Space law
Introductory remarks
The presentation of today is on Ufora but it’s not complete, the pictures are not always
included. Space is different from air law, you must have some knowledge about physics,
but it will be kept simple, formulas will be written on the board, but you don’t need to
know them all. Some space lawyers invent some cases, but this will never happen because
it’s contrary to the law of physics, which is why it’s important to keep this in mind.
Those who followed space activities: over the last five years many things have changed.
Starting the beginning of 2000, but really 2010 changed a lot. A first change is in the launch
sector, so a rocket. Recently, this was a business of international organizations or space
agencies, such as NASA. First change in the launch sector was when NASA built rockets
for the dragon capsule, a capsule with astronauts on board and that flies to the
international space station. You will receive the written text on Ufora, the syllabus! Most
of it will be in there. You can use this to study. When NASA invited the private sector to
build a rocket for the dragon capsule to be attached to the international space station with
astronauts, and Elon Musk made (didn’t understand the name) for carrying the capsule to
the space station. That’s a first step. Before that, all the launch activities were carried out
by NASA. After the space shuttle, the accident, we stopped the space shuttle, only Russia
and China had the possibility to bring astronauts in space then. US was convinced the
space shuttle was the best solution but unfortunately after the accident this was not
possible anymore. The space shuttle, from a technological point of view, is very good, but
not for a sustainable flight with people. The error NASA made was to put all the efforts in
space shuttle. Other astronauts depended on Russia then because only they put
astronauts in Space. Also important, the first man in space was Gagarin. He was already
launched in space by Russia by an old technology (didn’t understand the name). The
private sector entered the game of launches, Elon was clever enough to use all technology,
not new technology. The technology from Elon Musk came originally of Ukraine, but now
he bettered the engines. This technology was developed for missiles. Europe developed
(area 5?). Musk decided to do something different, he works with diesel and liquid oxygen.
The fact that these launchers were developed for the dragon capsule is a change but not a
disruptive one. The disruptive change came because we are building smaller and smaller
satellites. The first satellites were until the last 20 years very big, large and heavy, because
the technology was not as advanced as today. F.e. when in European space agency was
developing ISO, we built one building just for the management of the data. This building
was empty once the satellite was launched. The electronic memories have developed so
much. A terabyte needed a large installation, now it’s on your phone. You can increase the
memory a lot now. The same for the satellites: when an earth observation satellite was
orbiting the earth, it could not store all the data. Now you have very small satellites with
a very high resolution. This means that over the last years a lot of small satellites are made
and launched for earth observation, telecommunication and so on. Those small satellites,
no need to have a big launcher, so suddenly there is a market for small launches and that’s
really a disruptive change, it’s a paradigm shift, a totally different change. Prof was
responsible for Galileo, the European GPS. Today, small companies are able to build
something that only the space agency could build 20 years ago. those are paradigm shifts.
It's important that in the past everything was public sector, such as NASA, meaning that
1
,space law was public law and there was only a little bit of domestic law, international
public law. today things are changing enormously.
The first point we’ll see is the concise history of space activities, also why space law was
mainly public law and what has been changing. The second point is the importance of
space activities in our daily lives. We use space systems on a daily basis. Why do we need
space law? delimitation of outer space, you’ve learned with Mia Wouters that air space is
regulated by sovereign rights of states. This dates back from the beginning of the 20th
century. At the time, outer space, the notion of it, didn’t exist. There must be a limit
between air space and outer space and that discussion is for chapter three. The last point
is the characterization of outer space. It’s a totally different environment.
2
,Chapter 1: Concise history of space activities and importance of space activities in our daily
life
The history: the space activities started thanks to a book of Jules Verne (1828-1905), he
wrote the book “From the Earth to the Moon” and the book “Around the Moon”. Before
that, there were many other books written. In the second book, see slides for an extract.
