REPLAY: Frans von der Dunk - Space Law, Piracy, Profit and Militarization in Age of Star Wars

Frans von der Dunk is a Professor of Space Law at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, Director of Black Holes Consultancy, and is generally recognized as one of the world’s leading space law experts. Franz has served as an adviser to a number of governments, the European Commission, ESA, the United Nations, the OECD, various national space agencies, the Association of Space Explorers, the Centre for Strategic and International Studies, and a number of companies. He is Director Public Relations of the International Institute of Space Law (IISL), Member of the Board of the European Centre for Space Law (ECSL), and Member for the Netherlands in the International Law Association's (ILA) Committee on Space Law. He is also Member of the International Editorial Board of 'Space Policy' and many other long acronyms, incredibly important organizations and initiatives focused on space.

In today's episode we discuss:
- The issue of ownership and sovereignty in space
- How regulation helps and hurts our the future of space
- Why current space treaties are anything but adequate for space exploration
- What you need to know about asteroid mining and space settlements
- The brewing issues in space which could provoke war
- Why solving the Kessler crisis NEEDS to be a top priority for space operators
- Thoughts private enterprises role in space exploration
- What Frans thinks about Trump's Space Force
- The realities of extraterrestrial space life and the law
- What technologies most worry Frans most
- Why social media and data privacy are such big issues to contend with
- The scary truth about cyber, and space

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
You know. The problem is,and we talked about this earlier, that
the Outer Space Treaty in number ofrespects now is outdated in the sense that
it didn't foresee a number of developments. This is one example. There one
other example of off because in nineteensixty seven, nobody seriously before that would
be of interest to try and commerciallymind the moon or asteroids, which,

(00:23):
by the way, legally speaking,I know that you know from the physical
perspectives they are totally different. Thebiggest speaking, they are in the same
basket, so we can treat themas run and the same for legal purposes.
Welcome to the Disruptors, the podcastabout the future of all of us,
where we look at the technologies,trends, and societal norms shaping our
collective future. Here the world's topminds share their insights and predictions on the

(00:47):
convergence, direction and ethics of exponentialtechnologies transforming life as we know it.
You can learn more and stay upto date at Disruptors dot fm. If
you're like most people, you're nota fan of lawyers, good news.
We have the world's most interesting lawyeron the program, Franz von der Dunk

(01:08):
He's focused on of all things spacelaw and what goes into ownership and property
rights in space. He's a professorof space law at the University of Nebraska
Lincoln, director of Black Holes theConsultancy, and generally regarded as one of,
if not the world leading expert whenit comes to space law. He
serves as advisor to numerous governments,the European Commission ESA, the United Nations

(01:33):
OECD, and pretty much all ofthe major players when it comes to getting
to space and understanding the implications ofit. We'll get into piracy, space
exploration, space mining, and muchmuch more in today's episode, when we
discuss the issue of ownership sovereignty innations when it comes to space. How
regulation both helps and hurts our futurein space, Why current space treaties are

(01:57):
anything but adequate when it comes tospace exploration. Franz's thoughts about Trump's Space
Force and the implications going forward.The scary truth about cyber warfare in space.
Franz's thoughts on private enterprises role inspace exploration and the role for governments.
Why solving the Kessler crisis needs tobe a top priority for space operators

(02:21):
everywhere, and the technologies that terrifyFrands most and why I know you guys
enjoyed this one. Don't worry.We get not into the nitty gritty evilness
of the law, but the incrediblepossibilities of what happens when we take our
species off of this planet and beginexploring our universe, our solar system,
everything that there is around us,to create a better, let's just say

(02:45):
it, galactic civilization for humanity wherewe are all living more interesting, exciting
lives. Elon, I know you'regonna like this one too, so make
sure you reach out so we canhave you on the podcast and we'll see
if we can make us. Butnow, without further ado, I give
you the men with four names,Franz von der Dunk. We choose to

(03:07):
go to the Moon in this decayand do the other thing, not because
they are easy, but because theyare hard. Space law, what's the
deal? How did we get here? And that seems so opaque? Where
are we at? Where we headed? And how did you become a space
lawyer? That's a lot of validquestions put in one man. It's obviously

(03:28):
a question that I often encounter becausenot many people are aware that something like
space law exists. But basically I'malways always reminded of a of a headline
in New York's Times ten years agowhich read that wherever you go, the
text man goes, and the sameapplies for the lawyer and the lawyer.
Right, so, as soon ashumans start to become active in out of

(03:49):
space, which which effectively started innineteen fifty seven whence Putnio launched the discussion
on what the legal ramifications of thatflight? Where are you allowed to fights
like that? What are the conditions? Who had saying that, etcetera,
etcetera. And as to my career, I wasn't even born in fifty seven,
I can honestly say right now.But you know, it's of course

(04:12):
base law developed over time. Whenit started out in the early sixties,
it was basically a matter of bilateralagreements between the United States and the Soviet
Union at that time to superpowers inspace, and it was done by a
handful of treaties, and that was, you know, a little bit in
black and white terms. That wasnot much else at the time. But
as space became open up to moreand more countries, including smaller countries and

(04:35):
third world countries, and of coursealso to private enterprise, which in the
seventies and eighties started to see thebenefits of space for a commercial satellite communication
purposes. Then of course that raisedall sorts of new legal issues and the
need to discuss them and to createlaws. And I sort of rolled into
that almost accidentally, because when Iwas working at the Land University back in

(04:59):
the late nineteen eighties in the departmentin General Public International Law, which space
was kind of a small subset.Certainly at the time, it just seemed
like a fun, easy special specializationand niche to delve into. So that's
what I did. And then,of course, over the thirty plus years
that I've been working on it,it has been grown in volume and size
and scope, and it continues tobe great fun, great fun, and

(05:21):
great adventure, but yet great perilas well. So you go from the
very early days, not the earlyearly days of space, but pretty early
in terms of when people were reallystarting to become active to today, what
has changed in your perspective from thelegal side of things, and what has
been dinosaurously slow to catch up?Well, to start with, the letter

(05:43):
treaties are by definition slow, inparticular if they are recognized and ratified by
almost all states of the world,at least those who matter, which is
the case with the Outer Space treatTo, the most fundamental treat to going
back to nineteen sixty seven, becauseobviously the more parties you have to treat
the more you need basically all thoseparties on board to then change the treaty.

