Commercial Space Exploration

Ethics, Policy and Governance

Jai Galliott

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2016
• ISBN:
  9781317163770
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Politique et relations internationales
• Subtopic: Relations internationales

Not since man set foot on the moon over four decades ago has there been such passion and excitement about space exploration. This enthusiasm and eagerness has been spurred on by the fact that for the first time since the very beginning of the space age, space travel is no longer limited to an elite group of highly trained and well-disciplined military officers and test pilots. Instead, we must understand that the possibility of commercial space travel is already on our horizon and that it comes with a number of significant practical and moral challenges. Our level of scientific development and ability to influence international affairs and policy confers upon us an obligation to study the ethical, legal and social considerations associated with space exploration and understanding the potential consequences from the beginning is critical. This volume provides the first comprehensive and unifying analysis concerning the rise of private space exploration, with a view toward developing policy that may influence real-world decision making. The plethora of questions demanding serious attention - privatisation and commercialisation, the impact on the environment, health futures, risk assessment, responsibility and governance - are directly addressed in this scholarly work.

Chapter 1
Introduction

Jai Galliott

As a fleet of private spacecraft prepare for routine operation, it is becoming ever clearer that the dawn of commercial space flight and exploration is just around the corner, if not already upon us. For the very first time since the beginning of the space age, space transportation and exploration is no longer a strictly government enterprise, nor is it limited to highly trained and well-disciplined military test pilots and rocket scientists. Largely gone are the days of astronauts such as Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin and Yuri Gagarin. With the reinvigoration of the industry, we need to rethink the role of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and its overseas counterparts, such as the Russian Federal Space Agency and the European Space Agency. In fact, we need to rethink the entire Cold War-initiated space program as we have known it to date. We must understand that a new space enterprise is already on our horizon and accompanied by a multitude of moral concerns and challenges that warrant the attention of philosophers, policymakers, industry stakeholders and the general public.

As we have seen with our regular transportation and construction industries, competition and new markets reduce costs and encourage innovation. In much the same way, the commercial space industry seems bound to make it easier to get to space, conduct exploration missions and, potentially, live there. Unwilling to wait for government to lead the way, private enterprise has been quite aggressive in its efforts to introduce regular individuals to space tourism. In 1996, a wealthy entrepreneur offered a $10 million dollar bounty to the first privately financed team that could fly a passenger vehicle into space, fuelling unprecedented competition and investment (XPRIZE Foundation 2014). Sir Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic has garnered the most attention in the news media and ‘twitterverse’ for having already built and tested an orbital vehicle capable of lifting aspiring astronauts into near space, with several hundred people from around the globe now having paid a substantial deposit to secure their place in space, despite the company facing a serious safety probe having encountered a fatal accident (Gannon 2014). However, the commercial space industry extends well beyond space tourism. SpaceX, founded by billionaire Paypal and Tesla Motors co-founder Elon Musk, also made history in 2012 when it became the first private company to secure a contract from NASA and successfully send cargo to the International Space Station. A company by the name of Planetary Resources also has ambitious plans to mine asteroids for rare and valuable minerals that may prove useful in cutting edge medical and engineering applications.

There may also come a day when space exploration and colonisation becomes a necessity rather than a commercial choice. The meteor that struck Chelyabinsk, Russia, in February of 2013 served as an important wake-up call for many and highlighted that we live in a cosmic shooting gallery and are not immune to the damage of stray objects. Not only did a 100-foot wide chunk of the rock discovered only one year earlier pass by and miss us, but one small chunk – estimated to weigh several tonnes and be 50-foot wide – hit the atmosphere with the force of around 440 kilotonnes of TNT and broke up in spectacular fashion, blowing out windows as it broke the sound barrier and lit the sky like a nuclear explosion (NASA 2013). Later that evening, another asteroid was spotted over the San Francisco Bay Area, but caused no known damage. But while NASA detects, tracks and characterises asteroids and comets passing close to Earth using both ground and space-based telescopes, noting those that are dangerous to our planet, the fact is that we live in the midst of large falling rocks and rising seas and the next supposedly harmless falling object may be of cataclysmic size and effect. That is, there may come a day when we need to extend all aspects of living into space, meaning that we would need to work, study, have sex, fight, die, worship, raise children, age, pay taxes, vote and so on in space. Of course, the need to evacuate Earth may not eventuate in our lifetime, but the knowledge we gain from our investigations may assist future generations and also shed light on a range of other ethical challenges that we face here and now, whether they concern matters of property rights and economics or justice and government (Lin 2006).

Space has long been called the ‘final frontier’, but whatever the reasons for going there and whatever we do once we get there – whether it is tourism, mining meteorites or even forming colonies – we must once again take the time to think about our responsibilities as frontiersmen and space pioneers. Our level of scientific development and ability to influence international policy confers upon us an obligation to study the ethical and social considerations associated with next generation space exploration. When we compare space exploration to our conquering of other frontiers, we learn that understanding the potential consequences from the very beginning is critical. When Britain colonised the United States, Australia and its other former realms, it had no plan to deal with their indigenous populations, the introduction of disease or the management of resources. Likewise, when the United States began to embrace the Internet, there was no policy to deal with intellectual property, online sales taxes, cybercrime or domain naming (Lin 2006). In both cases, we are still recovering from the absence of a good plan, but we now have the benefit of hindsight and can begin to apply it in the case of space. The relevant enabling technologies are maturing rapidly and if we are to fulfil our obligations to present and future generations, we must begin to think more seriously about the issues associated with creating a private space industry and possibly sending people to live on far-away planets about which we know very little.

