Will space become another ‘Tragedy of the Commons’? Jude Franklin Upper Sixth
With four hundred years since the first colony was established in the ‘New World,’ a new frontier of exploration appears to be opening up. With all land on Earth essentially occupied, people are now looking to Space for the next voyage into the unknown. Being conceived during World War II, and turbo-charged during the Cold War, large space programmes of the USA and Soviet Union kick started humans’ presence off Earth. However, moving into the 21st century a new force has arisen in the extra-terrestrial realm. The Private Company. Once deemed impossible, and then only for the world’s largest super powers, space travel may have seemed out of the public’s reach. This idea has come into question over the last ten years, with some of the worlds richest billionaires founding private space companies, working alongside space agencies to put humans into space. The bounds in both mechanical and computer engineering made in recent times has begun to slash costs of leaving Earth. Although now there are only a select few wealthy and inspired enough to take on this massive challenge, in the coming decades it seems inevitable the market for space will explode, and what were once noble feats will descend into an uncontrollable economic free-for-all. The ensuing economic phenomenon that is the commercialisation of space could not only lead to inequality like we’ve never seen, but also what is known as the ‘tragedy of the commons.’
One of the primary reasons space is likely to become a tragedy of the commons is the simple fact that international policy is extremely hard for humans to agree on. Currently we are restricted to just one planet, and it already seems challenging enough, without the prospect of considering the rest of our near solar system. Human nature is greedy. This has driven millennia of territorial wars, colonialism, and perhaps even the space race. However, once we leave the atmosphere, those national boarders should disappear, with our only defining origin being that of Earth. This is the issue that many governments struggle with—working as a whole isn’t in our current nature. Driven by the insatiable appetite for more growth, governments will generally put their economies above all others, not considering that fundamentally we are all a part of a global society. All it takes is a look at the ‘America First’ sentiment pursued by Donald Trump’s government to understand that much of the world is not ready for multilateral agreement on the scale that would be needed for extra-terrestrial inhabitancy. Ultimate cooperation would be needed for humans to effectively find a home, on Mars for example, and the level of compromise needed for such an endeavour seems unlikely. We would need a governing body, similar to that of the UN, where decisions could be agreed upon between all of the member states, in a way that is independent of individual, corporate, or state intervention. At first this doesn’t seem so hard, but when you look at the dismal track record of such agreements on Earth, this feat seems far greater. The
interconnectedness needed seems to be reversing, as there are signs globalisation is slowing down, and even reverting. In an article from the Financial Times, the author states “The contract people thought they had with politicians, governments, institutions, and potentially each other is disintegrating.” This implies that at a time when we finally have the technology to move off Earth and onto the next frontier, our governance couldn’t handle it. There are some potent examples of how, in a time when we consider ourselves to be growing closer, we are actually drifting apart. Of course the key instance is that of the Paris Climate Accord, with Donald Trump announcing his departure soon after his election success. An excellent example of the commons is the atmosphere, as no one state can control it, due to it being fluid and dynamic; actions in one place can lead to huge changes elsewhere. Without the US being apart of the climate accord, the ‘tragedy of the commons’ really becomes obvious. America is one of the worlds biggest polluters, with the fourth highest carbon emissions per capita, at 14.6T/ capita/year of CO2 being released . Their exit from the agreement means untempered climatic degradation is likely to ensue. Trump’s motives behind the move is that being in such an agreement hinders America’s growth; falling just short of calling out the UN for conspiring against him (though I’m sure his Twitter drafts contain such an accusation.) Republicans believe that having to comply with such an agreement is “eroding U.S. sovereignty” and acts to dampen their growth.
[W]hat were once noble feats will descend into an uncontrollable economic freefor-all.
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Although such policies are generally considered to diminish GDP growth, maybe it is a wakeup call to the world that pursuing such a blunt and generic measure can no longer accurately inform us about the health of the economy, and rather ignores the fact that infinite growth in a contained system is practically impossible.
