SGI Combats Threats to Outer Space That Affect Us All

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Space debris is growing exponentially and is a threat to destroy or degrade the systems we depend on  for communication, weather, GPS, position/navigation/timing, financial transactions, national security, and more. There are no internationally binding rules to control it, mitigate it, or clean it up.

In addition to millions of pieces of space debris, Earth's orbital shells are congested with an ever-increasing number of satellites and objects (both active and defunct). Orbital capacity is limited and is at risk of loss or degradation as first movers occupy them with little or no regulation or management.

The space powers (US, China, Russia) and their allies have declared space to be a "warfighting" domain despite treaty obligations to the contrary. National militaries feed billions every year to the military-industrial complex to escalate and dominate each other, and inviting conflict by intention, miscalculation, mistake, or misperception.

Space activities are now driven principally by greed and the desire for domination and control. In philosophical terms, space is a Hobbesian or Machiavellian state of nature where conventional ethics and morality have been displaced by a Nietzshean "will to power."

The governance of space is controlled primarily by three countries: the U.S., China, and Russia. There is no effective international democratic institution that can check these countries' actions, impose binding rules on them, or sanction their unlawful, dangerous, malicious, or negligent behavior.

Powerful, well-resourced nations and corporations are: (1) occupying Earth's orbits with their satellites and space objects and (2) seeking to occupy areas of the Moon, Mars and other celestial bodies to extract and appropriate resources. Both are in violation of a plain reading of the Outer Space Treaty.

Just as previous empires (from ancient Greece and Rome to the later empires of the British, French, Dutch, etc.) dominated the seas and the continents (and their inhabitants), a handful of powerful nations, wealthy corporations, and billionaires now dominate and monopolize space physically, politically, legally, economically, socially, and culturally.

Despite the fact that the Outer Space Treaty emphasizes the exploration and use of space on the basis of equality across all nations, a small number of spacefaring nations essentially control all space launches and resources (satellites, launch services, etc.). They unilaterally determine how the benefits are accessed and distributed, and at what price. This has created extraordinary inequality and inequity.

As the small number of first-mover spacefaring countries occupy prime orbital pathways and seek to occupy celestial bodies (including the Moon, Mars, and asteroids), they will capture, or intend to capture, in-situ resources, including valuable mined substances like water and rare-earth minerals. These exploitations are occurring despite the fact that these nations have no legal claim of ownership of these resources under the Outer Space Treaty.

More and more dangerous debris is reentering the atmosphere and landing near humans and property without any enforceable rules to ensure compliance, safety, and compensation. Liability rules for in-space incidents are nonexistent. Commercial human spaceflight safety rules are essentially nonexistent except for what companies voluntarily decide to provide.

Governments, militaries, and corporations control all the the narratives of space (including the legal interpretations of what is considered lawful and unlawful) by way of their command of, and influence over, political institutions, courts, funding, resources, and job/career opportunities. Their agendas and interests dominate all venues (media, academia, government activities, lobbying, etc.) and any calls for a check on these forces are marginalized, suppressed, and ignored.  

Powerful first-mover spacefaring nations  leverage their political, military, technological, informational, and economic superiority to unilaterally act in space. This creates unequal bargaining power in relations with all other nations. This power is then used to shape bi-lateral agreements and international law to guarantee their sole capture and control of the space domain.