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This paper demonstrates the explanatory value of using Gramscian concepts to explain outer space politics. It establishes a framework for understanding periods of change within the outer space development regime in terms of three epochs. The power politics intertwined with causing these changes are linked to the ascendance of free market neoliberal dominance over time and across different epochs. U.S. law has been used by political and economic elites to commercialize and privatize space technologies in order to encourage the growth of satellite telecommunications, remote sensing, space launch and transportation services, space stations and spaceports. Historical and ideological blocs are hidden sources of power which have served to maintain a pattern of dominance and the international political economy. Institutions have ushered in the consent for these trends. There is a myriad of new space laws and policies being created in rapid succession for the encouragement of private-sector participation in a newly proposed free market approach to outer space development. This paper argues that a Gramscian analysis provides a more adequate explanatory framework than the mainstream theories of realism or neoliberal institutionalism to elucidate current outer space politics. It takes into account the dominance of free market ideology, capitalism and U.S. power, in the Post Cold War era. This analysis reveals how U.S. power and globalization processes have impacted the outer space development regime and how this will continue to shape space law and international institutions as humankind ventures into the final frontier. ..PAT.-Conference Proceeding [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]