Jack Shelton (8:48)

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Maria Varmazas (10:07)

Next month we're going to be changing things up here at T minus. Along with our new daily headline count in that we've been starting this month, we will also be introducing new monthly segments. And the first segment we're going to be introducing to you will be a Space Law segment from our friends Bailey Reichelt and Jack Shelton over at Aegis Space Law. It's my pleasure and honor to introduce to our audience that the two of you are launching a segment on T Minus that's gonna be running regularly about Space law. Without further ado, who wants to introduce the new segment?

Bailey Reichelt (10:43)

Hi, I'm Bailey and this is my partner Jack and we're co founders of a space law firm, Aegis Space Law. We've been around for about four years now and we serve a broad base of clients, a whole bunch of them in the space industry and quite a few of them in startups and small to medium sized companies. And we are doing this segment because we need to answer some of the hard questions that we get all the time from these companies. We need to answer them publicly so everyone has these resources so the whole space industry can thrive and succeed. Because we have unlocked the mystery of space law for you. So that's the goal here. Would you like to add, Jack, what are we going to be doing?

Jack Shelton (11:30)

Yeah, these are the questions we get all the time and many of these we answer in webinars, many different forums, but we just want to have a nice consolidated place where we can answer a lot of these questions and get the information out so that we can make sure to help the industry and not have to keep answering the same questions over and over again. We can just direct people to the.

Maria Varmazas (11:54)

Podcast that makes a lot of sense. So not to give it away too much, but what kind of questions are we talking about? Like what realm within the whole legal sphere are we speaking about? What realms?

Jack Shelton (12:05)

I should say we get a lot of questions about export controls, ITAR and the Export Administration regulations with respect to spacecraft and spacecraft technology. Gosh. How to structure if companies are going to be involved in what's called a cibber or CIDR arrangement, which is a special type of government contract. We work with a lot of foreign companies who come to the United States trying to get involved in Those contracts and they have to structure in a certain way.

Maria Varmazas (12:31)

What else?

Jack Shelton (12:32)

Bailey, fcc, noaa, all these different licensing and regulatory issues that space companies have to deal with.

Bailey Reichelt (12:38)

If you need to talk to your spacecraft, you're going to be dealing with the fcc. You want to talk to a launch vehicle fcc, you're going to be doing remote sen. That's noaa, which is part of the Department of Commerce. So there's, there's a lot going on there, a lot of fees people don't know about. So I think getting people acquainted with how much things cost and what the time periods are of working with the government, that's been a lot of our mission. Just because knowing those, those things, they feel like a black box. I think to entrepreneurs starting out, there's like this void of questions that no one seems to have a real solid answer to. So we've made a concerted effort to try to come up with answers to just telling you how much things cost and how long they take to help you plan your business accordingly and have effective strategies from getting your mission off the ground to literally mission completion. We used to say launch, but we actually serve quite a few companies here just in the supply chain of satellites now. So if your mission is getting your thing incorporated into a satellite, we want to help you do that by understanding export controls, use of foreign employees, any licensing through the fcc, noaa, FAA payload reviews, the whole gamut of regulations that affect the space company. We want to help you get a strategy together so you get mission success.

Jack Shelton (14:01)

Yeah, so in addition to all those regulatory issues we were just talking about, we also work with companies quite a bit in government contracting as well as commercial contracting. We work with a lot of hosted payload agreements, rideshare agreements, just basic supply chain agreements for the space industry. And of course we work with government contracts as well. So contracting with the DoD, contracting with NASA, Space act agreements, all sorts of fun things. We try to be a one stop shop for the space industry. Pretty much anything that's at a federal level for the space industry, we're helping companies with.

Maria Varmazas (14:42)

That's awesome. And what I love about this segment is that I'm not going to be involved in it because I know nothing about space law. So the two of you will be talking to each other, which I just, I want to let our listeners and viewers know that because I am so out of my realm with all of this that you've just mentioned.

Jack Shelton (14:58)

No worries. That's what we're here for.

Maria Varmazas (15:00)

Yeah, I appreciate that.

