Capitalist bend: Donald Trump wants to make space a free-market paradise

The Space Council also recommended that the government review regulations around export licenses that affect commercial space activity

“New Space” requires new rules. 

That’s the view of the National Space Council, which held its second gathering Wednesday to address what the Trump administration says are outdated, overly burdensome regulations that were written for an earlier era when the US government was the prime actor off-planet and rocket launches were both rare and prohibitively expensive.

As billionaires such as Jeff Bezos, Richard Branson and Elon Musk line up to cash in on the final frontier, the administration is keen to streamline US  rules around how the government licenses space launches, giving such operators as Musk’s Space Exploration Technologies Corp.,