The European Commission is gearing up to publish the world’s first comprehensive space law.
Not content with regulating fertilizers, cars and cheeses, Brussels is looking to create an EU Space Label it could soon slap on rockets and satellites as part of efforts to force companies to use orbit responsibly.
“With each passing day, space is becoming more like the Wild West, and it’s time to have European rules,” said Christophe Grudler, a member of the European Parliament from France who is leading legislative work on IRIS2, the EU’s answer to SpaceX’s Starlink satellite communications system.
The European Commission is expected propose the world’s first comprehensive space law after Easter.
According to documents seen by POLITICO, the bloc’s diplomats have been briefed on plans to create an EU Space Label that will be used to designate companies that play by the new rules on sustainability and security, much in the same way that the bloc uses eco-labels to certify washing machines or televisions.
Why the snark ? Seems to me like the EU is the only body remotely interested in (and able to) apply any kind of regulation to the largely American corporations that steal your life and rent it back to you.
It really is just about the annoying cookie dialogues. I support most of the work they are doing and I want it to go further. I wanted to see a tracking cookie ban that corporations couldn’t wiggle out from under.
The “Wild West” as commonly perceived was a Hollywood invention. The actual wild west had its fair share of law and order. For instance, the famous shootout the Earp brothers participated in happened because they were enforcing a gun ordinance on no pistols in town.
The EU Space Law will set standards to curb light pollution caused by growing satellite constellations and limit greenhouse gas emissions and pollution caused by rocket launches.
There will also be an effort to tackle the growing amount of debris in space, while making sure that space junk hurtling back to Earth is handled safely.
Seems pretty reasonable.
Damn I didn’t know that the place covered by international maritime legislation was completely lawless
They don’t just need to be regulated, they need to be stopped except for essential things. The new space race is helping to destroy the climate based on studies of the upper atmosphere.
https://www.space.com/rocket-exhaust-pollution-upper-atmosphere
I am absolutely not against things like communications satellites and space probes, but things like Starlink, which require launch after launch and constant replacement as satellites fail, are making the climate worse.
