Historically, space law has developed as required to resolve the problems of the time. Since space activities have been predominantly governmental activities to date, most space law is public law. In future, as non-governmental activities in space increase, the need for private space law will increase. For reasons discussed below, the prospects for growth of private commercial space activities from the late l990s onwards have recently improved, and it can be anticipated that there will be a corresponding growth of interest in commercial space law.

In the past commercial space law has been a subject of controversy due to the deep political disagreement between the two major spacefaring powers. However, the recent historic geopolitical changes in favour of democratic economic systems should make it easier to reach international agreement on space law designed to facilitate the growth of commercial activities.

Like other major areas of technology experiencing rapid progress, such as information technology, law relating to space is a field requiring close cooperation between lawyers and other specialists, as noted for example in (1). This paper is prepared with this intention. It provides a "techno-commercial" view-point of likely developments of commercial space activities in the coming years, with some thoughts on what subjects may need to be considered by space lawyers, and what technical difficulties may be involved.

• Solar Power Satellites [3]