On 1 February 2003, the fiery end of space shuttle Columbia, a mere 16 minutes prior to its scheduled landing, underscored the perils of space travel and exploration. This tragedy came just over 17 years after the explosion of space shuttle Challenger, which disintegrated some 73 seconds after lift off on 28 January 1986. In many ways, outer space represents the final frontier for globalization and commercial activities. As the earth's carrying capacity is surpassed with greater population pressures, outer space offers alternative resource supply sources and even habitats for a stressed planet. The main constraint is getting there – it is costly to escape the earth's atmosphere and dangerous to reenter it. Launch cost remains a prime determinant of the economic feasibility for the utilization of outer space and its associated resources.

Global collective action issues abound in outer space. Myriad satellites that ring the globe present various externalities from signal interference to collisions if insufficiently spaced. As large satellites or space laboratories fall back to earth as their orbits deteriorate, these objects pose a hazard to people or property in their debris path. Observation from outer space offers public goods in many forms: monitoring the health of the planet, surveying the earth's resources, warning earth of collision with asteroids and comets, tracking the path of hurricanes, and discovering the origins of the universe. Space observations also allow for a better understanding of the risks and damage to satellites from solar flares. Cooperative research aboard the International Space Station (ISS) can further our understanding of global warming, the dispersion of pollutants, the laws of quantum mechanics, the role of gravity on human physiology, and the physics of combustion.