American Space Law Foundation

This past weekend, American Space Law Foundation successfully hosted its inaugural moot court competition ⚖️🛰️ On Day 1, Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld LLP hosted our all-day competition, beginning with an incredible keynote from the great Clay Mowry. Afterwards, the competing teams presented their oral arguments, responding to the fact pattern involving AI satellite malfunctions, orbital debris, and the results of both on FCC licensing. Day 2 wrapped up the event with a practitioner panel at the Cosmos Club featuring Julie Kearney, Jameson Dempsey, and Halie Peacher followed by an award ceremony and reception. Ever since Elizabeth Sanchez Chang asked me to serve as Director of Strategic Partnerships on her non-profit's founding board, I've spent the last few months leading the sponsorship and partnership development efforts. Together, we secured support from major players in the space industry, and I'm incredibly grateful to the organizations who believed in the ASLF mission so early in its history. So, a big thank you to all of our sponsors and partners who supported us and helped make this weekend possible. Being involved in ASLF is an important reminder that a variety of players are necessary to support the overall growth and maturity of the space economy. The frameworks being built right now will determine how this industry grows, how it's funded, and how it's perceived globally. I'm honored to help create pathways into space careers, develop a new organization, and foster a community of people who will make that happen. Elizabeth Sanchez Chang, Adrián Cornejo, Madyson Brown and every ambassador/volunteer/advisor dedicated so much of their time in order to ensure this weekend's shared success. They're an incredible team, and I couldn't have had a better time working together with them. Excited to continue building the partnerships that support the next phase of growth in the space economy 🚀

Ad astra itur, lex sequitur. As humanity goes to the stars, so too must the law follow. This past weekend, we hosted the first-ever American Space Law Foundation Moot Court Competition, which I'm still trying to process as reality. What started as an idea turned into a room full of people across law, policy, engineering, and science all trying to answer the same question: How do we regulate what hasn’t fully been built yet? From Day 1 at our host firm Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld LLP to our panel at the Cosmos Club with Julie Kearney, Jameson Dempsey, Halie Peacher, and me moderating, we pushed into questions that don’t have clean answers: megaconstellations, autonomous systems, and the limits of agency authority. The teams delivered, their creativity, and depth of analysis exceeded expectations across the board. But what I’m most proud of isn’t just the competition but also the ASLF work behind the scenes to build a community. From working with the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics to collaborating with the National Air and Space Museum, Smithsonian Institution Bezos Learning Center, we’re making sure space law isn’t pioneered in a vacuum, to ensure that the rules of our future are informed by science, policy and shaped by the very voices affected by it not just engineers and lawyers but K-12 students as well. A special thank you to my team for believing in our mission since Day 1 and making it their own. Thank you to our ambassadors who have used their incredible background in engineering, policy, and space sciences to contribute to space law in real time. To our bailiffs for stepping right into the world of space law with an eagerness to learn. (Briana Sparacino, Madyson Brown, Adrián Cornejo, Shuai Li, Carissma McGee, Ishan Swali, Hriday Unadkat, Jana Gordy, Emma Fini). Thanks to our wonderful judges who joined us both in brief grading from across the country and in person oral arguments, whose expertise and dedicated time have challenged our students and also expanded our views on what these legal questions can mean for the future. (David G., Jennifer Manner, Michael Mineiro, Austin C. Murnane, Michelle L.D. Hanlon, M.C. Sungaila, Howard Chang, Elizabeth Perry, Drew Svor, Sean Z., Kathryne Dickerson, Brian Wessel, Ramzi Masri-Elyafaoui, Clark Thomas). Finally, thank you to our sponsors and supporters who have invested in the future of space law and whose support meant the world to us in our inaugural year. We hope to continue gathering a community and supporters from all sectors to pioneer American space law. This is just the beginning for ASLF, If space is the next frontier, then law is going with it and we hope you join us for the ride!

The inaugural American Space Law Foundation Moot Court Competition was held this week at Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld LLP in Washington, D.C. And it delivered! I had the opportunity to judge heat 3, and the students were so impressive, I stayed to watch the finals. The problem didn’t shy away from complexity. It put the teams right into the legal gray zones that define modern space activity raising questions of responsibility and liability, the outer limits of national authorization and supervision, and how foundational treaty principles hold up under commercial and strategic pressure. In other words, not theoretical puzzles, but real tensions. The kind the next generation of space lawyers will be navigating daily. And in many ways, this competition itself felt like a signal of where the field is heading. We are moving into a phase where more and more of the hard space law questions are emerging at the commercial level, not just within traditional public international law frameworks. The teams rose to that challenge. Thoughtful, precise and genuinely impressive across the board. Couldn't be more proud of the University of Mississippi Center for Air and Space Law at Ole Miss's own Clark Thomas and M.C. Sungaila! There’s nothing better than seeing our Ole Miss community showing up at the highest levels of the field. Huge credit and kudos to Elizabeth Sanchez Chang and her team for putting together such a meaningful and well-run competition. If this is the inaugural session, the trajectory is pretty clear. Happy to deliver Ole Miss swag bags (admittedly not nearly as cool as the ones from Vast) to the up and coming stars on the Moot teams and looking forward already to next year's competition. #SpaceNeedsLawyers