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The May 22nd SpaceX launch of its Dragon capsule atop its Falcon 9 rocket to the International Space Station. This not only opens a new era in commercial spaceflight, it also raises new questions about what laws govern private space companies and what legal obstacles may affect future human space travel.

If commercial space carriers’ shuttling of supplies to the ISS, as with Dragon, evolves into the ferrying of astronauts and other human passengers into space, then a new set of legal issues will emerge. Space law expert Frans von der Dunk says, "
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NASA may return to space after all–but not to explore, to MINE the valuable minerals that are on asteroids, in a NEW TYPE of "Gold Rush." And we may use robots to do the dirty work.

Space scientists think that robots will be the astronauts of the future. They’ll explore the universe, find and identify extraterrestrial life and even clean up space debris in the process. In the April 24th edition of the New York Times, Kenneth Chang writes: "Perhaps it will be a platinum rush that finally opens up the final frontier."
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The most common type of star in the Milky Way is called a red dwarf–these are smaller, cooler, and longer-lived than our sun. There are 160 BILLION of them in our galaxy and 40% of them have Earth-like planets orbiting them at the right distance for liquid water to exist on their surfaces, a condition that is necessary for life.
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The Pentagon is planning to build a spacecraft that can travel outside our solar system on a hundred-year trip, reporting on what it finds along the way. Why would a financially-strapped military pursue such a project–are they searching for hostile ETs?
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