Recent Articles in Volume 88, Issue 4 (2023)
The U.K.’s ‘Appetite’ for Space: An Increased Craving!
By Sarah Jane Fox – Launching into space was once the pursuit of super-power nations, who, during a period of international tensions, competed to be the first—the first into space and the first to the Moon. While the United Kingdom (U.K.) had a similar appetite it never achieved a space launch from its national soils, often thwarted by political and economic constraints. This said, the U.K. has played a key role, working alongside other nations in technological advancements related to space. This paper revisits the historical legacy of the U.K.’s space ventures and its space policies before comment is made to the current strategy and future vision. [...]
On Who Should Pay When Orbital Debris “Trickles-Down” in a Tragedy of the Low Earth Orbit Commons
By Michael B. Runnels – In March 2023, NASA released the most rigorous and wide-reaching orbital debris analysis in the space law literature that provides a cost-benefit analysis of removing orbital debris from low Earth orbit (LEO), a region of the Earth’s environment with no environmental regulation. NASA contextualized the motivation in releasing this report as rooted in the exponential growth of the commercial satellite industry, noting that “the number of tracked and untracked debris in LEO is projected to grow . . . even if no new satellites are launched into space, yet launch traffic is likely to increase in the coming decade compared to recent history.” Similarly, in a May 2023 Congressional Budget Office (CBO) report, the CBO argued that the “number of satellites operating in LEO has increased significantly in recent years, driven in large part by commercial [satellite] constellations,” which are networks of identical satellites whose orbits and positions are coordinated to accomplish a given mission, such as providing global broadband internet. [...]