By: Alex S. Li*
Abstract
With both commercial and governmental activities heating up in Outer Space, the need to maintain a safe and stable environment for all types of human activities grows. While current international laws for this sector seek to reduce risks by encouraging cooperation among different entities, these legal regimes have several shortcomings that limit their effectiveness. With Outer Space becoming more populated, other solutions that can improve the safety and long-term availability of this sector must be implemented. This Article attempts to address this need by encouraging the application of open standards with open source components for certain critical Outer Space technologies. Specifically, this Article argues that these tools can incentivize the widespread standardization of critical life-saving technologies that can make Outer Space safer and more viable for all.
*In-house counsel by day, Outer Space blogger at #TheSpaceBar® (www.thespacebar.space) by night. 2014–2015 law clerk to the Honorable Robert E. Bacharach of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit; Gunderson Dettmer, Latham, and PwC alumnus. UC Berkeley School of Law, J.D., Order of the Coif, 2014; Duke University, B.S.E., 2009. I am extremely grateful to the talented editors of the Penn State Law Review for their diligent hard work. Thank you to the Gunderson Dettmer IP team— especially Colin Chapman, Shu Hu, Julie Mahoney, Brendan McCarthy, and Tom Villeneuve—for teaching me the legal side of open source and the Teradata open source team—especially Aliya Ashraf, Kirk Johnsen, and Mark Kackstetter—for keeping me up- to-date on the latest open source news. I would also like to give a warm shout out to my parents for all their support throughout the years. And to everyone who has cosmic dreams, thank you for sharing this galaxy with me.