Space Law in Movies and Series: A Demonstration and Prediction of Its Application and Evolution

Outer space is widely democratized thanks to the movie industry. Every space activity has been discussed on a cinema screen, or on Netflix. Space law is never the main topic of a Hollywood production, but is always present in the background. Studying this background is a good way to be introduced to space law, and even to question today’s space behaviour, how states conduct their activities, and how they interact with each other and their environment. Movies and series on space hazards is a pretty accurate representation of current space and international law. Productions on space activities in development (space stations, exploitation, space war) are great to understand the challenges states and the industry face today. Fiction on future space activities that we are not able to conduct today (finding aliens, colonisation) allow us to imagine how space law will evolve. Finally, as a species, we will have to determine how we want to act in outer space when we will be an interplanetary species.