(06:03):
So it's sort of the backside ofa very successful treaty that to change
it requires to get more people onboard, which into day's fragmented international society
becomes harder and harder. And indeed, the Other Space Treaty has problems in
certain respects of coping with the newdevelopments. And the most crucial and fundamental

(06:26):
one is one that I touched aproblem just before. That's the involvement of
private private enterprise by the private sectorin Spasically, back in the sixties,
when the Speaty and a few otherimportant treaties were included, it was just
about states and an actually only ahandful of states, which also meant that
those states were held responsible and liablefor whatever any future private actor in space

(06:47):
might do. And that still,immediately speaking, is still the case today,
and it leads to a very peculiarsituation because imagine Boeing launching something from
KPE Canaveral and it crashes into MexicoCity. The normal legal consequence would be
that the victims in Mexico would tryto sue Bowing for damages in the United
States, for example, of probablyin Mexico, but I assume they would

(07:09):
go to the United States because usuallythe courts are more generous there in allowing
for compensation for damage but in aprivate capacity. However, what happens as
a consequence of the way that's baseballdeveloped in the nineteen sixties is that it's
not actually individual victims which need tosue Bowing. It's Mexico which has to
go, which has the right togo to the United States government and say,

(07:31):
this is about a private company withyou as nationality launching from the United
States. You as a country alignablefor all the damage caused in Mexico,
and you are liable more so withouta limit. So is then up to
the United States to try to somehowget back to Bowing in order to make
sure that Bowing, at least toa certain extent, reimburses the United States,

(07:56):
for the United States has to payto Mexico, and that is a
pretty unique situation, and of coursemany people are not very happy with that
because it complicates the issue. Itmeans that the Mexican victims need the Mexican
States, my example, to actuallymake a case against the United States.
And there are all sorts of otherissues, but it's going back to the
original question. This whole idea ofhivate involvement in actual space activities. Because

(08:22):
of the structure of international space warrequired states to pick up the baton to
develop national systems of licensing and regulatingthe space flight because the states, which
help internationally responsible liable for anything thosespace activities did wrong or cause damage.
It would be like if GM manufacturesa car, I buy that car and

(08:43):
drive it into someone's health and thenthe homeowner sues GM. It's a little
bit convoluted in terms of how itworks, right, Absolutely, yeah,
it is. Although it has itsbenefits, I should say, but for
it is, it is not.It doesn't make sense from a logical perspective,
and that's why you do. Somepeople to day and over the last
decades actually see and try to changethat and say we should get rid of

(09:05):
those treaties and create a new regime. What would be better if I gave
you a magic one. I'm noteven sure that that would be a better
one, because one of the beautiesof this system is that actually the victims
have a better certainty, a betterdegree of certainty that if something that happens,
but they will be compensated because thestates are the most the deepest pockets

(09:26):
of all and the risk that isstate allows a space activity to take place
under its jurisdiction, under its flagjust because it's you know, it gets
some money with it and to hellwith all the consequences. Which if you
are aware of what happens in themaritime sector with flags of convenience, that
risk is not very it's it's notnearly as large in our space. In

(09:48):
maritime sector. You know the countries, I don't know that. I'm not
going to mention their names, buteveryone knows them. There are a couple
of countries who allow you to carrytheir flag on your oil tanker regardless of
the safety measures or you know,the training of the captain and the crew
and all sorts of things, andif somebody goes wrong, which it regularly
does, you have these horrific environmentalaccidents or other accidents. It is usually

(10:13):
the consequence of very lightweight regulation byflags of countries who are just you know,
happy to generate some cash from thelicensing and don't care about the international
responsibilities. And because in those casesyou still have to sue the tank owners
or the operators instead the tinker operatorsinstead of the country, it is much

(10:33):
more difficult for victims to get thedamage conversation. So in that sense,
going to a state means that thestate will feel responsible, And many countries
actually have these national laws which sortof duly monitor and verify that private operators
are indeed operating in safe mode,have the appropriate insurances, et So I'm

(10:56):
not even sure I want to getrid of that system. It does,
however, require some more profound internationalagreement if we really want to make it
work for private enterprise, Because ifa private entity is confronted with different licensing,
with fundamentally different licensing obligations all overthe world, because each country imposes

(11:16):
their own idiosy idiosyncratic set of obligations, then that is not very good for
a private enterprise, and I thinkfor the world at large. But it's
rather that I would tinker with thesystem or adapted, then do away with
it and scratch and start from stretch. Do you think there's an analogy to
be had with hundred ish plus yearsago and the piracy that we saw,

(11:39):
most of that was actually state sponsored. Hey, you can have this ship,
and everything's all good and well,as long as you're stealing from our
enemies and not from us, thenwe'll kind of let it go under the
table. We'll take our twenty percentand it will all be good. Yeah.
Well, luckily, at least inthat sense, the world has moved
on, and much aspiracy became obviouslycompletely outlawed, it is considered one of

(12:00):
the original crimes against humanity, ifyou will, which which every state is
not only the right, but actuallythe obligation to combat, regardless of whether
its own you know, nationals orcompanies are involved in either side, both
as actors or asvictives, they aresupposed to take measures to combat that.
And even though it hasn't unfortunately weededout privacy, it has become fairly limited.

(12:24):
But the baseline is that it's completelyprohibited, and that we have been
able to include in outer space aswell. So from the legal perspective,
I think the chances are are minimal, but that of course leaves the question
open. What is a bad guywho is really big uses this and simply
gets away with it because there areno appropriate mechanisms in the international community to

(12:48):
nish or sanction. Thows those thosethose activities, and you may think,
you know, in space, forexample, that's the that's the claims that
the Russians are currently making, somewhatsubvertently, that all the private American enterprise
in outer space is just the disguisedtool of the US government to again impose
US dominational space. I mean,this whole Cold War authority is coming back.

(13:11):
So from their perspective, they seewhat these private companies might soon be
doing in terms of space mining orspace resource utilization, or even space flights
or supplements on margin the Moon asa disguised way of, if you will,
piracy. Legally speaking, it doesn'tfly. I don't think the political
argument flies as well, but theargument is made, and you know,

(13:33):
to view the other side of defense, you see that the Russians are doing
similar aggressive things when it comes tothe North Pole or whether plan to flag
underneath the or in the on theocean floor at the North Pole, to
basically state their claims and say thisis ours. That is a way of
state piracy if you will as well, is this this is ours? Concept

(13:56):
too outdated to apply to space?For instance, do we want to play
the whole colonialism game or do yousee what do you see as the future
for states in space as space becomesa place that we more and more work
in and potentially in the future livein. Yeah, yeah, Well,
let me again start with the legwith the legal point of the party,

(14:16):
because obviously that's my trade. Legallyspeaking, colonization is outlawed already on Earth
with the UN Charter. We arehave generally come to the conclusion that colonization
in the sense of basically in historyit used to be Western European countries like
my own country, the Melans wentto other parts of the world, planted
the flag there and said this isnow our subject to our sovereignty. We

