Episode 178: Aaron Brynildson
Space Beach Law Lab With Aaron Brynildson
00:20:30
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Show Notes
As part of our Space series, we recorded short interviews with a few select speakers at the inaugural Space Beach Law Lab conference in Long Beach, California. This one with Aaron Brynildson gets substantive, dips into hot topics in space policy and regulation, and demonstrates the range of venues in which a space law career can play out (military anyone?). Oh, and we also share our mutual appreciation for our time in the Ole Miss Center for Air and Space Law program, where Aaron obtained his LLM and I am pursuing one. Enjoy!
Relevant episode link:
Aaron Brynildson – LinkedIn , Maxar , BlackSky
About Aaron Brynildson:
Major Aaron Brynildson is the Legal Advisor to the National Space Defense Center and Space Delta 15. In this role, he advises on national security law issues regarding the defense of U.S. and allied assets in space. Aaron has been a practicing attorney in the Air Force for eight years. In 2022, Aaron began a career transition from criminal litigation into space law. He was selected by the Air Force to attend the University of Mississippi School of Law, the only American law school to offer an LL.M. degree in air and space law. His thesis, titled “How Space Corporations are Shaping International Law Through the War in Ukraine,” is pending publication. Aaron is a 2015 graduate of the UC Irvine School of Law and licensed to practice law in the State of California.
Transcript
Welcome to another special episode from the Space Beach Law Lab in Long Beach, California. I'm very pleased to have chatting with us from the conference, Aaron Brynildson. He is a fellow student at Ole Miss with me. He a graduated now in the LLM Program but we have that in common. He is speaking at Space Beach Law Lab on Conflict in space. Aaron, welcome to the show.
Thanks for having me.
Pursuing Space Law
Tell me first about how you decided to go from law generally to space law.
I graduated from law school in 2015. Right after graduating, I took the California Bar and joined the United States Air Force as a judge advocate. My career started out doing mostly criminal law. That wasn't necessarily the path I thought it would take but it was a good job to start out practicing as a lawyer. I was a prosecutor. I became the military version public defender. At the end of that assignment, I was at a crossroads, “Do I want to keep practicing and doing litigation, or do I want to do something different?”
I had always thought that I would be more interested in operational national seniority-type stuff while I was in law school. I took several classes on subjects. I applied for an Air Force, again for a bunch of different subjects. Air and Space was my top one. Mostly, I was interested in serving the United States Space Force right around the time that it was created. I didn't think of all the new stuff. I thought that I wanted to be part of something new.
I didn't have a passion for space at the time per se, but I like innovation and technology. My dad is a Scientist at Urban Town, the National Security Lab. It was a natural thing for my personality. When I first got to the program at the University of Mississippi, I remember feeling this need to pick between aviation and space law. I figured out which one I liked the most. As the class progressed, I realized I like space law.
After the first semester too, I sold out my current job, which is a legal advisor to the National Space Defense Center. The National Space Defense Center, what we do is the operational center for the defense of US assets in orbit. I knew that was going to be my job and I tried to start taking classes here toward that. I stumble into it.
I'm very lucky that I got to have this career pivot because, in law school, I would have never seen myself practicing in this area. Many have changed in a decade. Now that I'm in it, I don't think there's anything else. I want to just stick with this, whether or not that's in the military or outside, I'm excited about that. I know that this is an area of law. I’m excited to see where I'm going to be a part of.
Space Defense
What kinds of things do you do in your current role that you can talk about?
That's what I'm going to talk about. We live over in classification space, especially in the National Space Defense Center. What a challenge that is, even having to put in a conversation with the general public. My job when in a classified level is I advise the director of the National Space Defense Center. I’m the sole attorney there.
We have about 400 or 500 military civilian contractor employees. The center itself is a trying effort between the intelligence community. I think of all the various different three-letter organizations, NGA, NSA, and then another third part is the NRL, National Consulate's Office. The last one is the DOD, the United States Space Command.
I'm technically the United States Space Command body. I'm a DOD person. I'm not part of the Intelligence Committee but I do provide something to support the underparts of it, too. It's interesting when I talk to people about it. They'll say, “You are defending US Space consulate? What are you doing to defend things? What assets do we have?” That's where it starts to run in the classification but every day, I'm advising about operational issues. We have a 24/7 operations center, monitoring threats or adversarial injuries. It doesn't always have to be an adversary to it. It would be the space debris.
I was wondering about the whole space debris conversation, which is a conversation that's often had these days.
