01 April 2024
Astrotopia. The Dangerous Religion of the Corporate Space Race
... a niche subject, subsumed beneath the overarching reach of ‘aerospace’, sometimes confused with astronomy and often linked to science fiction. But you know that your subject has become prime-time when a professor of ‘religion and...
July 2014
A revitalised space sector reduces costs and makes space data more accessible
... are natural explorers, and space has always played to the human imagination; look at the long tradition of science fiction literature. The launch of the first artificial Earth satellite, followed four years later by the first man...
March 2015
On-orbit satellite servicing, insurance and lessons of Palapa B2 and Westar 6
...do much more. With the advancement of robotics, in particular medical robotics, technologies that used to be found only in science fiction may soon become a reality in the space industry. The US Defence Advanced Research Projects Agency has a program...
March 2016
Mining outer space may be cool but is it legal?
In November 2015 the United States, passed the US Commercial Space Launch Competitiveness Act (HR 2262), which includes Title IV - ‘Space Resource Exploration and Utilization’. Section 402 adds Section 51303 to the US space law code. A United States...
March 2016
Space industrialisation needs balanced legal and policy approach
... effort is underway in the United States to begin using space in ways that have heretofore been the stuff of science fiction. Whatever the immediate ramifications of the new law may be, one thing is nearly certain - that these issues...
August 2016
Exploring the problems of criminal justice in space
...; who should be assigned as the investigatory authority and who should administer any resulting punishment? Whilst popular science fiction tends to give unlimited authority to the mission commander, this is problematic for two reasons. The first...