(14:39):
are entitled to do with it whatwe want. Now. Since the Second
World War, this is no longerallowed in international law, and of course
we've seen a whole process of thecolonization. Interestingly, both the United States
and the Soviet Union when they concludedits nineteen sixty seven out of Space Treaty.
We're also of the opinion that thisshould never be happening in out of
space, and that's why a fundamentalarticle of the Outer Space Treaty actually precludes

(15:01):
any exercise of territorial sovereignty, whichis of course the legal term for trying
to colonize another part of this cosmosthat was completely outlaw. And for example,
the Americans made very clear that whenthey planted the US flag on the
Moon with the Apollo landings, thisdid not in any way reflect what two

(15:24):
three centuries before the Dutch and Spanishand the English had done with their flags
elsewhere. So they were very keenon making the point this doesn't mean that
the Moon is now supposed to beor claimed to be US territory or anything
like that. So in that sense, the legal colonization is out of the
question. Now, the term colonization, that's part of the problem and of
the confusion in this discursion. Ina practical sense, in the sense of

(15:46):
creating establishments there for humans to liveon a permanent basis, that type of
colonization is perfectly allowed because the OuterSpace Treaty does also allow for settlements,
etc. Et cetera. As longas they aren't morph into actual external parts
of the state. So in legalterms you have to continue to see them

(16:07):
not as an outlying part of territoryof the mother Land, because that would
be colonization in the wrong sense ofthe work, but as a ship which
is permanently anchored somewhere, and becauseof the flag of the ship, still
it's subject to the ruling of themother Land. That's the comparison. And
I know it's a fine granular borderlinewhich is often difficult to understand for those

(16:29):
who have not work with these legalconcepts for many years, but it is
a crucial understanding, and it meansthat anyone who says that, you know,
one state can claim the moon inlaw is prohibited. But unfortunately that's
of course not the end of theproblem once you start actually inhabiting and settling.
Certainly, if those settlements become quayzig permanent, you might have the

(16:51):
mother Country saying, well, youknow, we don't call it an outlining
province, but we simply act likeit's wrong because these are our spaceships which
land which have been you know,extended to become fully autonomous habitats, et
cetera, et cetera. At whatpoint that would then still have to be
seen as a violation of the prohibitionand colonization is still an open question.

(17:12):
I mean, if you just settledthere for a few months, clearly not.
If you settled there for a fewyears, I would still say not.
But if you have settled there fourhundred and fifty years can of other
states? Well they started to claim, well, sorry guys, but you're
now acting as this as if thisis your territory forever. You know what
I'm saying. So there is thisdiscussion is taking place now. Yeah,

(17:33):
all right. I was going tosay, it sounds like there'll be a
move your feet, lose your seattype argument eventually where you want to send
your probe scouts, et cetera tosteal all of the good seats and then
if anyone comes along, sure Ican. I can sell you this on
Ticketmaster, but it's going to costyou five x right, right, But
too too. In the long run, if you know, if these things
happen, which they many people believeare going to is going to start soon,

(17:55):
you get another issue interfering with that, and that is, of course
that if you really have people permanentlyliving there at some point in time,
they have to do that on aself sustaining basis. It is not It
doesn't work if much of the stuffthat they need to live there, and
that goes down to things as airand water and as simple as that and

(18:15):
food, if you each time haveto skip all that ship all that from
the Earth to the mummar. Soyou have to quickly develop into a self
sustainable environment. Now, what happensif a group of people, having lived
for maybe twenty years all the celestialbody, have been able to sustain themselves,
have probably even been procreated themselves andgiven rights to babies born there who've

(18:40):
never seen the Earth, who probablymight never go back, go back to
the Earth, or go to theEarth in the first place. What you
then may see interfering is this whatwe've seen happening in history. Actually at
the very origin of the United States, that is, let's call the colonists,
for want of the better words,start to feel no longer part you
know, emotionally, psychologically and thenalso legally of their motherland. They say,

(19:02):
well, you know, like thepilgrim fathers in the North American territories.
After some decades they said, well, we don't care about the British
king that has no clue what meansto live in these foreign enemy lands.
He just textes us. He doesn'tdefend us. His system is all fashioned
anyway, So we no longer feelwe are subjects of the King of Great
Britain, which means that we establishedour own nation, which then, of

(19:26):
course soon became the United States.That's type of discussion. Will I'm pretty
sure, arise on these celestial settlementsas soon as they will be therefore,
as I said, a couple ofdecades, which gives the question a whole
different teams, right. And thento make again the historical comparison, will
we see in my example, theUnited States reacting the same way that the

(19:51):
Brits reacted back in the days nameno, no, no, You're still
our inhabitants, and if necessary,we're going to use force to subject you
to our authority, which then landof course to the war of liberation,
which the British loss in the UnitedStates, good get gets established, Or
will the United States, or forthat matter, any other country say you
know, you're good to go.You're on your own. Now create your

(20:11):
own social and legal construct, whichwe may call a state or a country
or an extra restial country or whatever. You are no longer subject to the
United States. But then don't combineinto US as something goes wrong, right,
you're on your own. That issort of the two approaches, and
of course that will usually interfere withthe idea of the home country still wanting
to claim that part. Now,different countries may react differently. I could

(20:33):
imagine that if the Chinese goal there, and I you know, I expect
that they probably might be there indroves before the Americans would be there,
or any other country. In China, it's by definition or a state or
an enterprise. So the Chinese peoplewho will be sent there, I'm not
sure that the Chinese government twenty orthirty years from now would be willing to
say, Okay, you're on yourown now. No, they will probably

(20:56):
you know, tend to think thatthis is an extension of as it is.
But that's of course I'm as youas you see, I'm hugely hypothesizing
and extrapolating historical developments into the future, and nobody really knows that's what we're
doing. We're talking space law,right, That's that's what lawyers do,
especially in space So speaking of asteroidmining, I know there's been a little

(21:18):
bit of controversy here. Essentially mostcountries aren't of the opinion you can take
stuff and own it. The USis like, go for it, take
whatever you want. Can you deavea little bit deeper into asteroid mining?
Why it's important and space law side, Yeah, absolutely, And and you
know the problem is, and wetalked about this earlier, that the Outer
Space Street Team in a number ofrespects now is outdated in the sense that

(21:41):
it didn't foresee a number of developments. This is one example that one other
example of because in nineteen sixty seven, nobody seriously for the interest to try
and commercially mind the moon or asteroids, which, by the way, legally
speaking, I know that you know, from the physical perspectives are totally differ
and the biggest speaking, they're inthe same basket, so we can treat