We will monitor the phone satellites. They're going to get other patient satellites and how that might impact our own assets. There's a lot of interesting things that I get to see every day. That's a fun job. I like being able to see what I get to see too.
There's some element of transparency that would be helpful and also an education for people.
Getting The New Generation Excited About Space
One of the panelists is clear. How do we get people excited about space? It's a lot of talk about different generations and what they think about space. I'm technically a Millennial, so I'll wear that label now. I’ll talk about I'm from a generation of space. You're floundering in the ‘90s and early 2000s. It wasn't fair where we were going with space. As a young adult and a high schooler, they didn't have an interest in space because I didn't see the purpose.
Every day, I go to work and I wish the public knew this was going on, or we could talk more about these things because it's exciting but also, a very important point in our history in terms of access to space. To me, the first time since probably the 1960s that US dominance in space is potentially a progression. I don't think that most Americans would want to see a day in which we aren't the most dominant force in space in terms of guaranteeing access for commercial providers all day and the economic benefits that we gain from outer space. Without being able to publicly talk about those things, it's hard to normalize those discussions.
That's a good point. I hadn't thought about that but what you grew up with in terms of your perception of space. I'm enough on the cusp of the Apollo Era to still have that pride and joy and seeing that coming back in a new era. If you didn't have that, you were in that transition period where NASA is saying, “We're not going to do this. We're not going to take the lead on this.” The commercial space actors coming into it and working together with NASA. Now we're in a new era.
Even the space shuttle program. My memories of it are not as clear as a little bit different generation. I was stationed at Edwards Air Force Base, which was one of the alternate landing sites for the space shuttle. I bring my dad to base to visit and he’s like, “Super cool. You live on Edward's Air Force Base where their space shuttle landed?” You can see some of NASA’s buildings on the base. I just didn't have that same experience growing up. We're not the same point of reference. It does impact how you perceive space and how exciting space it's due.
That's an interesting point. I hadn't thought of that generational point. It's a ramp-up period to that excitement in different generations.
With the current generation, one of the ways in which you could get them excited about it though is it's very much like a lot of these emerging technologies, AI or the cryptocurrency or some of these other fun technologies. It's much in the same vein as that. It just needs to be marketed and educated in a way that they can see it through that one, too. That space has the potential to be chained or out of our lives day to day. It’s like cell phones for some people.
We're going to live in a world in which out of the next few years, you're cell phones phone service will probably be part of satellites on a hike. I live in a rural community. You'll always have some form of signal. That's a huge thing in terms of how we use the internet. Especially rural communities have access to those things. That excites me.
There's a lot of commonality to the emergence of AI and other things that are just very cutting edge in how they'll impact society. Part of that is not everyone has that connection between what's going on in space will impact society and what's going on here day to day life on Earth.
It cuts differently by two, which is one that runs more. As space technology becomes cheaper, as it becomes easier to use, AI will be a huge part of that. You're going to see maybe more of an appetite for using things on orbit for conflict. Up until now, I read this interesting abstract book that's coming out on space security issues. It’s talking about there is the myth of the peaceful purposes of outer space. The powerful language about up until now, we've lived in this world where the weaponization of space since we've talked about it as if it wasn't a possibility.
As space technology becomes cheaper, it becomes easier to use.
I don't think that that's true from a legal sense. I think that was true from an economic sense. We've always talked about it as if it was a legal or a policy restriction. Personally, it was an economic one, but AI and some of these changes in technology make it so that it's not necessarily an economic restriction anymore. We're going to have to answer these tough questions about what we think conflict should or would look like in your case. This is the stuff that keeps me up at night. It's something I'm passionate about. It is making sure that both rules are not current favorites in a way that protects our US economic interest in space and commercial companies that are operating in fields.
I also think there's the impact of making space more accessible to a lot more people is a lot more countries and different actors will be engaged in that arena. The more people you have, the more possibility of conflict that there is.
We don't talk about two countries at the end or what will it look like someday if terrorist organizations have access to satellites or will look some day. Maybe other countries that we're concerned about also start to be able to afford to launch things in space and make them work. It's only going to be a bigger problem.
How Space Corporations Operations Are Shaping International Law
If we don't start planning for it, forecasting is a problem. Broadcasting is a problem behind the A-ball. It's important as far as you can to set some frameworks in advance instead of on an emergency basis. That's good. Tell me a little bit about your thesis and what you focused on in the LLM, your topic that you focused on.
