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Say, Mars Society (or another group) gets funding from someone, build a lander...
Can they launch it under their own 'ownership' or do they have to buy some licence or so?
I'm thinking about a similar situation on Earth: boats.
They are owned by companies, but have to go under a flag. For registration etc...
Is that also compulsory with landers, probes etc... Transorbit (or what's it's name) comes to mind, the guys that want to launch a privately built (owned) probe to the Moon... How much legalese and money-in-pocket-stuffing does that actually recuire?
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I ran accross this webpage that might be insightful:
[http://www.spacefuture.com/habitat/law.shtml]Space law
Also from [http://www.spacefuture.com/archive/the_ … tion.shtml]here this should answer your question:
" ... activities in both the atmosphere and space are governed today by a complex regulatory framework which does not permit commercial passenger flights. For example, under existing space law the government is liable for damage caused by all launches from their territory."
Basically, it appears that you need permission from the country that you are operating from.
-- memento mori
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Thx, DanielCook! (I was thinking about unmanned, but the first link you gave was good enough... or bad enough, depends what you want reality to be, heh)
So, basically, we have to wait for LunaCorp or Celestis winning their case... I think they will, big other businesses will probably foot the bill for lawyers to make a positive precedent..
Wait wait wait.
Private space exploration seems to be 99% waiting for the law to get its act together, 1% doing things...
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