Space Sovereignty — incident
Commercial Space Launch Act
Washington codifies a launch-licensing regime that any non-US payload must navigate. The framing is safety; the practical effect is a permissioning system over who gets to fly American rockets.
The US Commercial Space Launch Act of 1984 establishes a federal licensing regime for commercial launches and creates what is now the FAA's Office of Commercial Space Transportation. The framing is "safety and certainty for industry".
The practical effect is that any non-American payload riding an American rocket — or any American rocket exporting any flight — passes through a Washington permission slip that other agencies can pull at will. The Act becomes the template that every other launching state subsequently adapts, and the political logic that justifies a generation of launch-related export controls.