(22:03):
them as one and the same forlegal purpose. So nobody in the sixties
thought that that mining those celestial bodieswould make any sense. So there is
no clause in the Outer Space Treatywhich says something specific about it. The
clause coming closest to be irrelevant.And I'm sorry for that complex formulation.
It's the same clause which prohibits colanization, because where I usually frame it is

(22:26):
that this creates a kind of aglobal commons, but it doesn't say anything
about how to treat resources in thatcommons. And that's where between opinions diverge.
You see, on the one hand, the approach which is most vocally
supported I should say by Russia,which says that if outer space is a
global commons, if it belongs toall states. As for space mining,

(22:48):
there is another example of why theOuter Space Treaty is in some respects outdated
or not. Let me will slightlydifferently not sufficiently jailored for these times.
Back in the sixties when it wasconcluded, nobody reasonably thought that the moon
or asteroids would be subject to somethinglike space mining. And by the way,

(23:08):
I know that physically speaking, they'retotally different, totally different order.
But the moon and asteroids in thelegal sense, are all in the same
basket, so we can treat themas they are as it's the same kind
of thing. And again, thenineteen sixty seven treaty did not address that.
The only thing it did was createthis absence of territorial sovereignty, and
that allows for two different basically fortwo different interpretations. One line of interpretation,

(23:33):
which is most vocally defended by bythe Russians, i should say,
is the argument that because outer spacebelongs to everyone, it is not a
single states territory. That also meansthat the resources in outer space should be
somehow shared by all states, thatthere should be an international regime one way
or another determining who under what circumstancesmight actually be allowed to go there and

(23:56):
mind those resources. So an internationalheavy regime, which is of course also
from an economic perspective, something whichmay stiff for development, because if you're
spending or interested in spending billions fromgoing there, you expect that you can
generate earn all revenues. And ifthere is some heavyweight international system taking away
part of your control, you mightnot like it in the first place.

(24:18):
So that's why the United States inparticular and some other countries as well have
taken the opposite stance and argue,well, this is basically something like the
Global Comments. So while no onecan reserve the global comments or call it
part of the national territory and exclusivelyexercise control and power over it. All
states are in principle entitled to benefitfrom it or allow their private sector to

(24:41):
benefit from it, as long asthey or the private sector complies with international
law that is applicable. So theseare the two position. To give a
little bit more of an illustration.The Russian position basically is similar to what
happens currently with the regard to theocean floor, where you have a legal
regime which has an national licensing authority. So any company from anywhere in the

(25:03):
world needs an international license before heor she can actually start harvesting whatever resources
they're looking for in the ocean.From the United States is not a party
to that as one of the fewcountries I should say, partly because it
is fundamentally against this idea that thereshould be an international community, international organization
institution determining whether a private company canwork there. So the opposite illustration,

(25:26):
which is the one that the UnitedStates and I should add Luxembourg, because
Luxembourg has made a law roughly similarto the US one, and some others
as well are upholding saying, well, no, we can treat outer space
like the high seas, which isanother global compans and the high Seas is
again not subject by definition, notsubject to territory jurisdiction. No single state

(25:47):
can say this part of the HighSeas is mine, and everybody else stays
out, And I'm the only onewho can determine who is entitled the fish
there. No, that is notpossible. But it is possible, of
course for fishers from every nation,in particular in you whatsoever, to go
there to piece of the High Seas, take the fish, you know,
grab it out of the water,and then make a living in doing so.

(26:10):
And that's obviously what has happened overone hundreds, if not thousands of
years. So that is the parallelthat the United States states, and they
say, well, as long asthese fishing companies comply with the laws in
that case, the laws of thesea about overfishing, about prohibition on whaling
and catching dolphins and pollution, aslong as they comply with this set of
international rules, they're good to goand they can make their money. And

(26:33):
that's the that's the regime that theywould also like to see for space mining.
Now, because of the political divergenceand the fact that Russians and some
others do not agree with that,there is now a political discussion going on
in the international context, which youknow, which way is ultimate issue to
end up to, and hopefully theywill come to some sort of agreement.
It's the worst of all situations isthat you have a number of states saying

(26:56):
private operators, well, as faras we are concerned, you're good to
go, you know, do yourbest, try to meet money, and
then another side of country saying thisis illegal. Whatever they bring back,
we treat that just like blood diamonds, right, illegal goods, you know,
not subject to trade. If theyfall in our hands, we will
seize them. If we are ableto lay our hands on those who try

(27:18):
to sell them, we will prosecutethe New court. That's not a very
nice situation, you know. Sowe should be a political discussion, hopefully
be able to build a more detailed, clear, transparent, et etc.
Legal regime to allow that to happen. Today's episode is brought to you guys
by Otis Wealth. I don't knowif you're like me, but I loved
collecting things as a kid, especiallycoins and supports cards. I'm always interested

(27:42):
in Michael Jordan one or anyone Ican get my hands on. Well,
now there's a way that you caninvest in the things you love, in
the memorabilia and just all around awesomecultural assets that all of us have known
and grown to love. Otis Wealthis sponsor in the podcast. You can
check out their app at with otisdot Com Slash Disruptors. Download it,

(28:04):
sign up for free. There's allsorts of different stuff you can find in
there. Buy and then if otissells it at a higher value, you
learn your investment goes up in valueand you know what, You got to
own a piece of something awesome withotis dot Com slash Disruptor. That's Disruptor
without the s d I s RUP t O R. Check it out.

(28:26):
And if you're interested in sports,cards, comics, collectibles, sneakers,
art, whether you like X Men, Lebron James, you want to
get those new Jordans, or youplayed Super Mario or Super Smash Brothers like
me, you can invest in thatand just maybe make a buck on the
backside. With otis dot Com SlashDisruptor for more details from your perspective,

(28:49):
Let's say we put you in aposition no lawyer wants to be, where
you have to actually pick an outcome. What would you bet your money on
in terms of where we end upwith regulations around this, what type of
consensus the world comes to with anyI would put my money, but not
too much, as you can imagine, on an outcome which would favor the
US approach, not by way ofan internationally agreed to treaty, because I

(29:11):
think that puts the issues too clearlytoo. If you will to confrontingly to
provocatively on the table for those countries, you have a big problem with that.
Even though as a lawyer, Iwould prefer a treaty text because then
you have a very very precise,black and white let alone to look to,
even if that might be interpretational.But what I think will happen is

(29:33):
that more and more countries will realizethat the approach of the United States and
luxemer is reasonable as long as theyfeel convinced that these authorities, in licensing
such private activities will indeed duly takethe safety and environmental concerns and scientific concerns,
et cetera, et cetera into intoconsideration. They will think that that

