I was remiss in not posting much from the conference, but Clark Lindsey has some thoughts in the aftermath, with a lot of links. My impression? It wasn’t as exciting as last year, when Gwynne Shotwell came and not only gave a speech but answered questions. I think that both SpaceX and XCOR weren’t there in force this year (the latter for the first time, though ably represented by Mark Street) because they’re busy building hardware that will reduce the cost of access to space.

Tanja Masson-Zwaan says I don’t know what I’m talking about. No surprise there:

…as I said in the paper, any opinions expressed on this issue, whether Jim Dunstan’s, my own, or that of (for example) Tanja Masson-Zwaan, current president of the International Institute of Space Law, are simply that — opinions, and will remain nothing more than that until the matter is litigated and adjudicated.

We will agree to disagree until that happens.

[Update a few minutes later]

I did find this comment interesting:

Masson-Zwaan acknowledges that the current treaty is not perfect. “More rules are needed,” she said, “but I am also of the opinion that you do not need to create property rights.”

“More rules are needed.” We agree that the treaty is not “perfect” but I’m pretty sure that we’ll have a major disagreement on what we need to do to approach perfection.

Over at Open Market, I write about the recent news that Virgin Galactic has gotten some limited ITAR relief, so now it won’t have to get an export license for every furriner it flies from California or New Mexico.