Unbound: Ethics, Law, Sustainability, and the New Space Race

We are witnessing a new space race. A half century after the last Moon landing, and after a decade during which the United States could not launch its own astronauts to Earth orbit, there is new energy in the space activity. China has huge ambitions to rival or eclipse America as the major space power, and other countries are developing space programs. However, perhaps the greatest excitement attaches to the entrepreneurs who are trying to create a new business model for space travel based initially on tourism, and eventually, on colonizing the Moon and Mars and harvesting resources from asteroids. This paper presents a snapshot of the new space race and the rich men behind it, and it looks at some of the ethical and legal issues raised by this activity. The methodology is to consider the stated ambitions of the men leading private space companies, compare and contrast the space endeavor with earlier episodes of exploration and transportation innovation, review the regulatory environment for outer space, and consider two divergent scenarios for the future. Opinions are divided on whether commercial space flight is an expensive indulgence or potentially a way to find sustainability solutions for our life on Earth. It is concluded that the new space race can be characterized as unbounded: in ambition, in terms of laws and regulations, and in terms of ethical constraints on the activity.

THE ROA LASER STATION: FROM ARTIFICIAL SATELLITES TO SPACE DEBRIS TRACKING

The Royal Observatory of the Spanish Navy (ROA) is specialist in space geodesy since the beginning of the space race. In 1975 a laser station was installed at ROA in collaboration with the French CERGA (Centre de Recherches en Géodynamique et Astrométrie). Since 1980, ROA has operated that station by their own. This equipment routinely tracks artificial satellites equipped with retro-reflectors. In 2014 ROA opened a new field of research: tracking of artificial satellites currently not active and equipped with retroreflectors. This new area was a challenge given the poor orbital accuracies that are available for these objects as they were not tracked on a routine basis. This served as an approach to our final goal: to strictly monitor space debris, this is, any type of uncontrolled man-made orbiting objects. To fulfill the objective, since 2017, we made significant changes to our laser installation. The most important was the replacement of the old laser bench with two new ones. One transmitting 500 mW-pulses, and another laser bench with 25 W transmission power. The study for the installation of the later laser was financed through European Union (EU) H2020 fundings and granted by the Spanish Centre for Industrial Technological Development (CDTI). Although it allows the tracking of collaborative objects, it is ideal for tracking non-collaborative too. Tracking activities begin in November 2017. From then onward, non-collaborative objects are monitored on a regular basis. This work shows the modifications already made, and the results obtained until 2019.

Billionaire space race goes far beyond joyrides

Significance Nine days later, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos (net worth USD208bn) reached 106 kilometres on the New Shepard rocket developed by his space company, Blue Origin. Both say regular rides for paying passengers will commence soon. Impacts At some point a fatal accident is likely; the sooner it happens, the more it will damage the industry. Media coverage of the industry and its founders will fuel resentment over inequality and perceptions of space flight as a useless luxury. Each 'space billionaire' has plans that go beyond space tourism and that will have greater commercial and strategic impact.

Outer space and the idea of the global commons

Drawing upon fresh archival research and participant observation, the author traces the emergence and transformative idea of the non-weaponized and peaceful use of space from the 1920s to today. Building on this, the case study questions much of the common wisdom surrounding humans’ relationship with space over the past century. Although the beginnings of the Space Age are usually thought to have closely coincided with the Space Race beginning in 1955, the paper goes further back to the Spaceflight Movement of the 1920s and 30s, tracing the emergence of the idea of space as part of the global commons. This societal-level movement was highly transnational and collaborative in nature, and pushed for the achievement of human spaceflight decades before the technology existed, at the same time advocating for space as a peaceful domain for all of humankind. Using a new approach that also provides the basic ontological assumption for Model 3 of the special issue framework, the author argues that the impetus to engage in space exploration was fundamentally ‘ultrasocial’, defined as a human predisposition to be other-regarding, empathic, and inclined toward seeking wide-scale cooperation, even among strangers.

Space Agency - Medien und Poetiken des Weltraums

Die mediale Inszenierung der Raumfahrt erlebt eine neue Blüte - in den Sozialen Medien ebenso wie in der Berichterstattung sowie in Genrefilmen und -serien. Dieser Band reflektiert und diskutiert die Entwicklung vor dem Hintergrund der historischen Referenzepoche des klassischen Space Race kritisch. Die Beiträge stellen hierzu die Bildlichkeit und Medialität dieser Konjunktur in den Vordergrund, um die Felder der Unterhaltungsindustrie, der politischen und gesellschaftlichen Kommunikation sowie der Naturwissenschaften und Geschichtsschreibung in eine transdisziplinäre Perspektive zu rücken.