(29:56):
is the moological approach and will eithersilently accept it or probably if they're a
little bit more forward looking like Luxembourg, was simply think, well, you
know, we have to jump thebandwagon anyway, so let's be one of
the first to jump the bandwagon,because that we're always also most likely to
benefit. And I see some movementtowards the latter. So again going back
to the original question, I thinkthe best chance of what's what's going to

(30:19):
happen is a ten years from nowwe will see a general acceptance basically of
the US approach, with perhaps someadditional international agreements or standards on how to
behave when you are actually mining US. So, speaking of behavior, let's
talk space junk debris impossible Kessler's situation. Well, there's a lot of satellites
up there now, and I hearit's getting quite cluttered. Well, where

(30:42):
are we at in terms of sometype of international consensus on what to do
to make sure we don't become landlock? Oh, that's a difficult question.
There are movements in the right direction. The big question is whether they are
quick, you know, whether theywill result in, you know, in
something it really works quick enough beforethe Kestler effect or the Kestler syndrom actually

(31:03):
has resulted in, as you say, too much risk to do anything in
space but since there are enormous interestat stake, you know, not just
civil and commercial, but also military. I mean space deally doesn't discriminate.
If something is floating around, itcould hit a US reconnaissance satellite or a
targeting satellite or whatever military satellites theUS and other countries have in space as

(31:26):
well. So everyone, in particularbig space countries have a major interest in
trying to preclude this from happening.And that, of course from a political
perspective, given me some hope thatit might be possible to do something about
it. Now, having said that, it's obviously not an easy thing.
When I said developments are there,what I see happening is that in this
licensing process of private operators which wespoke about before, the US, the

(31:51):
Kingdom, and France as the mostoutstanding examples, ideas say, are already
imposing guidelines which used to be voluntaryguidelines on the international level, but they're
imposing them in the licensing on theoperator. So, for example, if
in the United States you want alicense to have your satellite launched, you
need to show that you have takena number of measures minimizing, of course,

(32:15):
not number fying that's not possible.The only way you cannot create more
space to be used by more launchinganything, but at least minimalizing the chance
minimizing the chance that new space willhappen. That is a great development,
because if everyone starts doing that,we will soon be in an area where
at least the generation of new spaceto be will be minimized. Now,

(32:36):
of course, we have to seethe side of it. These requirements cost
money. For example, one ofthe requirements that you see more and more
is that satellites, when they areat the end of their projected lifetime to
lose the use the remaining bit offuel to boost the satellite into a great
yard or orbit, or if theyare flying in a lower order, to

(32:57):
be orbited so that the atmosphere willdo the dirty work and burn it up
so that there's no risk of spaceto be floating around without any control.
But that costs money, on averagethree months or fuel. So by doing
by imposing these requirements of all setliteoperators, you're basically telling them, without
any benefit directly to yourself, youwill lose three months of potential income from

(33:21):
your customers. Because the setlite issupposed to be moved out of orbit three
months before, and of course theseare all statistical calculations, but still it
gives you an idea. So thereis a development, but in order to
convince everyone there still needs a lotto be done, because no country is
really keen on disadvantaging their own privatesector by imposing higher obligations than other countries.

(33:42):
Do you see the same thing ingeneral? And then there's the other
issue that this only helps probably minimizethe chance of low space degree being shot
into outer space, but they stillhave the problem of all the space degree
which is already there where the Kesslersyndrome. If it works out the way
there's some people projected, there's stilla lot of discussion. I understand I'm
not a physicist, of course,but I understand there's still a lot of

(34:04):
discussion on that. But if itturns out the way people think, it
turns out, you don't need tolaunch anything right now and still have a
cluttered outer space ten years from nowbecause of what's going on with pieces of
the breeze, which fragment because theystart hitting each other already. So the
next thing we need to do isthink about taking out pieces of space to
be in really cleaning up. Andagain, ultimately it's a matter of money.

(34:27):
Already, twenty years ago, theUniversity of Arizona had developed a kind
of a vacuum cleaner for low Earthorbits. It never went beyond the drawing
board, but basically people whom Ispoke to said, well, this should
be technically feasible. But of courseyou talk about launching something and out of
space vacuum clean you know, whichgets you immediately to tens of millions if
one hundreds of hillion dollars of launchof cost, and you don't get any

(34:51):
revenue because nobody pays for you toget the stuff done. So, while
the technology is there, and eventhe lawyers could help drafting requirements to clean
up your own mess, if thestates and the operators, because of the
costs involved, are not willing todo that, that will be a big
issue. So if you want meto be a little bit cynical as a
lawyer, we really have to waitfor the first multimillion dollars set light to

(35:13):
be incapacitated by a piece of spacedegree before everybody wakes up and say,
well, maybe it's better to paya few million dollars at the outset,
contribute that to a giant cleaning operation, then run the risk that we lose
a two hundred million dollars set light. But that's you know, that's that's
the way humanity works. You onlyclose the door of the bar and after
the horse has escape. Yeah,and so look ahead. Now, I
was going to say the same thing. You only start taxing, taxing gasoline

(35:37):
once you discover that vehicle emissions areruining the world. But if you have
that tax, then you have themoney, at least internationally, to fix
the problem. Right. It's interesting. So mister Trump announces his Space Force.
Where are we headed in terms ofthe military in space? And when
would you predict if you had toour first star wars so to speak.
Well, this is worrying. Letthat's put It's fair and simple. It

(35:59):
is not necessarily the case that thisis due to this Space Force initiative,
because obviously military use of outer spaceis not limited to you as military use.
The Russians and the Chinese, toname the two most powerful antagonists in
space of the United States, well, of course their own space force.
I don't know enough of the developmentsin that area to consider whether you know

(36:22):
the discussions in the United States onthe Space Force are a reaction to what
the Chinese and the Russians are doing, because if they are boosting their space
forces, then you know, itis basically their responsibility. You may have
maybe have started on all the armsrace in outer space. If, on
the contrary, the US initiative wouldresults in the first escalation beyond the situation

(36:47):
that we've had for decades of years, then the United States might be found
guilty of escalating and risking a lot. Having said that, to me,
it's still it's not clear what theSpace Force is going to look like.
You know, on the low endof the scale, it is just an
internal reorganization of the USR enforces space. All the space military spacey so far

(37:12):
are part of the Air Force,just like the Air Force until the end
of the Second World it was partof the army. So that you just
separate those forces, create a separateforce, separate budgets, buildings, careers,
et cetera. Such as not abig deal, maybe actually advantageous because
it perhaps allows more focused thinking ondefending the military interests of the United States
and space, so that it isnot only perfectly allowable, it might even

