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US Commercial Space Legislation and Policies, Present and Future

The purpose of this article is to update the general presentation of US space laws and regulations that we presented in the June 2002 issue of this journal. This article is a commentary on the current state of the US space business from a regulatory standpoint. It successively introduces bills that have been enacted during the second half of the 107th Congress and new bills that are currently being discussed during the first Session of the 108th Congress. It also briefly introduces amendments that have been brought by the FCC to its current regulatory framework with regard to space applications. This article concludes that the US lawmakers and regulators are (i) taking steps to encourage the involvement of small private investors in the financing of space projects; (ii) formally integrating outer space into the US military and; (iii)placing US foreign policy in total control of the evolution of the use of outer space for defense purposes.