Overview

Access to space originally became available as a result of programs to develop ballistic missiles and build reconnaissance satellites in support of strategic confrontation between the United States and the Soviet Union. From the outset, however, space technology, like nuclear energy, was recognized as having beneficial as well as destructive applications and as ultimately becoming accessible to many countries. To an extent that is not well appreciated today, the United States used its leadership position in the early decades of the space age to promote informal understandings and formal rules that facilitated desirable uses of space and minimized potential problems.