My thesis is still pending publication but it's done. The title might change a little bit, but it's how space corporations are shaping international law through the border in Ukraine. I tried to address facts. I laid out all the unique things about the board in Ukraine. To me, some people call the Persian Gulf War the first space law that law increases space assets.
There's some truth to that, but see in Ukraine a dramatic increase in a number of commercial space providers and the capabilities that they're providing to a country. What's also different was that for the first time, companies in a different country provided to a third-party country. There are a few examples of this, but when you think about war as best dominated by US corporations providing capability to the US or our allies. This is the first time where you saw US companies, French companies, or other international partners providing them to a country that's fighting a war in which they're not an ally or fighting alongside that country.
I broke it down. I talked about providing telecommunication services, so SpaceX is predominant. I also talked about remote sensing and providing that type of data, Maxar and BlackSky. There's also another. For example, there's a crowdfunding effort by Ukraine for civilians to buy satellite access from commercial providers and buy spots on satellites that they could operate. That was unique.
There were also other types of non-profit efforts to provide services to Ukraine. Those are things that I couldn't find any precedent. I wanted to make sure we're documented and people someday could look back on these things and talk about them as being, to me, what is the actual first portion of the space store or the first consequence the way the space was used to change the dynamics of the battlefield.
In terms of the route and the machines on the data international humanitarian law sometimes followed the law by conflicts. I talked about space law in general, some of the principles from the outer space treaty in terms of counsel interference or dual regard or anything. In particular, I focused on six of the outer space treaties, which focus on responsibility for non-governmental entities and how that would work. Another main point of my thesis was the one who drank potentially redefined what we've traditionally thought about Article 6 because while the US and other countries were providing capabilities to Ukraine, nobody so far has made the claim.
The US is responsible for any, for example, war crime or inappropriate usage of space assets. My argument is that you're seeing a shift away from this assumption. He laid out two different paths but he said that we could go with that section of all activities that run with the jurisdiction of the country. It would be the responsibility of that country.
I'm not saying the other interpretation that he had, which is only those that are directed or don't buy the underlying country are going to derive some of the responsibility. There are some instances in which you see corporations bobbing themselves in the war of Ukraine whether the US or their country would condone it or coordinate it. That would be another aspect. That's my thesis in a nutshell. I’m excited to hopefully get published and drop it around.
Congratulations on completing it and obtaining the LLM. It's a lot of work to do that. It's good work.
I know one of the things we have in common is that go or win LLM program. That's near and dear to my heart. I’m a big proponent of it and I marketed it as much as possible. I'm going to hear on this show. It's a fantastic program which was led by two people, Charles Stalker and Michelle Mann. Two people who are very passionate about air and space law. I, too, am passionate about both. The focus here is on space but there are lots about aviation, particularly having an interest in national defense.
Thank you. I'm interested in that also. I look forward to the day in which I can order something in the past six hours. Hopefully, we'll have the regulatory system for that to become a reality, but anyone who's considering, if you're a lawyer and you have some type of interest in this field. I highly recommend the program.
One of the biggest things I'd like to talk about is the affordability of education. I went to a law school where I paid $60,000 a year for tuition in 2010. Whereas now, my tuition was $24,000 for the entire program. I don't think you can get more affordable than that. It's an equal institution in our country and it's worth more than $24,000. For me, it should get better because I got a mentorship and to my program, in terms of the number of people involved in it.
Most of my bosses had ten people at most. The bosses give access to the professors pretty regularly. I had the unique opportunity to live in Oxford for a year, and I loved it. It's a fantastic place. I still get random people messaging me on LinkedIn and ask me questions about the program. I'm happy to continue to do that. I'm glad that I went there and continue to have a good relationship.
You're right about the affordability part. The quality of it is amazing. Professor Stowler and Professor Hamlin are passionate and knowledgeable. Also, very nurturing of the students, which is a great combination but it's also nice to have that flexibility in terms of if you're in the LLM program, take more units this semester or fewer units within the next and the tuition is by the unit. That can also adjust across the year which is nice.
If you're a full-time attorney like yourself, you can take one class and go forward to your time frame to complete the degree, which is pretty generous. I agree. There's like those two-week ones or faster. If you're a remote student, I've had all those two-week winter classes. I'm not from the South. I'm from California. I'm so intimidated by living in Mississippi, but I love that town. It's a privilege as well.
That's a great opportunity to have a little different taste of a different part of the US. Thank you so much, Aaron, for joining the show. You have a unique background. You're using your space law training in a interesting way. I’m so glad to have you show that.
Thanks.