This article is written by Vividh Jain, a student of the Institute of Law, NIRMA University. In this article, the author explores the legality behind the roadster launched by Elon Musk’s company, SpaceX in space.
Table of Contents
Introduction
SpaceX, the billionaire Elon Musk’s privately owned aerospace company, launched 23-story tall aerospace, known as the Falcon Heavy, into space in February 2018. A sleek, cherry red Tesla roadster was fitted onto the second stage of the vehicle. The rocket and the Roadster were launched at Cape Canaveral, Florida from Kennedy Space Center and are expected to finally hit Mars after reaching orbit around the sun. This achievement was revolutionary, not only because it involved a car hurtling into outer space, but also because it was a commercial spaceflight corporation rather than a national government agency that was funding the construction of the most powerful rocket in the world. This is the first known example of a private person building the most powerful practical rocket in the world and sending its own private sports car into orbit.
Clarification by SpaceX on this launch
Musk initially says: “He planned to send the car to the orbit of Mars, which could raise concerns about the protection of planets.” That is the concept of preventing worlds from being contaminated with Earth’s life in our Solar System. Honoring planetary protection is an issue of international law, as mandated by the Outer Space Treaty — a 50-year-old document that sets out regulations for what countries can and can not do in the space world. And in the end, the United States is responsible for adhering to the treaty by the United States commercial space companies. However, the Tesla Roadster doesn’t really go to Mars, so SpaceX won’t violate any international space law; instead, the car would be delivered near where the orbit of Mars comes around the Sun, about 141 million miles above the earth, and then will leave to travel in space forever. SpaceX should be fine, as long as the Roadster does not interfere with Mars.
It would be a different matter if SpaceX needed the Roadster to undertake a particular task, such as flying on Mars or an asteroid. Such a project will collapse through a peculiar regulatory gap that plagues the United States government for some time now. Over the past 50 years, the US has been effectively monitoring the deployment and registration of commercial satellites in orbit around the Earth, but there is actually no regulatory mechanism over regulating what are called “non-traditional” commercial space flights. These include things like trying to send a rover to the lunar surface or throwing it into the orbit or just sending the vehicle to Mars.
Competition in the field of space exploration
If it comes to space exploration competition, the majority of people think about the post-Cold War Space Race between the US and the Soviet Union. By the beginning of the 1950s, people all over the world were watching closely to see which country would lead the other to the final outer space frontier. Although the United States had dominated the race successfully by putting the first man on the moon in 1969, the enthusiasm of the public in space exploration gradually waned. By the beginning of the 21st century, though, a group of private companies joined the space exploration arena and began vying among themselves to be the organization that revolutionizes space travel.
The privatization of space exploration and sudden increment in the competition will inevitably lead to more rapid technology development at lower costs. This exponential expansion, however, also means our existing space law structure will quickly become obsolete and struggle to fulfill the regulatory needs of a newly privatized industry. The Treaty on Outer Space, an agreement formed by the United Nations in 1967, establishes a mechanism for regulating the common use of outer space. It was based on other maritime operations and Antarctica discovery treaties, which aimed to minimize any threats that may follow the research of new frontiers.
Under the Convention, any harm done by any object released into space, launched from any nation’s territories, the nation is liable to all the states worldwide, even though the space object was controlled by a private individual. While this policy leads to a clear delineation of state liability, that doesn’t seem like a fair or feasible solution to impose liability on a country solely because it allows a corporation to launch any object into space. Holding a government responsible for its own outer space activities is vastly different from holding a nation responsible for a private entity’s actions. Further issues emerge as certain day businesses promote space travel for private entities who may be conducting activities while in space that leads to injury.
The Outer Space Treaty, 1967
The Outer Space Treaty, 1967 is the basic document that will be studied. Virtually every spacefaring nation, including the United States, generally agrees with its provisions. Much of the UN leaders were not space-faring and some countries decided to retain potential space travel possibilities. The Outer Space Treaty, 1967 claims that outer space is “safe for all states to touch and use, on the grounds of dignity and in compliance with international law.” For this mission, SpaceX may not have been exploring deep space but it is now doing it. We ought to continue the investigation as to whether it’s in line with international law or not.
Article II of the Outer Space Treaty, 1967 notes that outer space “is not, by right of sovereignty, by use or occupation, or by any other means, subject to national appropriation.” SpaceX’s CEO, Elon Musk does not have any right to use the space in any way. His roadster is already zooming around space and maybe moving on for millions of years, which eventually points out debate on another burning topic.
