[Lee Jae-min] The data goes to space. But the law remains murky

A couple of years ago, while driving, I heard a unique Korean song on the radio. It was “Space Travel,” a 1970 track by the twin-sister duo Bunny Girls, composed by the legendary musician Shin Joong-hyun. Yes, it is a song about space travel — all the way back in 1970, right here in Seoul. It beautifully captured the wave of cosmic enthusiasm sparked by the Apollo 11 moon landing just the year before. What grabbed my attention was the singing technique: Instead of performing in unison, the sisters alternated lines, with one mimicking a vocal echo — without any electronic effects or machines — to evoke a sense of floating in space. To my ears, the song indeed nailed that spacey vibe, in purely analogue ways.

This was an era when the United States and the Soviet Union were locked in a fierce space race, ignited by the launch of Sputnik 1 in 1957. It was also a time when the global community set out to design a legal regime for activities in “outer space,” meaning the universe beyond our atmosphere. This momentum culminated in the 1967 Outer Space Treaty, which laid down the foundational rules for the activities in the cosmos. Under this umbrella, other smaller international agreements were subsequently adopted. In those days, space activities were purely governmental; it was just the states and their agencies that designed and participated in space programs. Their main focus was scientific research and exploration.

This government-monopoly and exploration-oriented approach is now shifting rapidly. All of a sudden, private companies are now sitting in the driver’s seat, or at least are sharing the seat. Compared to state agencies, these corporate giants possess comparable, if not superior, financial resources, technological capabilities, and workforce.

Most importantly, private companies have a powerful incentive that their governmental counterparts lack: a burning desire to turn a profit. Because of this, these space entrepreneurs eagerly embrace fast innovation and rapid decision-making. Recognizing this shift, government agencies are now actively teaming up with private entities for their own space programs. The emergence of private players and this tight-knit public-private partnership are now dubbed “New Space.” And Korea is the latest to jump onto this global bandwagon: Media reports are now featuring projects in which the Korean government and municipal firms are collaborating to cultivate new business potential in the New Space era.

The general public is clearly buying into the hype — just look at the massive buzz surrounding SpaceX’s recent, record-breaking $1.8 trillion public debut, driven largely by Starlink’s profitability. With substantial financial opportunities now within reach, entrepreneurial ideas and investor enthusiasm are surging.

And don’t forget the geopolitical side. New Space is also a battlefield for the ever-intensifying US-China rivalry. While American firms like SpaceX, Blue Origin, and Virgin Galactic currently dominate, China is aggressively cultivating its own private commercial aerospace sector to close the gap. Among those active are LandSpace, Space Pioneer, Galactic Energy, Galaxy Aerospace, and Orienspace.

So, what is the latest focal point of New Space? Data centers. The explosive growth of AI demands massive data hubs, but keeping them powered and cooled down here in our own backyard is becoming a nightmare. That’s precisely why the industry is looking up — literally. Hence, space-based data centers are now stepping into the spotlight. Korea isn’t sitting this out, either; orbital data hubs are already a priority agenda item for Korea’s own New Space initiative.

Despite all this enthusiasm, some serious legal issues cloud New Space activities. Remember, back in the 1960s, the regime that regulates outer space simply did not see these commercial trends dominating. When the Outer Space Treaty entered into force in 1967, no one could conceive that the universe would become a commercially lucrative area, or that private companies would set their eyes on it.

Not surprisingly, the treaty adopts principles that are foreign to commercial activities. For instance, outer space is legally regarded as the “common heritage of mankind.” In other words, the whole universe is commonly owned and utilized by the entire human race. Thus, we all have individual shares as one out of 8 billion people. Likewise, no country can own any part of the universe. These are noble principles, but they simply do not fit well with commercial activities by private firms.

So, when data centers in outer space become fully operational, serious questions will quickly emerge, and this “universe-is-all-ours” principle will not be able to answer them. For instance, what if these data centers produce significant commercial profits? What if the data stored up there holds immense financial or strategic value? And what if the data serves as a platform for further business applications? According to the “common heritage” principle, those commercial gains need to be shared with other countries and people one way or another. This notion of common goods obviously goes against the very idea of New Space — namely, the pursuit of private profit and the strategic importance of national data centers. Once profits are generated and commercial gains are on the line, things will easily get complicated, inevitably triggering legal conflicts.

This is yet another area where existing global regimes need updating. While the public marvels at dizzying technological evolution and cheers for ballooning commercial success, fixing or updating the legal framework is an inevitable task once companies actually shoot data centers up into the sky and store data feeds there. In the process, major countries will push for their own versions of a legal template — meaning the competition on earth will now move to outer space.

The pure, analogue echoes of the Bunny Girls’ 1970 track have now evolved into a crowded, high-stakes, digital corporate race.

Lee Jae-min

Lee Jae-min is a professor of law at Seoul National University. The views expressed here are the writer’s own. — Ed.