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The Commercial Space Launch Act of 1984 required encouragement of commercial space ventures, adding a new clause to NASA's mission statement:
Yet one of NASA's early actions was to effectively prevent private space flight through a large amount of regulation. From the beginning, though, this met significant opposition not only by the private sector, but in Congress. In 1962, Congress passed its first law pushing back the prohibition on private involvement in space, the Communications Satellite Act of 1962. While largely focusing on the satellites of its namesake, this was described by both the law's opponents and advocates of private space, as the first step on the road to privatisation.
While launch vehicles were originally bought from private contractors, from the beginning of the Shuttle program until the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster in 1986, NASA attempted to position its shuttle as the sole legal space launch option.
But with the mid-launch explosion/loss of Challenger came the suspension of the government-operated shuttle flights, allowing the formation of a commercial launch industry.
On 4 July 1982, the Reagan administration released National Security Decision Directive Number 42 which officially set its goal to expand United States private-sector investment and involvement in civil space and space-related activities.
On 16 May 1983, the Reagan administration issued  National Security Decision Directive Number 94 encouraging the commercialization of ELV’s, which directed that, "The U.S. Government will license, supervise, and/or regulate U.S. commercial ELV operations only to the extent required to meet its national and international obligations and to ensure public safety."
On 30 October 1984, US President Ronald Reagan signed into law the Commercial Space Launch Act. This enabled an American industry of private operators of expendable launch systems. Prior to the signing of this law, all commercial satellite launches in the United States were restricted by Federal regulation to NASA's Space Shuttle.
On 11 February 1988, the Presidential Directive declared that the government should purchase commercially available space goods and services to the fullest extent feasible and shall not conduct activities with potential commercial applications that preclude or deter Commercial Sector space activities except for national security or public safety reasons.
On 5 November 1990, United States President George H. W. Bush signed into law the Launch Services Purchase Act. The Act, in a complete reversal of the earlier Space Shuttle monopoly, ordered NASA to purchase launch services for its primary payloads from commercial providers whenever such services are required in the course of its activities.
In 1996, the United States government selected Lockheed Martin and Boeing to each develop Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicles (EELV) to compete for launch contracts and provide assured access to space. The government's acquisition strategy relied on the strong commercial viability of both vehicles to lower unit costs. This anticipated market demand did not materialise, but both the Delta IV and Atlas V EELVs remain in active service.
Commercial launches outnumbered government launches at the Eastern Range in 1997.
The Commercial Space Act was passed in 1998 and implements many of the provisions of the Launch Services Purchase Act of 1990.
Nonetheless, until 2004 NASA kept private space flight effectively illegal. But that year, the Commercial Space Launch Amendments Act of 2004 required that NASA and the Federal Aviation Administration legalise private space flight.
The 2004 Act also specified a "learning period" which restricted the ability of the FAA to enact regulations regarding the safety of people who might actually fly on commercial spacecraft through 2012, ostensibly because spaceflight participants would share the risk of flight through informed consent procedures of human spaceflight risks, while requiring the launch provider to be legally liable for potential losses to uninvolved persons and structures.
To the end of 2014, commercial passenger flights in space has remained effectively illegal, as the FAA has refused to give a commercial operator's license to any private space company.
The United States updated US commercial space legislation with the passage of the SPACE Act of 2015 in November 2015.
The full name of the act is Spurring Private Aerospace Competitiveness and Entrepreneurship Act of 2015
The update US law explicitly allows "US citizens to engage in the commercial exploration and exploitation of 'space resources' [including... water and minerals]". The right does not extend to biological life, so anything that is alive may not be exploited commercially. The Act further asserts that "the United States does not [(by this Act)] assert sovereignty, or sovereign or exclusive rights or jurisdiction over, or the ownership of, any celestial body".
The SPACE Act includes the extension of indemnification of US launch providers for extraordinary catastrophic  third-party losses of a failed launch through 2025, while the previous indemnification law was scheduled to expire in 2016. The Act also extends, through 2025, the "learning period" restrictions which limit the ability of the FAA to enact regulations regarding the safety of spaceflight participants.
Indemnification for extraordinary third-party losses has, as of 2015, been a component of US space law for over 25 years, and during this time, "has never been invoked in any commercial launch mishap".