Bailey Reichelt (15:02)

So Jack and I discussed a tentative format I think one of us is going to be covering a topic like we're going to play this, this role play of attorney client and switch it off, you know, asking the questions we think that the client asks the most or trying to ask the questions we think you want answers to. So if you have questions you want answers to, I mean, submit them ahead of time and maybe we can answer them live. But yeah, I think we're going to try to put ourselves in kind of a little role play scenario and I hope that it's fun and interesting. We kind of pride ourselves on not being super boring attorneys. That's not our identity. So you're not going to get that from us. We hope.

Maria Varmazas (15:45)

I love that idea of the roleplay. So I think that's going to be a fascinating listen again for folks like myself who are going to be listening out of curiosity because certainly this is going to be really useful for people who are in the weeds of getting, dealing with all these things. But for folks like myself who are just interested but not necessarily going through all these different processes right now, I'm going to be really interested to learn more from the two of you. So that'll be really neat hearing sort of a sample of what kind of conversations you all are having to be a fly on the wall, metaphorically speaking, I suppose this be really neat. So yeah, so I think we're kicking off next month. Right. So anything we want to leave the audience with before we conclude?

Bailey Reichelt (16:25)

Yeah. Really excited to start doing this. Our mission with the firm has always been to just help the industry grow and help small businesses get their, their tech to market, have more sustainable strategies, less overhead spend. So I think this is going to help us in our mission to accomplish that. And I'm looking forward to hearing back from people on what their questions are and getting even better at answering them and providing that really vital information that the industry needs to be sustained and to achieve mission success. So we're excited to talk to you guys and help you guys and looking forward to it. Yeah.

Jack Shelton (17:08)

Just to add to that, Bailey, you know, being a lawyer isn't always fun. There's a large part of my career that I didn't enjoy so much until we got into the space industry. And I have loved everything about this industry. And getting to work with startups who are doing these incredible things and getting to be a part of that and getting to educate people about all these things so that they can actually succeed has been a lot of fun and we really enjoy it. We're looking forward to this.

Maria Varmazas (17:48)

I'll be right back. Welcome back. If you've been paying to social media over the last few weeks. I'm sorry. Well, we're pretty sure you've come across the story that there's this rare astronomical event coming up this month. The planets are coming into alignment on the surface. It sounds like some rare, extraordinary event on specifically January 25th, but. I know, I know. Stop shouting at me. Is that the full picture? As you know, it is not. Firstly, yes, there will be six planets in our evening sky throughout January. And yes, they're in a line. But as with many stories like this one, there's some truth and then there's some adjacency to truth. What's missing is the fact that this isn't an extraordinary event. The planets in our solar system orbit our sun more or less on a flat plane. So the planets always travel in a line across our skies. So that means if there is more than one planet in view, it lines up with any other planet along with the moon and sun. So if you're lucky enough to have a clear sky this month, you should be able to see at least four bright planets and two faint ones in a line in the evening sky. But no, they will not be in alignment, lining up behind the sun as if they're in line to get into an event that is such an extraordinarily, mathematically nigh impossible event, that is not what's happening. And so, while they will be in a line in our skies from our point of view, not in space. We always encourage people to get excited about looking at the night sky and into space. But we want you all to know all the facts. The more you know, you know. And that's it for January 6, 2025, brought to you by N2K Cyberwire. For additional resources from today's report, check out our show notes@spare.n2k.com we'd love to know what you think of this podcast. Your feedback ensures we deliver the insights that keep you a step ahead in the rapidly changing space industry. If you like the show, please share a rating and review in your podcast app. Please fill out the survey in the Show Notes or send an email to space2k.com we're privileged that N2K CyberWire is part of the daily routine of the most influential leaders and operators in the public and private sector. From the Fortune 500 to many of the world's preeminent intelligence and law enforcement agencies, N2K makes it easy for companies to optimize your biggest investment, your people. We make you smarter about your teams while making your teams smarter. Learn how@n2k.com this episode was produced by Alice Carruth. Our associate producer is Liz Stokes. We're mixed by Elliot Peltzman and Trey Hester with original music by Elliot Peltzman. Our executive producer is Jennifer Iban. Our executive editor is Brandon Karp. Simone Petrella is our president. Peter Kilpe is our publisher, and I'm your host, Maria Varmazes. Thanks for listening. We'll see you tomorrow.

Bailey Reichelt (20:52)

T min.