What? Single states acting for their own purposes are part of the very foundation of our federal system of government.
As a point of reference, California has a public school campus that they paid almost $600m for link. It’s a little silly to act like the fancy satellites used for weather science that Stranger says cost $100m is some “omg never possible WOW BIG NUMBER” situation for the richest, largest state in America–a state that if it were a country would be the world’s 35th most populous and the world’s 6th richest.
California’s GDP is more than twice that of Russia’s, get serious people.
FWIW, I think Governor Brown was ranting, and don’t expect California will be creating a program where it attempts to replicate NASA’s earth science mission, or in which it would start paying for $100m satellites. There’s probably a genuine question if the average California voter would want the state to spend money that way.
Seriously–California could fund NASA itself, by itself. NASA’s budget is around $20bn/yr, California could actually afford that. California spends $60bn/yr on public schools, $33bn/yr on Health and Human Services, so fully funding NASA wouldn’t even be the biggest line item in California’s budget. I think fully funding NASA would represent about 11% of California’s budget. Now obviously, I doubt Californians would again, want to spend $20bn/yr on this, it would require an increase in taxes, but the capacity is there. [In fact in a fanciful scenario where the Federal government closed NASA down and gave the difference back in the form of a small tax cut, at least some of the tax burden would be offset by lowered Federal taxes–something California tax payers pay into disproportionately already.]
The Jet Propulsion Laboratory is managed by Caltech but is owned by NASA and has been ever since it was transferred from GALCIT. For the most part, JPL does not build satellites; they design certain instruments (typically science and special telemetry instrumentation), perform the systems design, oversee integration, and perform mission operations. Of large satellite manufacturers in the United States, about half base their satellite operations in California (Lockheed Martin at Sunnyvale, Northrop Grumman at Redondo Beach, Boeing at El Segundo and Huntington Beach), but these are of course national aerospace companies with many military and aerospace contracts with the Department of Defense, Department of Energy, and et cetera. If the federal government wanted to force them to not support some other line of business, e.g. providing satellite, those companies would have to accede.
No US entity puts satellites in space or operates communications equipment in orbit without the express approval of the US government (FAA, FCC, USSPACECOM). And replacing the Earth observations performed by NASA is, again, more than building and deploying a single $100M satellite. A brief perusal of the current missions being operated by the NASA Earth Observing System Program Office shows [URL=Current Missions | NASA's Earth Observing System]twenty-five current missions*, and even if you assume that not all would be needed for effective climate monitoring you’re still looking at billions of dollars in launch costs alone, notwithstanding the cost to build and integrate satellites which are built with components and instrumentation coming from many other states. California, or private entities in California may enter into joint venture agreements or projects, but the federal government can very well prevent that by denying technology export licenses, passing federal restrictions based upon interstate commerce (US Constitution, Article I, Secton 8, Clause 3), and using its authority in control of Customs to prevent the importation or exportation of equipment or information, all of which is perfectly legal.
Now, I don’t think the US government, even under Trump, is going to shut down all Earth observation programs because that would be incredibly stupid and expensive, and would also likely run into many legal challenges and contract violations, but if desired the executive branch and/or Congress can certainly put a stranglehold on programs to evaluate the data or support extended missions, and could (in some cases) restrict access to the data collected. But if the federal government was so directed it could shut down the missions and prevent any state or incorporated body in California or another state from performing space-based observation, and there is little California could actually do; nor could California conceivably run an internal space program on the same scale as NASA and deploy replacement observation systems in a reasonable timeframe. Brown hasn’t considered anything; this is just a reflexive, off the cuff response to some inane stupidity on the part of a Trump advisor.
Stranger
A more interesting and likely possibility would be for a coalition of “Blue States” to cooperate and form their own climate science agency funded from their own state budgets. The combined Blue States could afford to fund and build their own damn satellites aplenty.
As Stranger says, the federal government could attempt to hinder all launch efforts by the “BSSA” (Blue States Space Agency), but I’m sure there would be court cases challenging those efforts. If all else failed they could just give money to fund the efforts of ESA, JAXA and don’t forget India, ISRO has been doing good things recently. I’m not sure the Feds could block states from giving money to foreign space agencies (of allied countries) could they?