He talks about how to go there, what would happen, what are the laws of physics, and
there’s a formula and that’s reality, it’s correct. The difference with the other publications
is that this is based on something which is sound from a physics pint of view. That’s why
so many people, youngsters, were inspired by space and wanted to know more about it.
the moon plays an important role in space activities.
It has been said, “If God wanted man to fly, He would have given man wings.” Today we
can say, “If God wanted man to become a spacefaring species, He would have given man a
moon.” Benemunde (?) was an important place in Germany where rockets were built. The
quote is true, because of the moon would not exist, we wouldn’t talk about how life on
earth is today because it has a special effect. Imagine the moon doesn’t exist but we start
space activities, it’s doubtful we would have men flights. The moon is so close to us, those
engineers were immediately dreaming of going to the moon. Once you’d be able to send a
satellite around the earth and then to the moon, is not so complex. In 1969 the first man
was on the moon. The moon, you’ll find in China the moon missions are called after a
princess in mythology who gave elixir of immortality to someone, so she had to go to the
moon and stay there forever. Many missions today in China are called after her. Prof. is
writing a book on the moon, based on mythology, paintings, poetry etc. for example, Van
Gogh “The Night”. If we have any poems on the moon, send it to Prof, also things about
mythology and religion etc. If we go to the moon, we need to respect it. we need respect
for this space object.
Tsiolkovskiy was inspired by the book of Verne so he started to work on the physics of
rockets, he wrote this in a letter of 1911: “Humanity will not remain on the Earth forever,
but in the pursuit of light and space will at first timidly penetrate beyond the limits of the
atmosphere, and then will conquer all the space around the Sun.” Important with him is
that he wrote the first equations for rockets. Those are still valid today. He never built
something; it was only theory. Just to show you how the book of Verne inspired people to
develop the basics of the theory.
Plane v. rocket: in the beginning of the 20th century some engineers build some rockets.
The real break came thanks to the second world war, many new technologies were
developed. Germany has developed two weapons, called Vergeltingswaffe 1 and
Vergeltunswaffe 2. The first one is not a rocket; it was a catapult (see slides for pictures).
The engine pushes the V1 into flight. The flight is around 500 km per hour, so you could
hear it, and it was possible that planes went and pushed them aside to be derived from
their target. The second one, V2, was a rocket. The speed there was higher than the speed
from sound and therefore you could not hear it. The V2 is really the breakthrough for
launches, and all those engineers were in Germany when the Soviet Union came to
Germany and lots of the engineers fled to the American side. In Russia, most of the
launchers which were built just after the war, most of them were Germans. In Europe, the
main engineers were Germans. They had such an advanced knowledge in Benemunde,
that almost everything stems from those activities in the second world war in Germany.
3
, Then reality, the Soviet Union launches on 4 October 1957 the first artificial satellite
known as Sputnik. It is composed of a spherical construction with a diameter of 58 cm
provided with four antennas. If you have seen the flight of astronauts going up with a
capsule. What happens, it’s a rocket. This is a capsule, it goes up, the capsule gets detached,
and the other part goes back. It’s simple, you go up and then you come back on earth. But
that is not sufficient to put something in orbit. The attempt for the first artificial satellites,
all the American attempts didn’t work out. What’s the problem: you need to go up, but
then you need to have a speed which is sufficient to stay in orbit and to not fall back on
earth, and you’ll need 22 000 km/h. that’s the difficulty. It’s not just going up, because
that’s simple, but changing the direction and accelerating is the hard part. Only then, you’ll
satellite will turn around the earth.
From then on: we are in the middle of the cold war, you have two blocks, nuclear weapons
are in full development. Some were dreaming of putting nuclear weapons around the
earth for it to be easier to get ot the Soviet Union.
Timeline:
Sputnik two came only a month later, with a dog aboard, to see if he would survive the
acceleration, which he survived. First launch to the moon came quicky, in 1959 already,
just to see if it would be possible to go to the moon. 1961 was a shock for the US.
4