(37:36):
be a good thing because it createssome more disability. But as you move
on towards the other end of thescale, things become more worse. And
we talked already about you know,if he's going to spend more money in
space, If the administration, asa result of the Space Force thing,
is going to spend more money inspace, that might either be a valid
reaction to the Russians and the Chineseare already doing, or it might be

(37:57):
a not soo valid effort to youknow, to take the Russians and the
Chinese by surprise and thereby creating ananswery. So that already depends a little
bit about your judgment of what's goingon in the real world. Now even
more worrisome if and you never know, fortunately with your current president, what
he might be thinking and what hemeans with what he twits, with he

(38:19):
tweets, and what the results willbe. But if he really thinks about
putting American soldiers in outer space,not only is that prohibited, it of
course raises the stakes by so much. And actually I think that military speaking,
it doesn't make sense at all either. I mean, if you really
want to do bad things to yourenemy, in outer space. It's a
hundred times as cheap and ten timesas efficient. Not to do it by

(38:39):
putting man humans there. They aren'tsoldier with his rifle or whatever. The
space component is that what to usecybers hacking and you know, just kill
satellites by taking over control, justlike the US has done a couple of
times with nuclear's interfuss in your arm. The steps think so from a military

(38:59):
perspect I don't think it makes sense. So I hope that other people,
including the military leadership in the country, which as soon as this would become
a serious plan, would say,you know, it doesn't make military sense,
it costs much more than that itneeds to doesn't help us. And
on the country. Politically speaking,of course, it allows our opponents to
say, you know, there's thoseother bad Americans again. See they really

(39:21):
want to colonize our space. They'reactually sending soldiers out there to occupy it.
So from all perspectives, it isnot good. It is illegal,
et cetera, et cetera. Anotherworrisome extreme on the other end of the
scale is if the reference to spacefor US would mean actually putting weapons,
in particular nuclear weapons of mass destructionin outer space or also a body.
Yeah, that's you know, Imean, politically speaking, the worst that

(39:44):
you can think about. I don'tknow whether it make military sense either,
but it certainly is a violation ofthe treaties as this stand, because they
are very clear on nuclear weapons andother weapons of master destructure. So you
know where we end on this scale. I hope you know towards the end
with which I started out with,because that's rather or innocent. But you
never know. Let's get to aneven more sketchy subject. So I had

(40:05):
I had one of the designers thatwas working on I want to say it
was Mars one, but he wasworking on habitats for space and one of
the one of the things that theybrought up was what happens when you have
humanity living in a semi communist,socialist type environment. They're living in a
space station where every person matters alot and consumes a lot of resources.
When is it time to kick thelazy guy out of the out of the

(40:29):
cube, so to speak? Whendo you cut off their oxygen? Has
has there been any type of conversationsor thoughts around that from a perspective of
when is it murder and when isit self defense not to that's very specific
last part of your hypothesis, hypotheticalscenario, but the first part absolutely I
actually lost. October there was aseminar organized at the Harvard Redcliffe Institute of

(40:54):
Advanced Studies which involved not only youknow, the sort of the standard people,
the strophysicists and the commercial guys,because it was co organized by the
Estrophysical Department and the Harvard School ofBusiness, Management School and Business, but
it also included myself as a lawyer, and it included and a few sociologists

(41:15):
who started discussing this idea. Okay, you know what, how can we
ensure that our political slash humanitarian valueslike democracy, rule of law, equality
of gender, et cetera, etcetera, or basic equality of humans?
You know that that will also developin a context where as you sort of

(41:38):
in a somewhat hidden way, pointout where it would make perhaps too much
sense to have a very higherarchical andstrict system, whether it's communists or an
authoritarian dictatorship. Was one guy totalk insides all which certainly in the initial
phases might be necessary for survival,you cannot have in critical situation. Perhaps

(42:00):
that everybody. Everybody starts the democraticdiscussion process, which may require, you
know, three months before a decisionwill be made. It may require someone
on the spot overruling, you know, potential oppositions, saying well, this
is the only way we can surviveas species. So how to deal with
that? Well, I can alreadyunfortunately say that we haven't come up with

(42:21):
the answers yet, but discussions aretaking place. How do you guarantee that,
indeed, the incredibly dangerous environment whereyou start with, and certainly in
the early days or years when youreally pioneers, you have no idea what
can go wrong, So you cannothave the luxury in a sense of what
we are used to in democratic societywith you know, with possibilities to appeal

(42:44):
against independent or before independent authorities andthe judges and things like that. How
do you make sure that as quicklyas possible that evolves into what we,
at least in our democratic societies seeas core values of your manage. The
hope is, I think that issort of a very high level abstract summary
of the discussions at the Harvard seminar, is that we move quickly enough to

(43:07):
so many establishments that we see youknow, people being able to make the
choice of what they prefer if theyif they are you know, if they
prefer to have a very clear cutautarctic or hierarchy, they can move to
station which operates like China. Ifthey prefer to have an open society with
all the risks that that entails forindividual units, they may move to a

(43:30):
settlement that is more open. Thatis I'm already going out on a limb,
you know, and trying to summarizethe thinking. But we're just really
just starting to think about this.But they're of course immensely fascinating, right,
And even all of those only comeabout once we have essentially ubiquitous oxygen,
which we won't have initially. Johnnyis still in Jenny's oxygen. Then

(43:50):
eventually you've got a problem, right, And it's a matter of that life
and death, right, I mean, it's not like here, you steal
something, you know, you canstill survive and you probably have a possibility
to go to the police, andet cetera, et cetera, et cetera.
That doesn't work in out of space. If you talk about small communities
which have to every day defend theirlives because just one league in the whole

(44:12):
tent and everybody's death, you know, without too much exaggeration. So the
mere fact that opinions may diverge,which is considered a key baseline requirement for
democratic society, for the development ofhuman thinking and the argument open market of
ideas, all the thinking, maybeyou cannot necessarily afford that in all circumstances

(44:32):
in this particular environment, certainly inthe beginning, but of course as we
growers, and I mean maybe it'scomparable to the development of humanity as a
whole. Obviously, back in theold days, you had one guy usually
was a guy on top of theclub who had authority of life and death
over the rest. That's how societystarted to be organized throughout human history.
Now we have advanced in most casesfor a thousand years, so we've moved