There is an entire conversation going on here with no reference to any fact in law. Have you guys never actually read the US Constitution? It is not very long and for a legal document generally very clear and concise. Article I, Section 8, Clause 3 (the so-called “Interstate Commerce Clause”) forms the basis for much of federal regulatory authority over the states, and the US government authority for making binding treaty agreements. For reference, see the US Constitution, Article I, Section 8:*The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States; but all Duties, Imposts and Excises shall be uniform throughout the United States;
To borrow Money on the credit of the United States;
To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes;
…*Yes, the federal government absolutely has the authority, should they impose it, to prevent individual states from entering into agreements with one another involving trade or finance, and can most certainly prevent states from making any kind of treaties or joint ventures with foreign nations. This is not “a bunch of wild assumptions”; it is the fundamental law of the nation, and the easily researched regulations stemming from it. The federal government could not prevent California from funding a program or building a satellite within its own borders, but could certainly prevent other states from working in explicit cooperation, and of course the federal government “owns” both the airspace that a launch vehicle would have to fly through, necessitating FAA approval, and the frequency spectrum that a satellite would need some portion of which to transmit, requiring an FCC license. The federal government also controls all export of any technology with potential application for military use through 22 USC 2778 and regulated by the US State Department under the Interntional Trafficking in Arms Regulations, which definitely includes a space launch vehicle and many components within it such as guidance and communication systems. International trafficking would including towing a launch vehicle on a barge into international waters, and there is no launch facility or range from California that is not owned by the US Department of Defense.
California is not going to be legally operating its own indigenous space program in defiance of federal approval. To suggest otherwise is obtuse to all existing law and the relationship between the federal government and the states.
Stranger
Google Virgin Galactic. It’s totally possible for CA to do this without the government.
Jesus fucking Christ, this is a completely fact-free discussion. Setting aside the legal and regulatory issues I’ll note that Virgin Galactic has yet to demonstrate putting as much as a single peanut in Earth orbit. Their advertised capability for the LauncherOne vehicle is 300 kg to at 500 km sun synchronous orbit, which is suitable only for the lower end of Earth observation missions, and not for the kind of long duration comprehensive Earth observation missions that NASA is uniquely suited to operate. For instance, here is the EOS AM-1 'Terra" earth observation satellite, which (because of lack of authorization for many replacement satellites has been operating for more than ten years beyond design life). Here are a few of the orbital and satellite vehicle characteristics:Orbit:
Type: Near-polar, sun-synchronous Equatorial Crossing: 10:30 a.m. Altitude: 705 km
Inclination: 98.1°
Period: 98.88 minutes Repeat Cycle: 16 days
Dimensions: 2.7 m × 3.3 m × 6.8 m Mass: 5,190 kg
Power: 2,530 W
The Virgin Galactic launcher couldn’t even get close to that. The pre-“Full Thrust” Falcon 9 would be challenged to make that orbit with that payload.
Stranger
Oh okay. I remember where we all said otherwise–wait, no one did. You’ve actually already said this. Again, all Jerry Brown said was “we’ll launch our own damn satellite.” Your response here is like if Elon Musk said “we’ll launch a rocket” to respond “well they can’t just launch rockets into space, there’s government approvals and etc.” Maybe the more reasonable thing is, if we take it on face value that the Governor of California wants to launch something into space, he’s not going to just call up ULA and be like “hey can we launch some satellite I’m going to pull out of my ass in to space next week? I assume we need no government approval for this, since I’ve only been in government for 45 years and have been Governor of California on multiple occasions, graduated from the University of California-Berkeley and Yale Law I’m a fundamentally stupid person that believes this is how things work, and don’t understand that maybe I’ll need subordinates who know what they’re doing in this subject area to detail a plan of action.”
Again, I don’t think California is going down this route, it was politics (psst–Jerry Brown is a politician), but I’d wager a good bit of money if some entity like say the State of California wanted to do research and launch weather satellites, they’d get all the approvals necessary and I very seriously doubt anyone in the Federal government would treat them unfairly or try to “block it” for some “vague reasons” argument relating to the Feds not wanting California to do satellite-based research.
This is where I’m confused again. What are you responding to? Something you wish people had said? Or something people actually said? Because what I actually said was not just that $100m is peanuts, but that California could actually fund all of NASA. I consider it borderline offensive that you’re trying to portray it like I said California could replace NASA’s earth science/climate monitoring operation by writing a single check for $100m and launching a single satellite into space. The plain reading of what I said makes it quite clear I was not saying that.
