The emails from United Launch Alliance started popping into the inboxes of photographers a few days after the Fourth of July holiday. Although that day is meant to celebrate freedom and the red glare of rockets, the communication threatened to strip both from some of the company's most ardent devotees.
The message from the launch company announced the implementation of a new "annual agreement" between ULA and all people who place remote cameras at Space Launch Complex-41, the company's active launch site at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station. Anyone interested in setting remotes for future launch dates had 11 days to review and sign the agreement.
The language was clear: Photographers were welcome to set up remote shots at ULA launches if they worked for the media or wanted to post their work on social media. However, photographers could not sell this work independently, including as prints for fellow enthusiasts or for use in annual calendars.
"ULA will periodically confirm editorial publication for media participating in remote camera placement," the email stated. "If publication does not occur, or photos are sold outside of editorial purposes, privileges to place remote cameras may be revoked."
To the photographers who spend many hours preparing their equipment, waiting to set up and remove cameras, and persevering through scrubs and more, it seemed like a harsh judgment.
And nobody knew why it happened.
No comment
United Launch Alliance has offered no public comment about the new policy. The company did not respond to questions from Ars Technica about the agreement. And the company's chief executive, Tory Bruno, a frequent tweeter who regularly interacts with fans on the social media site X, has ignored dozens of questions about the policy change. Since the first questions were raised a few days ago, Bruno has not replied to anyone on X.
The photographers themselves felt blindsided by the decision.
"I cannot sit by while myself and my colleagues are actively being forbidden from trying to support ourselves to be able to do what we do," said David Diebold, a photographer for Space Scout, on X. "Being forced to sign an agreement that is a net negative for all of the media is the last thing I'll do. If this is the end of the line for covering ULA missions up close, then so be it."
Other photographers shared similar sentiments privately, but they did not want to be seen publicly calling out ULA, the second-most important launch provider in the United States.
The new rules went into effect on Tuesday with the final launch of an Atlas V rocket for a national security mission. A ULA representative told participating photographers that the intent of the new rules was to prohibit the sale of images to any commercial entities, including prints to individuals, except for news publications.
There was no explanation given for why.
How did we get here?
For a long time, the rules for accessing the press site at Kennedy Space Center in Florida and setting up remote cameras for launches there and at the military launch pads were clear. You had to be working press or have a letter from a publication that you were on assignment. But a decade and a half ago, several things occurred that began to change this.
As the Space Shuttle program wound down, NASA sought to induce positive publicity by inviting social media participants to launches and other events. The events were initially called "Tweetups" at their inception in 2009, and later "NASA Socials." The space agency provided access to non-media spaceflight enthusiasts, who then shared their experiences on Twitter and other social media outlets. The space agency further blurred the lines between traditional reporters and social media enthusiasts by inviting these participants to some news conferences.
At the same time, digital cameras were starting to supplant film, and the "sound trigger" technology to ensure that remote cameras activated at liftoff became more accessible. This was once a dark art known only to a few professional photographers, but tutorials soon emerged online, and one could purchase commercial sound triggers from places such as Best Buy.
Initially, a trickle of amateur photographers started showing up at remote setup opportunities for NASA, ULA, and SpaceX. Most of these people had freelance assignments. But as social media became more prominent and the lines blurred further, more people with cameras but no affiliation started to show up to catch the bus out to the launch site.
They mingled, sometimes uncomfortably, with the established press corps. But over time, they were accepted by NASA and the private launch companies. After all, the newer arrivals experimented and sometimes came away with great shots that were widely shared on social media, and they built a groundswell of enthusiasm for space exploration that was lacking in the post-shuttle era.
Many of the new photographers were young, talented kids with a camera like John Kraus and Tim Dodd. Kraus would go on to lead content for Jared Isaacman's Polaris Program, and Dodd, as "the Everyday Astronaut," became one of the world's most important space influencers.
"I was spending a lot of money to come down from Iowa to shoot rocket launches," Dodd, who got his start in 2014, told Ars. "My only chance of paying for some of my gas, meals, and hotels was if I got lucky enough to capture an image that people would want to hang on their walls. And it wasn't much. We're talking maybe a couple hundred dollars tops. There are dozens of dedicated individuals that attend every launch, setting up remotes, working all hours of the day and night to capture history."
Not a First Amendment issue, but...
As traditional media declined, particularly the print publications that once served as a backbone of space coverage, the younger digital photographers soon represented the majority of people showing up to set remotes. Not all of them had a freelance gig, so they would post their best photos on social media and invite people to visit their website to purchase a print. At the end of the year, some would create calendars of their best launch images for sale.
And this is how things proceeded for the last decade. It was a symbiotic relationship. For the cost of supporting remote camera setup, a launch company got a couple of dozen people eager to capture the most amazing and awe-inspiring images of that company's rockets in flight. No one wanted to buy a lousy rocket photo. But images that showcased the brawn of a rocket? Those could be good publicity for the rocket company. In 2017, ULA chief executive Tory Bruno liked one of Kraus' photos of a Delta IV launch so much he licensed it for a multi-story mural at the entrance to the company's headquarters in Centennial, Colorado.
The new agreement ends all of that. Such a transaction would now be prohibited. ULA has effectively told the photographers that they're welcome to continue being publicists for the company's launches, but they may no longer derive income from it through personal sales.
This is perfectly legal, said Jared Schroeder, an associate professor at the Missouri School of Journalism. His research specializes in First Amendment theory and law. The launch site is not a public space but rather a ULA-operated facility on a US military base. But that does not necessarily make this decision equitable. In essence, ULA is playing favorites, he said.
From a legal standpoint, there is no distinction between a professional journalist and a hobbyist setting up a camera. But the company has taken the position that it will decide who can be reimbursed for working at its launch site and who cannot. And not only can the traditional media photographers profit, but there seems to be no restriction on their editorial use of the photos. For example, Schroeder said, newspapers commonly sell prints of photos taken by their staffers. They will be allowed to continue this practice, whereas the hobbyists are frozen out.
"They make the rules," he said of ULA. "They have the right to make these rules. As a society, we have to decide if we’re going to accept it or not. But the First Amendment is not going to help us."
So what to do about this?
With silence from ULA officials on why this change has been implemented, there has been a flurry of theories about why the change has come now. Perhaps one of the hobbyists did something the company didn't like, and this is a means of clamping down. Maybe, as the number of amateur photographers has grown, the crowds have become too unwieldy. It could be that the company's legal department got involved after there was a fatal heart attack during camera setup for the recent launch of Boeing's Starliner spacecraft on an Atlas V rocket.
For whatever reason, ULA is seeking to revert to past practices. The company says it is simply providing "clear and consistent expectations that were previously communicated verbally." According to several photographers, however, this is just not true. Such expectations were never communicated before, they said.
Dodd said he is confused about why ULA would care whether these hobbyists make a little money from their efforts.
"To remove monetization from this equation, it simply means very few people will have the luxury of spending half a day to set up and another half of their day retrieving cameras at launches and ULA will simply not get coverage," he said. "It almost feels like that's what they want, which I personally cannot understand, especially as we're nearing the end of the historic Atlas V's career and entering the era of Vulcan. I'm just shocked they don't want more coverage of these things and not less."
Given that the decision is in ULA's hands, Schroeder said the best means of effecting change would be through social pressure. For photographers, he said, don't sign the agreement or show up for ULA launches. Don't share them on social media. Continue to ask officials about the policy change.
There are plenty of other rockets flying from the Eastern Range, after all. In recent years, ULA has only accounted for 3 to 5 percent of launches by US companies.
