Luc Riesbeck is helping to make sure that the policy conversations surrounding space sustainability keep pace with the rapidly advancing tech.
Now working at NASA HQ, the 28-year-old is trying to build more bridges between the government and commercial space sectors to ensure everyone is working in tandem to keep space usable for future generations.
“There is always room for more connection and more education on the government side on what’s actually happening,” Riesbeck told Payload. “The pace everything moves at in industry is so quick that it can be a black box unless you actually are out there making connections and trying to follow people.”
Path to NASA: After getting a master’s in international science and technology policy from George Washington University’s Space Policy Institute, Riesbeck went on to work for Astroscale for nearly five years as a policy and research analyst.
“As the company grew from less than 10 employees to more than 100 in a few short years, my colleagues and I were often forging completely new ground, especially on the regulatory and licensing side,” Riesbeck said. “We provide regulators and the White House with comprehensive, informed guidance for how they should approach assessing and authorizing novel activities like ours—and how they should modernize their expectations for the sustainability of more traditional satellite operations.”
Riesbeck said he knew that he needed to join the government to maximize his impact on space sustainability. He joined the agency a few months ago as a management and program analyst within the science mission directorate policy branch.
High praise: Laura Cummings, a space lawyer at Greenberg Traurig who nominated Riesbeck, dubbed him “the keeper of all knowledge” because of his deep knowledge of space policy and the broader industry.
“He has gained a reputation for breaking down barriers that impede collaboration across silos of technical, economic and policy expertise, bridging these divides to generate fulsome insights and workable solutions to modern space policy challenges,” Cummings wrote.
