Space race 2.0 - It's about the law

You don't need a rocket to see that we're in a race again.

But Space Race 2.0 does not look like 1969. There are no superpower speeches about planting flags. No televised countdowns framed as existential contests between political systems. This time, the competition is quieter, more layered and far more legally sophisticated.

Militarization in space is not new. Satellites have long supported terrestrial military operations. What is new is the strategic use of law itself as an instrument of competition. If the original space race was about who could get there first, Space Race 2.0 is about who gets to define what "there" means.

That is lawfare.

Lawfare in the space context is not simply litigation or regulatory maneuvering. It is the deliberate use of legal interpretations, institutions and normative processes to secure strategic advantage. It is about shaping the rules before infrastructure hardens and practice crystallizes into custom. It is about deciding how key treaty terms are understood in operational contexts the drafters of the regime put in place in 1967 could not fully anticipate.

At the center of this contest is the Outer Space Treaty.

The Treaty remains elegant and spare. Article I declares that the exploration and use of outer space are the "province of all [hu]mankind." Article II prohibits national appropriation. Article VI places responsibility for national activities, including those of private actors, squarely on States. Article IX requires due regard and consultation in cases of potentially harmful interference.

Those phrases are not self-executing. They are interpretive battlegrounds.

What does "province of all humankind" mean in a world of commercial lunar extraction? What constitutes "appropriation" when resources are removed and sold? What is "due regard" when multiple landers operate within kilometers of one another on the lunar south pole? And what rises to the level of "harmful interference" in a domain where plume effects are cumulative and shared?

These questions are not academic. They are being answered right now through national legislation, bilateral arrangements and operational practice.

The Artemis Accords, for example, are framed as political commitments grounded in the Outer Space Treaty. They emphasize interoperability, transparency and the creation of "safety zones" to implement Article IX's due regard obligation. To some, they are pragmatic coordination tools among like-minded States. To others, they are efforts to solidify an interpretation of the Treaty that privileges particular operational models and partnerships.

Meanwhile, China and Russia have advanced the concept of an International Lunar Research Station and pursued parallel norm-building efforts in multilateral forums. They are not rejecting international law. They are contesting its meaning.

That is the hallmark of lawfare. No one is abandoning the legal framework. Everyone is working to shape it.

This matters because law, once embedded in practice, becomes difficult to dislodge. If a particular approach to resource utilization, safety perimeters or data sharing becomes normalized through repeated conduct and acquiescence, it can begin to resemble customary international law. At that point, the race is no longer about who lands first. It is about whose interpretation governs everyone else.

For those of us working to protect human history in space, this dynamic is not abstract.

Historic lunar sites, like Tranquility Base, are fixed. They are fragile. They are already present. And they are among the few lunar assets in which all States share an interest. They are also a test case for whether due regard has operational meaning.

If a State authorizes a private company to land near Tranquility Base, what conditions attach to that license? How are plume effects assessed? Is consultation triggered? Are mitigation measures required? These are not sentimental questions. They are governance questions.

Heritage is the easiest place to agree. No State benefits from erasing the first human landing site or damaging early robotic missions. Because heritage is inert and non-operational, it provides a neutral reference point for working through proximity, cumulative effects and coordination before traffic becomes dense and commercial pressure makes restraint inconvenient.

In that sense, protecting human history and heritage is not peripheral to Space Race 2.0. It is foundational. It forces States to confront how they interpret due regard and harmful interference in concrete terms. It reveals whether "province of all humankind" still carries operational weight once infrastructure and competition arrive in force.

The legal contest extends well beyond the lunar surface.

In orbit, mega-constellations raise questions about spectrum allocation, debris mitigation and equitable access. In cislunar space, traffic management remains largely aspirational. On Earth, domestic licensing regimes are increasingly shaping what responsible behavior looks like in space. Article VI's requirement of authorization and continuing supervision is being operationalized through national law. The State that sets rigorous, transparent and enforceable standards may influence global expectations.

There is also a compliance dimension. Lawfare can exploit asymmetries. A State that faithfully implements transparency and consultation obligations may constrain its own actors, while a competitor adopts narrower interpretations or delays disclosure. The result is not open violation but differential leverage.

And this is where every attorney, not just those who label themselves "space lawyers," has a role.

Space is not remote. It is embedded in daily life. GPS guides ambulances and Uber drivers. Satellites synchronize financial transactions. Weather forecasting, precision agriculture, disaster response and global communications all depend on orbital infrastructure. When you tap your phone, swipe your card or stream a hearing, you are relying on space.

That makes space law infrastructure law.

Commercial lawyers negotiate launch contracts and insurance provisions. Environmental lawyers advise on debris mitigation and planetary protection. National security lawyers assess dual-use technologies and export controls. Administrative lawyers shape licensing frameworks. Litigators will eventually test liability theories when something goes wrong on orbit or on the Moon. Even trusts and estates lawyers will grapple with assets that operate beyond territorial borders.

The interpretive choices being made today will cascade into all of those domains.

If "due regard" becomes a thin procedural formality, congestion and conflict risks increase. If "appropriation" is defined so narrowly that coordination erodes, markets may fragment. If heritage and other shared interests are treated as expendable, we lose not only history but a neutral platform for building trust.

Conversely, if lawyers insist on clarity, transparency and accountability in licensing, contracting and dispute resolution, they help anchor competition within a rules-based framework.

Space Race 2.0 is not about planting flags. It is about planting interpretations.

The power to define what counts as appropriation, what triggers consultation and what satisfies due regard is the power to structure markets, alliances and access. It is the power to determine whether space becomes a platform for shared progress or a patchwork of legally fortified enclaves.

The engineers will build the landers. The entrepreneurs will raise the capital. The diplomats will negotiate communiqués. But it is lawyers who translate broad principles into operational constraints, who draft the licenses, interpret the treaty language and allocate risk.

If we get the law wrong now, we will not simply have misread a treaty. We will have shaped a domain that may define humanity's next century on terms we did not fully examine.

If we get it right, competition can remain bounded by shared rules, heritage can anchor expansion and the "province of all humankind" can retain real operational meaning.

The rockets will capture headlines. The real contest is unfolding in footnotes, licensing conditions and the interpretation of a handful of deceptively simple treaty provisions.

That is the race we are running.