that they will interact on behalf of their interests in all available international institutions. If the SPS is to emerge as a reality at the end of the present century or in the next. States will have an extended period in which to work out their legal and institutional needs. This is not to say, however, that the legal and institutional issues that are under investigation in this study will be put off to future dates. In fact, positions by States have already been identified on subjects within the scope of this present analysis. Thus, at both the United Nations with its original concern for the definition and/or the delimitation of outer space, with the emphasis on the fixing of a boundary between airspace and outer space, and at the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) with its initial function of allocating radio frequencies so that broadcasters might avoid harmful interferences and its more recent involvement in the allocation of geostationary orbital positions for space objects, there have been contributions to the development of legal regimes. It is even possible that there will be conflicting claims on the part of these two institutions as to the extent of their respective interests and jurisdictions. The question of determining where outer space begins was considered by the Ad Hoc Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space in 1959. It was not until 1967 that this subject was placed on the agenda of the legal subcommittee of COPUOS. Owing to lack of time and more pressing matters it was not considered in any detail until 1977. At the April 1977 session of the subcommittee its chairman redesigned the Committee's focus by entitling the agenda item "Matters relating to the definition and/or delimitation of outer space and outer space activities," U.N. Doc. A/AC.105/196, pp. 1 and 9 (11 April 1977). At the April 1978 meeting of the legal subcommittee the agenda item was again modified. This time it was "Questions relating to the definition and/or delimitation of outer space and outer space activities, also bearing in mind questions relating to the geostationary orbit," U.N. Doc. A/AC.105/218, pp. 3, 9-10 (13 April 1978). The changes in the agenda item designations suggest an enlarged interest within the UN in new space activities, including presumably those associated with the Space Shuttle, and on geostationary orbits, including presumably their use in space telecommunications.
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