Article IX of the Outer Space Treaty, 1967 places an obligation on States Parties to ‘execute all their outer space operations’ with reasonable respect for the relevant concerns of all other States Parties to the Treaty. Something about the company SpaceX’s Tesla is zooming into the orbit of the Red Planet around 0.25 billion kilometers from the sun appears to harm the rights of other spacefarers, after all, it is not a widely utilized or busy orbital line, and because there is no one else out there, it does not infringe anybody’s rights. Article IX, therefore, allows States undertaking explorations in outer space and celestial bodies “to prevent their adverse pollution.” Unless SpaceX were to smash into Europa, a Jupiter satellite that could have subsurface water, the determination will be specific. Yet, according to Musk himself, he believes Tesla to be “infinitely” orbiting the earth in space, to be discovered in the future by an “alien race millions of years”.
The big challenges
One of the major problems is how the government is saying yes to a lot of these fresh, creative space operations in the private sector. For a bit, the process of launching satellites was more or less automated. Organizations wishing to deliver a payload must register with the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) for a license to use any of the radio spectra to communicate with the spacecraft. They also have to apply for a launch license from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), which means the project does not inflict collateral harm on the ground or pose a risk to the public.
Yet where a mission requires more than simply deploying rockets, this is when businesses enter more of a situation in the Wild West. There is no mechanism for monitoring the activities of a corporation in space; if a spacecraft is launched into orbit by a rocket, it is where federal authority stops. This is starting to turn into a challenge when space firms are planning more ambitious flights. The US government wants a way to ensure that once in space, corporations don’t get the country in trouble by breaking the Outer Space Treaty. So the safety of planets is certainly a problem because more businesses are dreaming about sending astronauts to the Moon or Mars. The treaty states that countries will discover other worlds and “commit their research to prevent adverse pollution of them.”
NASA is currently adhering to the stringent rules for planetary security laid out by an international body named COSPAR, which specifies how astronauts will be treated based on where they are headed. Earth is teeming with pathogens that would quickly hitchhike on spacecraft so if we contaminate another planet of the solar system with our own bacterias, it’s going to be impossible to research the distant world in its pristine state. Therefore, there are essential guidelines to obey for any spacecraft going to a location that could support life, such as Mars. COSPAR regulations state rockets that carry astronauts to Mars will have a chance of reaching the planet by less than one in 10,000. Yet Mars orbiters should not stick to stringent maintenance criteria, as long as there is a 99% risk of missing Mars in 20 years, and a 95% risk of missing the planet in 50 years.
However, if SpaceX tried to do something with the Roadster, then it might end up in some frustration. Such a situation occurred last year when Moon Express, a private US spaceflight firm, received clearance for sending the potential lunar lander to the Moon. The corporation worried that the State Department would step in and stop the launch; there was no way for the government to make sure that once on the Moon, Moon Express would follow the rules. But as a short-term option, Moon Express gave all the specifics of how the organization would meet with the Outer Space Treaties to the State Department on a voluntary basis. It is likely that SpaceX will do something similar.
Oddly enough, the forthcoming Falcon Heavy test flight will soon illustrate the need for a regulatory system. SpaceX wasn’t shy about its deep space aspirations, so once the Falcon Heavy is up, the company’s intentions for the rocket outside launching cars are much better. SpaceX, for example, plans to take two visitors across the Moon as early as next year (although there hasn’t been any reporting on that). And SpaceX has even bigger ambitions to develop the next Big Falcon Rocket (BFG), that could carry people to the Moon and Mars surface someday. Before the launch of the Falcon Heavy, SpaceX’s CEO, Elon Musk, said there was “an exceedingly small” risk that the rocket might reach Mars. While the probability of this happening is virtually zero, we will also cross our fingers and pray this Starman and his Roadster will not cross paths with any litigation-happy alien beings on their trip.
Conclusion
Starman’s SpaceX flight, driving a cherry red, updated Tesla Roadster on the Falcon Heavy is incredibly awesome, an amazing technical achievement, and my hat goes off to all the people who have made it happen. So, if diplomatic policy continues to do the reverse, there will be more releases like this in the future from more people. On the one side, the first Roadster (or the first disco ball visible also with the naked eye) shot into space may be perceived as a fun ad stunt which encourages people from time to time to look up from their phones. The enhanced public interest in space operations is one of the strongest results of the Starman mission. The launch prompted a fire of enthusiasm to rush through a population that historically had little if any, a flickering interest. Whether it was the tenth roadster or the 100th disco ball, will we feel special though? When we mutually wish to send tons of beautiful, shiny items (or Twinkies) into orbit, no more intervention is required. On the other hand, maybe such behaviours would not be allowed, if not specifically banned by the statute.
References
- https://blog.harvardlawreview.org/elon-musks-starman-is-it-really-legal-for-billionaires-to-launch-their-roadsters-into-space/
- https://www.theverge.com/2017/12/9/16742136/spacex-elon-musk-tesla-roadster-falcon-heavy-mars-international-space-law
- https://jolt.richmond.edu/2018/03/15/how-private-spaceflight-may-collide-with-space-law/
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