In a post last week about Burt Rutan's self-inflicted regulatory problems, I wrote that:

I should add that moving off shore wouldn't help him either, unless he renounces his citizenship as well. The US position is that it is regulatorily responsible for launch activities of US entities, regardless of their location on the planet, because of liability provisions of the Outer Space Treaty (yet another reason to get out of it).

As Anglospherian Jim Bennett reminds me, this is a little oversimplified description of the situation. He could, in fact, go off shore if he can get some other nation to accept responsibility for the launch, which would let the US off the hook for it.

Just one catch. He'd have to apply for a technology export license, and I suspect that getting one granted would be much easier said than done, particularly in the post-911 climate. The only way around this would be to simply go overseas by himself, with no hardware--just what was in his head, and then purchase the components and build it there. And I'm not sure that he'd even be able to get around it that way.

Anyway, the point is moot, since he's already declared he's going to fly out of Mojave.

Besides as a solid American patriot from Fresno, California, Burt would never renounce his citizenship.

Just how difficult would it be to get a technology export licence if Rutan chose a country that was a trustworthy ally of the U.S.? (i.e. not a latent mullahocracy like Pakistan, and not a feckless backstabber like France)

Australia comes to mind here--a technologically advanced nation, a stable, prosperous democracy, and a staunch ally of the United States. They even have lots of sparsely populated land, so if something goes wrong on the first flight, you don't have to worry about the spacecraft landing on someone's head.

On the other hand, this sort of technology would be particularly dangerous if it fell into the wrong hands--potentially a poor man's IRBM.