That milestone being that in a mere ten years, a private company began operations and developed a capsule and launch system that has now sent the same reverberations throughout the world as the beginning of the great space race between the United States and the Soviet Union.
The race now, however, is different. This time the race is about free enterprise and while SpaceX is the early starter in this race there are others who are following behind.
The other entrants in the new commercial space race include such notables as Orbital Sciences, Virgin Galactic, Sierra Nevada, Alliant Techsystems and Boeing, which through its various adopted companies, including the former McDonnell Douglas, has been a major player under the former paradigm of government sponsored spaceflight.
The goal in this new environment is not geopolitical competition but rather free market competition.
The current regime of space law developed in the late 1960s to 1970s dealt with the paradigm of government sponsored spaceflight, but did not foresee the advent of commercial actors in the mix.
The looming question is whether the first generation of international space law will be able to accommodate the paradigm of commercial space.
If the first generation of space law is insufficient, can that deficiency be met with a new international treaty specifically addressing commercial spaceflight or will the laws of commercial spaceflight be made by a mix of domestic regulation and customary international law.
Space policy of many nations will also be affected by the new era of commercial spaceflight. While the United States’ National Space Policy specifically includes commercial spaceflight, other space faring nations such as the Russian Federation and the Oppressive People’s Republic of China have yet to fully absorb the impact that commercial spaceflight will have on their space programs and space policies. In particular, China will be most affected by this new paradigm.
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