Old Blighty.
Mike Borgelt,
Agree about the growing irrelevance of Britain, but I’m much less certain there will be an Islamic takeover – at least not a successful one. I would rate as several times more likely an Islamic extinction in Britain. There are certainly more white soccer hooligans in the UK than there are Muslim men. And even one-on-one, my money would be on the yabbos to take home the cup.
Hoodie Horrors…
Lad culture and all…
If it weren’t in The Guardian, an stalwart of the humorless left, I would also wonder if it was a parody.
“From crewed missions to Mars to the prospect of lunar mining and even creating data centres on the moon, the opportunities space offers are myriad. ”
Something that might have been said by an Arthur C Clarke, an Elon Musk, a Bob Zimmerman etc., but for this functionary the opportunity isn’t to further human knowledge or to establish permanent non-terrestrial settlements or even create profitable ventures. No, the real opportunity is to create a new bureaucracy!
An image popped up in my head of John Cleese sitting behind a desk in some Monty Python comedy piece.
It’s actually a continuation of an old Brit tradition, another Englishman out in the noon day sun (this time in a spacesuit).
It is about money.
If they regulate it, they can tax it, charge the fees, steal the money from others labours.
This is want he want to seize.
Robert: The Guardian or not, you have to admit it reads like something out of the movie Brazil.
mkent: Oh yes, I agree entirely. But then, this is the kind of bankrupt reporting I have been reading from these mainstream propaganda leftists news outlets for practically three decades. Unfortunately, the quality keeps going down more and more into a bizarre Bizarro world interpretation of reality.
This is the sort of thing one might expect from an episode of “Yes, Minister”
You know how small children operate under the illusion that the universe revolves around them? Like the little girl who thought that when her mom took her from one mall to another, all the people from the first mall got in their cars and drove to the second mall just to keep her company?
Maybe if you want a “universal principle applied in regulation”, weed out everyone from authority with this mentality from those jobs. The UK has certainly had this narcissistic impulse since they were an empire. The local police forces saying, “We’re coming for you” to US citizens practicing free speech in the US was the most absurd example I’d heard until now.
It could be worse. Look at what China actually does around the world. Or Pakistan’s colonialism of the UK.
It would just be rude if I didn’t pop in and say hi…. ( On my lunch break )
The Guardian is a fairly trustworthy news source, even though it is left leaning, it’s positively right wing compared to your loony left over there!
There is no impending Islamic takeover in the UK. As I stated in that other thread we are having a spot of heated discussion in, the Muslim community makes up 6% of the population. It’s only personal experience, but the vast majority of Muslims I know are very moderate. There are of course fundamentalists, but this can be said of pretty much any social demographic.
And finally,.to return to the actual subject of this thread…. It’s not often I agree with you on political matters Bob, but you nailed this one! The guy is an obvious blowhard, and fortunately impotent as he is a conservative, and in opposition, ( remarkably enough, belonging to the party of smaller government that laid out all the red tape in the first place)
It remains to be seen what the current government will do regarding space policy. I don’t hold out much hope for anything better… They are making an almighty mess of things after a few months in power, blaming the previous government for leaving a huge hole in public finances. Strangely enough, the conservatives said exactly the same when they beat labour over a decade ago.
I’m pretty sure you have to take an IQ test and fail it to become a politician.
The Guardian does have a popular reputation for being a “serious” news outlet, the rage-baiting trolling of its columnists and legendary propensity for typographical errors notwithstanding. And yet it’s interesting to note that the Guardian has in 200 years only won one Pulitzer — for Glenn Greenwald’s reporting on intelligence agency wiretapping and other malfeasance. And yet the Guardian has been busy trashing Greenwald ever since. This is why I always found it hysterically ironic that The Bourne Ultimatum chose to make the crack investigative reporter who serves as the plot fulcrum a Guardian journalist, of all things. Did someone at the Financial Times do something to tick off Paul Greenglasss?
But the Greenwald saga highlights, I think, what the real problem is with the Guardian. They are not just left-liberal, but terminally *establishment* left-liberal. Their reporting and their commentary relentlessly reflects the vested interests of the educated elite class of the Labour Party, in what they report and what they do not report and how they report what they do report. That elite class had to back Tony Blair’s support for the Iraq War, so the Guardian did, too. When that class decided that Jeremy Corbyn was a threat to Labour’s electoral prospects, the Guardian dutifully pursued him to the death. The grooming gangs scandal was dangerous to that elite, so it refused to cover it, then shifted to pushing false narratives that the groomers were mostly white Britons when they could no longer ignore it. When Greenwald slipped through the cracks with an investigation that deeply embarrassed that elite, he had to be disavowed.
Notwithstanding its robust Science section, the Guardian has never developed any serious in-house journalism on space, but it is not hard to see why this story would interest them: an opportunity to create yet another regulatory apparatus, employing the sorts of people who are friends of Guardian editors as regulators — all courtesy of a Wet Tory, which just makes it perfect. Not that there’s many Tories any longer who *aren’t* Wet….
Lee said, “ I’m pretty sure you have to take an IQ test and fail it to become a politician..”
One of those times I wish we had a like button.
I can’t comment, really. I’m too busy laughing to even read much past the headline.
mkent
April 7, 2025 at 10:22 pm
Robert: The Guardian or not, you have to admit it reads like something out of the movie Brazil.
And what’s really fun is that Brazil was about insanity. The whole inversion of satire and reality is nuts.
@Richard M,
You raise some very good points regarding the Guardian…. I would consider it a reliable news source, but as with any news outlet, it should be read with some awareness of it’s biases.
It is still fairly left leaning, but I cancelled my subscription after the hatchet job they did on Corbyn… Along with every other MSM outlet ( with the possible exception of the Morning Star, but unfortunately that isn’t available here in Sweden;-)
Hello Lee,
I am not a fan of Corbyn. But it was so painfully obvious that what the Grauniad did to him *was* a hatchet job. And it was not hard to see whose interests that hatchet job served!
mkent–
“Brazil” (1985)
The Office (Central Services) scene –
https://youtu.be/V-yXL-LDMyg
1:18
@ Richard M..
Love him or loathe him, Corbyn was bought down by the media… He could have been the first genuine left wing priminister the UK has had in generations… As it ended up we got more Conservative government… Which seems to continue with this parliament … Tony Blair was pretty Tory light, the current shower seem even more right wing… Cutting benefits for the disabled, taking away OAP’s winter fuel allowance, refusing to increase tax on the highest earners… ( Which is not quite what a left wing government is supposed to have as policy )
They are a big ball of snakes, biting each other’s tails and ignoring the electoral public… I fear that the next UK government may be a popularist far right shower… Who will complain about the hole in public funds the previous government left.