(44:54):
on. Hopefully that will happen inouter space, but who knows, you
know, and again we might becoming back with basos taking over the world.
So yeah, that's another one.Transitioning a little bit, right,
what technology, not necessarily what we'vebeen talking about, but just in general
are you most excited about today?And why in terms of space, in
terms of anything, I'll limit myselfto space because that's the area of technology

(45:17):
at least I know something about becauseof my constant interaction with that will for
more than five years. I thinkthe most important and sensational development is going
to take place in transportation because onceyou are basing yourself on the baseline assumption
that humanities entry into outer space isa good thing and that you know,

(45:37):
people that not everyone agrees to thatare people who say, well, it's
all space flight is a waste ofmoney. You know, it's just allowing
some too lucky people to get outthere, and we can use those billions
much more efficiently for solving the majorproblems that we have on Earth. But
once you say, okay, evengiven all that it's a good thing,
or maybe it's an inevitable thing,and that people say men cannot do anything

(46:00):
else, then try to explore that'spart of its foundational nature. Once you
accept that is a good thing,and you accept that there might be certain
risks of negative consequences about everything thathumans can do, which you try to
curve by law, but the overallbalance is hopefully still positive, then the
thing that we need is cheaper accessto space. Currently it costs about eleven

(46:24):
thousand pounds per kilogram to get somethinginto outer space. Now that's outrageous in
terms of costs. So if youreally want to be able to, for
example, to exupport much of ourwasteful energy generation into outer space, and
ours spectacular plans for that, wefirst need to get the cost of getting
something out there done and so,and I do see thanks partly to space

(46:50):
tourism, I do see movements inthat direction going on. So the space
tourist operators, they obviously are stillin the beginning of their trade to have
to see how successful they are goingto be, but they by nature will
have to develop much much more lenientspace operations in terms of the energy of
getting there then the traditional space agencieswhich we're used to working with both budget.

(47:15):
I mean, if you see themoney thrown at pass and the sixties
and seventies, that's astonishing, that'samazing. It's flatter passing by the way
that those levels have never been reachedever since, because obviously that took place
in the code work context and allof that. But anyway, going back
to more original point, I thinkthe launch technology, the search for new
ways of using energy and an additiongreen energy, because of course also the

(47:37):
space industry is subject to a lotof scrutiny by the green sides of society
who don't want all these exhaust flamesand stuff like that, which is also
fossil fuels by and large, tomove to more towards new kinds. I
find that fascinating and also crucial,if you know, if you want to
put a big word on its crucialfor the survival of mankind. Once you

(47:57):
come to the conclusion, and againyou can argue about that better, the
Earth is not the only add thatthe Earth should not be the only egg
in our basket. That we shouldyou have different places so that if something
really bad happens to the Earth,we have an alternative as mankind. Then
bringing down the cost of going intoouter space by developing new launch tychnalogies is
key. And again I see interestingthings happening. Ye Elan's been doing a

(48:20):
good job as well. What doyou think Let's make it a two part
question, life in space? Andthen if we do discover more likely when
we do discover life in space,legal ramifications, what considered life? How
do we think about disturbing planets?W We have some type of star trek
let's not touch it perspective. Yeah, it's interesting that you mentioned that because
obviously, while that has been generallyviewed as a lot of science fiction and

(48:44):
vissionary stuff, not for the ordinarylawyer. We have had some discussions on
that, and we should go backactually to the realization that more is basically
there to regulate human interactions and humanactions. So if we find no human
life out there, how do wedeal with that? How does the law
deal with it? How can thelaw deal with that? And then you
have to, I think, makea very rough threefold division. What type

(49:08):
of life are we talking about?The first category is life which is far
less intelligent than us, So we'retalking about microbes or you know, things
like that. And then obviously weas humans can impose, can use the
law to handle them as we seefit, just as we do animals today,
even much more intelligent animals than microbiaand algae and stuff like that.

(49:30):
Right, we have laws prohibiting themale treatment of animals, et cetera,
et cetera. Now, these animalsthemselves cannot defend them in court. We
have to have humans step up forthem. But that is a possibility.
I don't think that's the biggest problem. We actually have already some more or
pre law in place. There arealready planetary guidelines developed by the scientists.

(49:51):
When you go to a foreign planet, you need to sterilize your spacecraft to
a certain extent, to a verygreat extent, actually to preclude or to
minimize. Again, you can nevercompletely get preclude, but at least to
minimize the chances that you are introducingearth bacteria in an environment which is not
able to handle them and thereby maybekill whatever life might be there. So

(50:13):
there are there are already rules forthat. Well, that's the easy point.
It becomes already more difficult if weencounter a life outside of Earth,
which is roughly you know, atthe level of our intelligence. If that
is the case, they will probablyhave their own system, their own social
system of interaction, which something similarto what we call law, but substantively

(50:35):
it may be totally different, andthey will not be happy to give it
up just because we think our legalsystem is better and should rule them as
well as our interaction between with them. And neither are we willing, I'm
assuming, to give up our lawsjust because there might be some alien specients.
We think they know it better asto how humans should interact, so
you get them too, sort ofcommunities or populations or whatever you want name

(51:00):
you want to give to it,who then have to sort of negotiate and
find out a meta law to actbetween the two, which is essentially what
we've seen happening on the Earth aswell, where all laws started on a
national level, and then at acertain time the Brits in the French started
training with each other, living witheach other, marrying each other, and
had to find a way to addressthese international problems in particular between the two

(51:23):
countries. That's where international law concertand the most interesting part but also the
most frightening part, is of coursethe third category, when life out there
is much more intelligent than us,and this you know you see in people
who look for life in outer space. Some people adhere to what they call
the zoo hypothesis. And in thishypothesis, we are the animals, meaning
that there have been already far smarterlife in outer space which has discovered us,

(51:49):
hasn't shown themselves to us, butthey're looking at us like we look
at animals in a zookage who arebasically unaware of it. You know so
well that we can just defise whateverlaw we want, We've got to be
subject to their mercy, whether it'syou know, whether it works, whether
we are even allowed to apply thatlaw between ourselves. So that is that

(52:10):
is sort of the if you wantto address these issues, that's sort of
where you start. But it's notborn in the start, in case you
guys are wondering, all of that'strue even if we're living in a simulation.
So it's there's so many implications ofall of this. So that would
be that would be the last areathat I want to take this is with
the troubling trends. I know theEU is doing. They're doing as good

(52:32):
a job as they can. Iwant to say some of the regulations been
a little poorly worded in set upand has led to those little banners where
we all kind of click, yeah, okay, next take me to the
actual website. But but how doyou see this playing out? As we
do kind of have a splintering ofthe Internet that is very difficult to judge.
I think I see some positive movementsin the sense that there are some

