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Gravity and this image from the movie
are property of Warner Bros.
Gravity Grounded
in Space Law
By Joshua B. Beurer
Gravity, Alfonso Cuarón’s multimillion dollar space thriller starring Sandra Bullock and George Clooney, has been one of the year’s most celebrated films. Its seamless blend of intimate storytelling and technical innovation has held audiences all over the world in bated breath, bringing them closer to the reaches of outer space than ever before, all without leaving the safety and comfort of those plushy IMAX seats.
The movie opens with Dr. Stone (Bullock) and her crew working to repair the Hubble Space Telescope when Mission Control in Houston warns the team that a Russian missile has struck a defunct satellite, causing an unanticipated orbit of dangerous debris to tear right through their path. Pieces of broken satellite then proceed to destroy the multi-billion dollar telescope, rendering the crew in mortal peril. Even though I enjoyed the movie, the cynical law student that I have become could not help but wonder - Who is going to have to pay for all of that?
The source of contemporary space law comes from the 1967 Treaty on Principles Governing the Activities of States in the Exploration and Use of Outer Space, including the Moon and Other Celestial Bodies (“The Outer Space Treaty”). All tort liability for activity conducted in outer space is contained within Article VII of The Outer Space Treaty, declaring that a launching state is “internationally liable for damage to another State Party to the Treaty or to its natural or juridical persons.”1 Therefore, a launching state assumes responsibility not only for its own actions, but for private state-sanctioned activity as well.
The Convention on International Liability for Damage Caused by Space Objects (“Liability Convention”), which was ratified in 1972, reaffirmed Article VII of The Outer Space Treaty and defined two categories of potential liability: damage to property on Earth and damage to property in space. The drafters of the Liability Convention were motivated by a need to protect people on the Earth’s surface from falling space objects and assigned a strict liability standard for this first category.2 In regards to damage inflicted upon other space objects, the Liability Convention adopts a more stringent “at fault” standard.
These agreements are nearly fifty years old, and it is clear that the drafters did not anticipate the problem that space debris has become. There are nearly 600,000 objects orbiting the Earth at a velocity with the potential to cause damage.3 If enough debris accumulates, it could eventually become impossible to operate spacecraft through the Earth’s orbit.