This year marks the fiftieth anniversary of the first on-orbit fragmentation. It was on June 29, 1961 that a U.S. Ablestar upper stage exploded into some 300 large pieces, adding to the then official record of the total orbital debris population of only 54 fragments. Following this event and...

This article is the third and final installment of the ‘Hardinian Collection’. The first series – “A Tragedy of the Space Commons?” – formulated a theoretical framework with Garret Hardin’s works to create an analogue of the outer space environment being a common-pool resource and...

Space debris has been and still remains a growing threat for the international space community. As a source of pollution, orbiting debris adversely damages the space environment. There is an increased risk of additional debris being generated by colliding with space objects, and such fragments...

Private enterprises offering commercial human spaceflights to the public and government agencies on a flexible and regular basis are forthcoming. An unavoidable issue which shall challenge every commercial actor and must reasonably be discharge is the safety and reliability of their space...

Comments that the US commercial space sector is well-developed, successful and economically sustainable. The US government has laid down a space infrastructure which has allowed the country to enjoy the benefits of such a highly competitive industry. Argues that there are six galvanising factors...

Before 2009, the literature on space law simply alleged that the growing population of space debris congesting near-Earth orbits is analogous to Garrett Hardin’s ‘Tragedy of the Commons’. These works, however, failed to illustrate how, if at all, the metaphorical model fits the actual...