Current laws cannot protect civilians in space if something goes wrong

If you watched the live video of billionaire Jason Isaacman popping his head out of a SpaceX spacecraft (see “Polaris Dawn mission is one giant leap for private space exploration”), your first thought probably wasn’t “who gets sued if something goes wrong?” – but as private spaceflight grows, questions like these must be addressed.

International space law is a patchwork of treaties dating back to the space race, most importantly the Outer Space Treaty of 1967. One key tenet of this is that only states can be responsible for activity in space, even that of “non-governmental entities” like SpaceX. Because Isaacman and his crew launched from the Kennedy Space Centre in Florida, that means the buck stops with the US government.

But the US government has found ways to pass that buck. While the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has strict rules and regulations for commercial air travel, commercial spaceflight has always been given a lighter touch, most recently by the SPACE Act of 2015. That law extended a “learning period” that prohibits the FAA from issuing regulations related to the safety of astronauts on private spaceflights. In other words, any safety concerns Isaacman may have had were hashed out between him and SpaceX.

This learning period is due to expire on 1 January 2025, so we could soon see legal clarity on who is responsible for private astronauts, but this isn’t the only area of space legislation that needs attention. Astronomers are increasingly concerned about the number of satellites in orbit, potentially ruining their observations (see “Astronomers worried by launch of five new super-bright satellites”). Elon Musk’s SpaceX is again a big player here, controlling two thirds of active satellites – and there are currently no regulations that prevent him from launching as many as he pleases.

So what next? As policy researcher Thomas Hale says (see “A Declaration on Future Generations could bring the changes we need”), our political systems aren’t designed to solve “long problems”, and they don’t get much longer than taming the final frontier. That isn’t to say we shouldn’t try, however – and a refresh of the ageing Outer Space Treaty to help tackle these more modern issues would be very welcome.