Law Commons^™

The Right Stuff In Geospace: Using Mutual Coercion To Avoid An Inevitable Prison For Humanity, Sarah Louise Vollmer

St. Mary's Law Journal

Even though you cannot see it, catastrophe is brewing in near-Earth orbit. As a product of the Cold War, the legal regime governing geospace and beyond has presented mankind with a paradox. Though we are free to utilize space through peaceful means, the inability to appropriate space by any sovereign claim of right has triggered a modern-day tragedy of the commons, with the only restriction being the constraints of radio frequency interference. The destructive domino effect of space debris collisions threatens the invaluable communicative and scientific utility derived from satellites in geospace. International and domestic space jurisprudence encourage space debris …