Law Commons^™

Is Statutory Immunity For Spaceflight Operators Good Enough?, Maria-Vittoria “Giugi” Carminati

Legislation and Policy Brief

Over the past decade, the commercial spaceflight industry has seen a growth never witnessed before. The likes of Virgin Galactic and Xcor are promising suborbital flights to anyone willing to pay the price. Golden Spike is selling tickets to the moon. And SpaceX was re-supplying the ISS as a commercial provider as of 2012. States have responded to this growth by trying to make themselves more attractive to these commercial providers of space services (hereinafter generally referred to as “spaceflight entities”). Attractiveness has become synonymous with overt efforts to decrease spaceflight entities’ liability from injuries to their spaceflight participants (“SFPs”). …