To Orbit and Beyond Opinion

If humankind is to step beyond earth, it raises the question of how a space faring society will function.

If we are to go to Mars, who has the right to land on this plot of land or that? Are they allowed to claim territory? What happens if places with valuable resources are found, who gets to land there and what is the limit of extracting said resources? How will conflicts between countries, or even companies, be resolved?

It would no doubt be too optimistic to simply trust entities to self-regulate, if they can’t even manage to on Earth – the apparently inherent greed and self-interest always seems to win out.

Despite the enormity of space and foreign planets, us humans have already managed to severely damage our home planet, so we must be extremely careful in what could potentially be even more fragile systems, to ensure they can remain unspoilt.

Some central government based on Earth may be practical while there are only small numbers of humans, say, on Mars, but we begin to run into fundamental constraints of the universe, like the speed of light – it can take up to 20 minutes for a signal to go one-way between Mars and the Earth depending on their relative positions. This would undoubtedly make things like a court case extremely difficult to conduct from the other side of the solar system. So, while it may sound like some fantasy, and if it does ever occur is sure to be in the distant future, we might need some independent Martian government to regulate the happenings of the planet.

Even closer to Earth, in Low Earth Orbit, we already have trouble with regulation. Alarmingly similar to how plastics have proliferated through the seas, despite its vastness, space junk has spread in orbit, with many defunct satellites remaining in orbit, and more alarmingly, many thousands of pieces of smaller waste are whizzing round at several kilometres per second. This situation is not only dangerous as it is, but has the potential to trigger a scenario known as Kessler Syndrome, essentially a domino effect of satellite collisions, creating more and more space debris and in turn, more collisions. This could have the consequence of crippling the many satellite-based systems we rely on, like GPS and communications, and even make it unsafe for human flight out of Earth’s orbit.

Fittingly, just weeks ago, King Charles III released the seal of the Astra Carta, named after the historic Magna Carta, a document which will outline guidelines for sustainable and responsible space exploration, to “care for the infinite wonders of the universe,” or in the King’s words, avoid space becoming another “Wild West.” A key idea is for a unified humanity to explore space, disregarding international tensions or competing interests among separate groups of people. The mandate is yet to be released, but I will be interested to see how they plan to tackle the problems of regulating the impact of humans on the expanse of the universe.

- Alastair Murphy