Then you finish this quoted passage with a fundamentally confusing comment “…built with components and instrumentation coming from many other states.” What the hell is this a response to? Where did anyone say California had to be 100% independent in this venture? Jerry Brown said we can launch our own damn satellite, he didn’t say all t his other stuff. You act like you’re the only person in the world that knows complex machinery is made with components sourced not only from other states–but often from all over the world. Which again, is borderline insulting–I challenge that there’s anyone of even average intelligence who doesn’t understand at least on a very basic level we have a globally interconnected economy and complex machines frequently have parts that come from all over the place. None of which has anything to do with the topic here, and is countering a point no one has made (that California isn’t only going to launch a satellite, but source 100% of the raw materials and the intermediate parts, and the design work, solely from within its borders because California has suddenly become the Hermit Kingdom akin to feudal Korea.)
The list of things the federal government could do to be asshats is almost endless, and the reality is they do only a small portion of those things. Actual history, both recent and older, suggests the Federal government has literal interests in interfering with States who want to engage in spending money on various initiatives.
Congress could close NASA on 1/20 if it felt like it, or even more drastic things like defund the entire government. They could (and this has been proven by the debt ceiling nonsense) even refuse to pay debts (in violation of the 14th Amendment’s provision against exactly this), Congress could also impeach Trump and Pence and make Paul Ryan President and then he could launch nukes all over the globe and bring about Armageddon. The universe of things congress “could do” is vast, but sans evidence there’s no reason to assume they will do things way off the spectrum of normal behavior.
This is why you don’t see many engineers in government–politicians don’t actually have to prepare a 500 page document before they utter a word. Brown was simply making the point that in response to Trump doing things antithetical to California, for example weakening research on climate change, California will be willing to step up to the plate.
Since this is GQ you should know that you’re not speaking authoritatively on the law here. There’s more than just the constitution when it comes to understanding the parameters of Federal power. The body of constitutional law says that Congress cannot actually arbitrarily restrict agreements between the states (for example interstate compacts), unless those compacts in some way infringe on a Federal power. There’s often a belief that since Congress has to “sign off” on interstate compacts this prevents various coordinations between the states, and that just isn’t true. The scope of that congressional power is actually fairly limited. If states wanted to establish a non-profit dedicated to climate research and then fund it from state dollars, there’s almost nothing under the law that would allow Congress to stop the formation of such an organization.
If you believe that congress could, under commerce clause (which is what you asserted) powers stop the states from forming a joint non-profit I’d love to see some support for that in the form of a cite to a U.S. Supreme Court case. The reality is states actually already do this, there are things like the Western Governor’s Association, Southern Governors Association (disbanded within the last year, but was around for 82), and there are many others. A more realistic approach would just be to have a fully independent non-profit (in the vein of something like the States United for Biomedical Research organization), that various states agree to give funding to–there is absolutely no constitutional way, based on your misunderstanding of the commerce clause, that the Congress could step in to stop such a thing–and pretty much any conservative jurist on the Supreme Court would pitch a fit at any Congress that tried to do so, let alone liberal jurists who would be outraged at a conservative congress trying to suppress State’s doing “liberal” research.
No one is saying the states could ignore FAA, FCC or etc regulations and just start launching shit into space (I find it hilarious you’ve repeated that argument like four times when literally no one has said otherwise), but these agencies are generally expected to behave in a certain way, and if they just capriciously blocked private research satellites it’d cause a major row. Legally they certainly could if a President Trump did unprecedented “reaching down” power grabs into the Federal bureaucracy, but again–the reality of the political situation is most Republicans love state-lead initiatives, and would be very unlikely to want this. Their response would probably more likely be “if the dumb liberals want to keep funding fake science, more power to em–we’ll just keep saying it’s fake.” End of story.
You seem to be taking my posts as “borderline insulting” strictly for the purpose of manufacturing outrage and spoiling for some kind of an argument that I’m frankly not interested in engaging in. No, I don’t have a citation for a Supreme Court case in which multiple states have enjoined in some kind of economically significant joint business venture and been found in violation because that is essentially unprecedented, but both Article I Section 8 and Section 10 could be invoked to prevent ventures and compacts of this nature should Congress elect to do so, and a strict reading of the Constitution–which is absolutely the fundamental basis for all US federal law–supports this authority. The courts have supported the federal government regulating trade between the states and foreign nations, and the federal government imposes many restrictions on business agreements and transfer of goods and information, particularly those which have some potential military application. This is not a matter of interpretation or question; it is a significant portion of what the US Department of State does.
