Abstract Entrepreneurs and blue-chip corporations alike are seeking to capitalize on outer space's bountifulness, setting the NewSpace industry's growth ablaze and establishing an engine for an economic and technological revolution. However, meaningful impediments that could stifle the industry's growth are still present. The wide array of newly forming opportunities, pursued by a myriad of actors with various interests, encourages national legislatures to regulate where current international law leaves uncertainty. Such encouragement has created a landscape of conflicting national legislations, thereby constructing an environment of regulatory competition as states vie for the attention of the NewSpace industry. This paper assesses some of the regulatory competitions already underway as well as provides insights into likely future competitions. Ultimately, this paper finds and warns of the effects of these competitions; specifically, that, in many cases, the rise of regulatory competition threatens to lower the standards of governing policies. In such circumstances, the growth of the NewSpace industry, and with it the anticipated technological and economic revolutions, could be in jeopardy — a worthy cause for concern.
Highlights International laws do not properly apply to private space enterprises (“NewSpace”). States are enacting rival domestic space laws, creating regulatory competitions. Regulatory competition threatens standards of governance via a “race to the bottom”. International laws with a minimum governing floor for NewSpace activity is needed.
A cause for concern: Developing regulatory competitions in NewSpace
Acta Astronautica ; 187 ; 212-224
2021-05-06
13 pages
Aufsatz (Zeitschrift)
Elektronische Ressource
Englisch
Springer Verlag | 2021
|AIAA | 2020
|British Library Conference Proceedings | 2008
|TIBKAT | 2021
|NewSpace: The Emerging Commercial Space Industry
NTRS | 2017
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