Popular Science (5/18, Boyle) reports, "The transition away from the shuttle is promising for experimenters, as a new generation of privately built and operated spacecraft is poised to take over." With commercial spaceflight, "scientists will no longer need to apply to NASA to do their experiments" or "join the astronaut corps to get to space in person, a paradigm shift that could make cutting-edge research much more widely accessible." However, "scientists at universities and private research institutions could face some new legal questions," as "tourist spacecraft companies could conceivably craft contracts that ensure a royalty-free license to any new discoveries made on their ships" as well as "royalties if the owner derived any revenues from the invention."
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