Shane Chaddha

This paper examines the regulatory instruments enacted to provide an acceptable level of safety to potential passengers, whether serving as crew member or a person from the general public privately paying for the journey, and ensure that individuals on board are aware of the risk associated with the launch, orbit and return of commercially manned space flights. The article focuses on the CSLAA and the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration’s (FAA’s) promulgated rules, which aim at creating standards which evolve as the spaceflight market matures ‘so that regulations [does not] … expose crew or space flight participants to avoidable risks as the public comes to expect greater safety for crew and space flight participants from the industry’ . In the hope of achieving this statutory purpose, the legislative framework incorporates a three-limb “risk management strategy” before granting a license authorising a commercial space operator to lawfully launch the space vehicle. Such a risk-control approach consists of an ‘informed risk and consent regime’; a ‘cross-wavier of claims and indemnification regime’; and an ‘engineering regime’. This article then concludes whether Congress’ aim to provide a ‘clear, legal, regulatory and safe regime’ is achieved through this “risk management strategy”.