The question of the o.p. was again:
The federal government has absolute authority over airspace and the communications frequency spectrum which could be used to effectively inhibit the operation of any domestic private or state space program. This, again, is not a matter of interpretation.
I’ll make the point again that I don’t think this scenario is likely; even if climate deniers wanted to shut down ongoing Earth observation programs or restrict access to data they would certainly face numerous court challenges that could be dragged out for years. What is more likely is that they’ll try to pull funding for the existing programs, but generally speaking Congress doesn’t get into the fine detail of agency budgets except for large line items like the manned space program, and the costs of maintaining existing systems is such a tiny percentage of the overall budgets of each of the NASA centers that they could certainly find a way to maintain operation. What is more likely is that Congress slow-rolls or kills funding for proposed Earth surveillance missions and reduces funding for climate research, which itself would be detrimental for years to come, but those missions could be undertaken by other nations and international bodies like Japan, India, South Korea, and the ESA.
Hypothetically, if California wanted to enjoin in an effort to operate Earth surveillance or other satellites, it would make the most sense to do so in cooperation with an existing space program such as ESA or JAXA. The cost of an ongoing Earth observation program using existing launch vehicles and launch facilities outside the United States would not need to be $20B/yr (the current NASA budget is heavily focused on development of the Space Launch System and crewed mission capability); it could probably be done quite well for $2B-$3B per year, which is plausibly sustainable for an economy with the gross product of California. But if the federal government wanted to prevent such an activity it absolutely could do so.
Stranger
Again–you are factually incorrect as to the law. You’re taking a simplistic view of the “plain text” of the constitution that is largely unsupported by prior precedent.
Specifically in this statement here:
Every thing you say is factually incorrect until you get to the part about the Federal government being responsible for regulating the airspace, other than the statement about the Federal government being allowed to block States from entering into “treaties” with foreign powers.
States don’t enter into treaties at all in our system of government since they lack “full sovereignty” required to enter into international agreements. Could Congress prevent regular business arrangements, agreements, and trade between State governments and foreign entities? Sure. But doing so in any broad sense would be fairly unprecedented outside of the ordinary tariff process (which at one point, tariffs were how the Federal government raised most of its revenue, and they were much higher) or when matters of war or national security are involved. On the national security front they could (and have) prohibited the export of certain technologies, but assuming we’re talking about an arrangement between say California and the ESA, that’s pretty easy to make a non-issue. California just cuts a check, ESA is responsible for building the satellite and getting it into space, the check will be equal to whatever is required to make that happen. California gets the data and whatever connections are required for California scientists to use that data. There is virtually no constitutional way they would be able to block people in America from accessing information overseas–that’s clearly a violation of several parts of the bill of rights not to mention two centuries of constitutional law.
Your claims on interstate commerce are in the realm of pure fantasy. The constitution says that congress can pass laws to regulate interstate commerce, so if you’re imagining they could simply pass a law saying “a state wanting to spend money on sending a satellite into space is prohibited from doing commerce with another state to this end”, you’re gravely mistaken. There’s no precedent for that and it would certainly be struck down immediately. The federal government is allowed to regulate interstate commerce–not conduct economic blockages against individual states.
At the end of the day the simple answer to the OP’s question is: California, if it sought to launch a satellite in conjunction with an American launch partner company, would face the same regulations as any other non-Federal entity seeking to put something into space. The norms of the FAA, FCC, and all the other commission-lead agencies are that the political branch largely leave them alone to do their work (sometimes statute even protects them from excessive political interference), unless the Republicans in Congress were willing to change laws, and Trump was willing to engage in what would be seen as executive overreach–over something he probably doesn’t care about, there’s no reasonable expectation they would be unable to get approval from the appropriate regulatory bodies assuming they were working with a competent vendor that could guide them through the process.
Assuming they wanted to work with a foreign entity like ESA, they have a good number of options for bypassing much of the U.S. regulatory process entirely, and depending on how they structured the arrangement it would be very difficult (almost impossible ) to block their efforts constitutionally, sans certain extremely restrictive trade actions that would almost certainly violate things like our WTO agreements and other international trade accords and result in negative economic outcomes.
So in short–yes, California could launch their own satellite.
