This occurred to me during the discussion of “space junk” and the huge number of satellites private companies are planning to launch - who “governs” space? Who gets to decide priorities between profitable ventures and scientific information instruments in orbit? If the space station and NICER is having trouble because of too much traffic, is there recourse?
I was specifically thinking of this regarding the JWST and the Legrange point, what if the country of Ruritania (a fictional country) decided it wanted to put it’s own telescope there, and SpaceX decided it was going to put a whole bunch of for-profit telescopes there and sell info to scientists, who gets to decide when they all start getting in the way of each other which ones have to go or can’t launch?
In fact, many space junk has caused problems for Astronomers.
Do you know, we also develop technology to protect the earth from asteroid collision? Few months ago, NASA sent a spacecraft to deflect an asteroid, that is really small, still, it was the test of the technology. You can read about it here.
It is created for planetary defense.
Do you know, the USA has a space force to protect the earth from space invasion? Am not sure if other countries have such organizations. I am sure, if a huge asteroid is approaching earth, the whole world will utilize their technologies to deflect this asteroid and prevent a Collison! Small satellites can not destroy the earth, still, those are becoming problems for astronomers.
You can read about the US Space Force here.
Challenges that space law will continue to face in the future are fourfold—spanning across dimensions of domestic compliance, international cooperation, ethics, and the advent of scientific innovations
There seems t be a lot of uncertainty regarding the boundaries or any laws per say, the approach we have right now feels like “lets deal with it when we encounter it”