ABSTRACT
As space has become more commercialized, private actors are growing increasingly numerous and influential. However, states continue to play a central role in governing the space environment. Chapter 6 looks at both state and non-state actors to assess several questions: what capabilities do they have to engage in space conflict? Why might they be discouraged from doing so? And how might private actors act to restrain potentially dangerous state actions? In doing so, the chapter develops a typology of private space actors based on capabilities related to previous categorizations of space states. It concludes with a discussion of the competing interests of the two types of space actors as well as the need for coordination and cooperation among them.