Your entire argument is that there is no factual basis for the US government prohibiting a state from engaging in this kind of interstate compact or joint venture with a foreign party is solely based on a lack of precedent, which ignores the reality that the entire premise of a state establishing its space program or similar venture that occurs outside of its borders or authority is also unprecedented. The question, again, is “What would be the legal (especially fight with national government?) or other hurdles to doing so - could it be done?” The answer is that, aside from the powers of the federal government to regulate “commerce” (and “commerce” has been so broadly defined as to include enforcement of legislative action of state legislatures and forms the entire basis for federal prohibition of controlled substances and other “indirect” impacts on commerce), the government could deny regulatory approval for launch, technology export, or use of the frequency spectrum. Whether it would and the court challenges that may arise from arbitrary application of such regulations notwithstanding, the federal government could prevent the state of California from launching or operating a satellite.
Stranger
I think the disagreement may be illuminated by looking at the OP’s question from two angles:
(1) What would be the legal or other hurdles to California launching its own satellite in a business-as-usual scenario where California’s satellite is treated like those of other non-national-government entities?
(2) What would be the legal or other hurdles to California launching its own satellite in a scenario where the federal government wishes to exercise its power to prevent California from doing so?
The request in the OP to “ignore the immediate politics and reasons” makes it a little ambiguous which (or both?) of the two questions best fits the OP’s mindset, however, some interesting answers to both are already in the thread.
Well Jerry Brown didn’t say he wanted to establish his own space program, nor did the OP ask about the barriers to that. We actually have precedent for state governments putting satellites in space, Montana State University has several small cubesats in space, for example.
More obvious a counterpoint would be the example of all the communications satellites operated by companies like SES Americom that are a) quite large and b) in a geosynchronous orbit, it’s silly to act like it’s “more likely than not” a state would be disallowed from launching a research satellite with parameters similar to communications satellites private entities have already launched.
Like I’ve said–barring unprecedented behavior by the government, for which there is no evidence to expect, and which in some respects could be legally or constitutionally troublesome, it’s highly likely California can put a satellite in space just like SES Americom can or any other similar company.
If you want to get into the politics of it, as I’ve said a few times–it’d be highly weird for Republicans to be in favor of blocking states spending money on their own initiative. About the only time you see Republicans seriously against State’s rights are when it’s some social conservative issue (gay marriage, abortion etc), I’ve been a Republican my entire life (albeit not a social conservative), I’d be very surprised if there was a serious effort in the party to block a liberal state from spending money on its own scientific research initiatives, including launching satellites into geosynchronous orbit to observe the weather.
Let’s keep in mind at least so far the climate-skeptic wing hasn’t suggested shutting these satellites down–but rather transferring them to NOAA. So we’re several turns down the rabbit hole with this scenario in any case–but going even further down, speculation about Republicans seeking to quash California’s sovereignty to stop it from spending money on scientific research, is highly unlikely.
+1
As the OP, I was musing (before I got to your post) that I should have clarified that it would be interesting to discuss it from both angles (1) if President said “sure, whatever”, and (2) if the President wanted to use all legal means to stop it. So I am interested in both the practical and the legal, and as you say, I’m enjoying the interesting answers to both!
My “ignore the immediate politics” was to head off talk about whether Brown really meant it or was just posturing, or whether climate research/satellite was worth funding, which this thread has mostly avoided.
California plans for collecting taxes on spaceflight
SF Chronicle, Dominic Fracassa May 3, 2017
[California’s] Franchise Tax Board is seeking public comment on its proposal for computing taxes on commercial space transportation companies.
[…]
The rules are designed to apply to any company operating in California that generates at least half the money it takes in from “space transportation” — defined as the movement of people or property 62 miles above the surface of the Earth. […] It would apply to companies that use California as a launchpad, not California companies launching from other states, like Texas or Florida.
(not targeted at you, Leo) I recommend reading the article before concluding from the headline “Those crazy Californians. Is there anything they won’t tax?” Another take on the proposal.
Here’s the reg doc, from the Dr.'s cite.
Fascinating how the two different supposedly non-editorial news pieces, mine from May 3, the next from May 6, are exactly opposite in couching the same information and its ramifications; that is, the opinions of the first news report are that it will be opposed by any sane businessman, and of the other report how the launch business themselves want the taxes, which is a man-bites-dog if there ever was one.
Which is a fascinating story to be continued in its own…