Space traffic management: The new comprehensive approach for regulating the use of outer space—Results from the 2006 IAA cosmic study

October 2007 held two anniversaries: 50 years ago, Sputnik was launched and 40 years ago, the Outer Space Treaty entered into force. The first satellite and the foundation of the legal regime governing outer space mark the two decisive points for the use of outer space and its international regulation. During the past decades, space activities have taken a tremendous development in quantity and scope. Regulation has, however, not been able to keep pace with technology, so that today the legal environment shows more and more shortcomings. This paper argues that the growing problems of space law cannot be solved by “piecemeal engineering” any more but can only be overcome through a “big bang” comprehensive approach for regulating space activities: Space traffic management (STM). The debate on this issue has recently been strongly invigorated by the publication of the IAA Cosmic Study on STM. [IAA “Cosmic Study on Space Traffic Management”, Paris 2006, in: edited by C. Contant-Jorgensen (Secretary of the Study Group), P. Lala, K.-U. Schrogl (Coordinators of the Study Group) (Eds.), The Study Group consisted of 16 contributors from numerous countries covering engineering, policy and legal aspects. Download at 〈〈http://iaaweb.org/iaa/Studies/spacetraffic.pdf〉〉[1].]