(52:53):
Internet providers who are really fair andtransparent and opening their privacy considerations. But
I also I will also must berealistic in the sense that it puts a
burden on the business model, becausethere's no question that the business model of
using that information which Facebook and Googleand Amazon have become such powerful players having

(53:15):
developed that is based upon a tremendousvalue of information. And if you are
voluntarily, you know, getting ridof that, it means that the alternative
systems are just used by a fewdiehards who are very principal in their approach
and who are willing to forego anenormous amount of possible and sometimes positive,

(53:37):
often positive effects. You know,if you start being on Facebook, you
must be rather principles in order todo that, because it means that you
know, eighty percent of the peopleyou normally interact with you will not be
able to use their their normal conduitfor contacting you, apart from the person
who become just because that is Facebook. And you know, you say sacrifice

(54:00):
so much in direct terms by byyou know, stepping out of that,
which of course is still possible.That's so far the operators which have which
are really playing a fair game,and you know, are willing to honor
privacy rights and things like that simplyour niche operators so far, and that's
why I think we need a wayto find But that's easier said than done.

(54:22):
Of course, we need a wayto find a democratic control over those
over those operators in order to simplyrequire them to stick to certain rules and
be able to enforce them, youknow, just like we have standards for
what a butcher can sell now whichare imposed by government, just because a
butcher certifying its own neat is nota good thing. Now. The problem

(54:44):
with neat is that you can findout or the good thing about meat if
if you can find it pretty quickly, if you need is bad, you
know, you get ill, orit tastes bad or whatever. And most
people can find it out pretty quickly. The problem with technology is that it's
so incredibly complicated that there are onlya few people who can actually seriously control
that they are that there are nobackdoors to which they can get into your

(55:07):
privacy. It's not the end goahead. And that's you know, and
that's not just limited to cyber Butyou see it with the Volkswagen scandal.
You see it with the current BoeingMax scandal, where it is the butcher
certifying their own meat. Why Becausethe FAA simply doesn't have the required technical
capacity to really critically double check thateverything that Bowing claims about the safety of

(55:30):
the aircraft is true, you know, So they leave it. They call
itself regulation, which is to mea kind of internal paradox. But that's
what it is. And there arealways you know, again, the butcher
certifying its own meat. Do youthink he's completely neutral? Does do you
think that he's going as far ashe should go to make sure that his
meat is okay? So, andthat applies to the Internet as well.

(55:52):
And it's so much more dangerous whenthe butcher thinks he's doing the right thing
by trying to make sure that peopleare able to access the meat. I
want to make it seper easier,faster for the poor people around the world
to get access. But suddenly wefind out way there is this tiny little
trace thing. Right when you've eatenenough of it. It's not like one
person ends up on the toilet.Everyone's shitting themselves in. Society is falling

(56:13):
apart, right, And that's that'swhat we've got with Zuckerberg and Google right
now, they're trying to save theworld and tearing it apart. In a
lot of ways. This has beenout. This has been a fun,
interesting one. We've been all aroundthe cosmos at this point. Round right.
I got one last question before youtell people where to find you,
and that's if you had to quotea call to action, something that you
wanted to leave listeners with, whatit would be and why I think for
yourself. I mean it's it's probablyan open door. But also in space

(56:38):
you have to be even though it'sspaces it's not nearly as technical, perhaps
as cyber which we just spoke about, but there is a lot of stuff
going on which is difficult to comprehendfor a normal being, even if you
consider yourself fairly intelligence. But there'salways a need to think for yourself and
to start, you know, tobe critical about where something doesn't quite fit

(57:02):
in, where somebody states the onething and then the next sentence states something
which somehow doesn't comply. And itdoesn't mean that he is wrong or that
you are. Certainly, let youonto something important, but don't be afraid
then to ask why, you know, point to discuestion the disruption and try
to find out more about it,and to a certain extent. The only

(57:24):
there are no stupid questions, or, let me put it differently, the
only questions that are stupid are theones that have already been answered before,
but you were not listening, youknow what I'm saying. So don't be
afraid to ask questions to make surethat you understand as good as humanly possible,
and always keep all the lookout forcontrary facts, for contrary opinions,

(57:45):
to make sure that you really consideredboth sides to a thing. Consider both
sides spoken like a true lawyer.Thanks for coming on today, Frunds.
Where's the best place where people tofind more about you? Your work,
your Ted Talk, all the goodstuff. Yeah? Well, the easiest
one, I guess is my websiteat University of Nebraska Lincoln, which is
where I'm working. If you goto faculty directory and the faculty I have

(58:06):
my own page and my name Francefrom the Bunk, and if you click
on you can find the publications ofwhich I'm most proud, the Ted Talks
and the Pink Talks, and theTV interviews of which I'm most proud.
So you usually find a link throughto the relevant YouTube or wherever the video
is stored. Sometimes you haven't storedstored ourselves. And for those of you

(58:27):
are interested in my commercial commercial partof my work, because I also have
my own consultancy. Also, theunl website provides a link to black Holes,
which is my consultancy, where youcan find a lot of information of
the projects that I've been working onover the last couple of decades. Be
very careful with lawyers that Bill canbecome a black hole that pulsa sucks everything
in with the gravity of its mass. I imagine it's not as bad,

(58:49):
and it's not as bad at leastin the industry you're in. But it's
been awesome having you on. France. Thanks, thanks so much for doing
this my pleasure. Thank you,and thanks for turning in. Guys.
If you've liked this, you knowwhat to do. We'll have links and
everything for France's work in the shownotes. Disruptors, dot fm and consider
sharing the podcast with a friend,iTunes, Stitcher, whatever it is.
If you leave a review, helpus grow the audience so that we can
get more awesome guests. Cheers.Be the change you want to see in

(59:13):
the world. That's something I strivetowards and fail towards every single day.
If you enjoyed this podcast, ifyou think the world could benefit from conversations
like this. The greatest compliment youcan give us is referring to the Disruptors
to a friend or talking about uson social media. Please take thirty seconds
to do so. It would meanthe world to us, and if we're
lucky, help us build towards abetter world. Thanks so much for listening,

(59:34):
Thanks so much for helping us spreadthe message, and have a great
day. If you want more ofthe Disruptors, you can subscribe to the
podcast on iTunes or go to disruptorsdot fm, where you'll find tons of
audio and video interview stories with leadersin the fields of genetics, cryptocurrency,
longevity, AI, space, VR, and much much more. You can
also follow me on Twitter at Mattward Io. If you enjoyed the show,

(59:57):
please leave a quick review on iTunesat Disruptors dot fm slash iTunes to
help more people discover the podcast andhelp us make a bigger impact.