The existing literature on the emerging relationship between government, the aerospace industry and academia is most commonly found in the trade media and often accessed via social networking platforms by those who once dreamed of being an astronaut or are enamoured with the idea of leaving Earth and taking up residence in outer space. This is no bad thing, but more serious discussion is starting to take place, with stakeholder meetings and conferences taking place more frequently as we approach the more critical stages of mission planning and operations, but the proceedings are rarely disseminated to the wider public in a digestible but scholarly form. This presents a major problem for those who wish to question whether the assertions made about the effectiveness and efficiency of the novel relationship between government and private enterprise are supported by rigorous and sufficiently holistic analysis. The risk is that in attempting to meet tight deadlines and critical engineering milestones, philosophers and policy experts raising what might be considered to be ‘abstract’ matters may not always be given an appropriate place at the roundtable to discuss the important questions that face this burgeoning industry.

The aim of this collection is to provide the first comprehensive and unifying analysis of the moral and politico-social matters concerning twenty-first-century space exploration, with a view toward developing policy that may influence real-world decision-making. Upon close consideration, there is a plethora of old questions that need to be revisited and many new ones that demand urgent attention. This book addresses what are arguably the most important of them. The first section establishes some of the relevant terms and examines a number of justifications for and against space exploration and colonisation. More specifically, in Chapter 2, Nicholas Campion provides a thorough survey of the philosophical concept of space as it pertains to wisdom and morality in western debate and theories and practices from China, India, Africa and the Americas. In doing so, he provides a valuable historical background for current debates on ethics and space, most notably those found in this book. In Chapter 3, Brent Franklin takes a very unique approach in arguing for the moral permissibility of multi-million dollar efforts aimed at finding and establishing contact with intelligent extraterrestrial life on other planets, so long as proper restrictions and precautions are implemented to respect the culture and autonomy of others. In Chapter 4, Elizabeth Kanon provides a reasoned justification for diverting funds and resources to space travel through focusing on the inevitable importance of anthropocentrism, human aggression and manifest destiny. In applying these concepts to space travel, she demonstrates that all three are necessary for human sustainability and that space travel and exploration is paramount to our continued success as a species. In Chapter 5, Zümre Gizem Yılmaz argues that once humans overcome their fear of the ‘unknown’, destructive consequences will occur as a result of anthropocentric practices and ideologies of human chauvinism.

Part II explores the role of public and private enterprise in the new space age and considers what sort of alliance, if any, is optimal for society. In Chapter 6, Jacques Arnold argues that space cannot be claimed by the public or the private sector and that successful space exploration can only occur through a joint effort, even if history shows that one of these sectors has been the primary driver of innovation and change in the earlier episodes of the space age. The idea here is that while key developments in astronautics may be attributed to individual entrepreneurs and entrepreneurial groups, they were made possible and will continue to be made possible by the governments and political leaders who prepare the collectives that will ultimately bear the risk of space exploration endeavours. In Chapter 7, Joel Marks argues that in the domain of near-Earth object detection, projection and response, the burden rests squarely upon the shoulders of government and that the private sector must be applauded for taking charge of the detection of asteroids and the common defence of billions of people in the face of the governments’ fallacious reasoning, namely concerning the statistical probability of the relevant dangers. Chapter 8 represents a slight shift in focus as we begin to look at the dangers associated with the exploitation of space by the private sector. In particular, Zeldine O’Brien looks at the desirability of space advertising and considers some of the regulatory challenges associated with this form of marketing. In Chapter 9, Angie Bukley, Robert Frize and Veronica La Regina provide an interesting and in-depth report from a workshop held by the International Institute of Space Commerce on the risks associated with space tourism. Panellists consisted of a broad range of stakeholder enterprises including space vehicle providers, ticket vendors, space tourists, insurance companies and brokers focused on risk management, all hoping to forge mitigation strategies and industry-wide policy.

Part III revolves around asteroid mining and environmental-esque concerns. It begins with Chapter 10 from Tony Milligan, who argues that while space tourism involves issues of risk, trust, luxury consumption, fuel-derived pollution and space debris, all of significant ethical concern, space mining is arguably more troubling in the sense that it introduces a threat which is continuous with that posed by terrestrial mining: a threat of destruction as the price of extraction. He goes on to argue that this may be problematic in the case of Mars or other planetary bodies, not only by virtue of the fact that they are culturally significant, but also because they hold what some have called ‘integrity’. In Chapter 11, Daniel Pilchman continues to ask whether asteroid mining ought to be conducted through the examination of four arguments for a prohibition on asteroid mining, namely that the practice violates a rock’s right to moral consideration, is incompatible with human flourishing, violates property acquisition rights and exacerbates economic inequality. Ultimately, through clear and concise consideration of these arguments, Pilchman arrives at the more moderate position that the practice is permissible if certain methodological questions about the form of mining can be appropriately answered. In Chapter 12, Robert Seddon considers in what ways, and to what extent, the roles which space has played within the cultures that have developed on Earth might place moral constraints upon private explorers of space. He argues that space qua heritage is best conceptualised as an intellectual resource and that ideas of stewardship, which have been influential in archaeological ethics, might put practical constraints upon the exploitation of planets as resources. In Chapter 13, Robert Sparrow applies virtue ethics to issues in environmental philosophy and argues that large-scale planetary engineering demonstrates at least two serious defects of moral character: an aesthetic insensitivity and the sin of hubris: in his view, trying to change entire planets to suit our ends amounts to vandalism.

Part IV contains chapters providing a critical look at the exploitation of space for military purposes. In Chapter 14, Armin Krishnan considers whether it is wise to subscribe to the rhetoric about seizing the high ground and calls into question the utility of space weapons. To his mind, the vulnerability and cost of space weapons, coupled with the environmental risks, means that time-proven terrestrial alternatives should be the preferred option upon which policy is based. Matthew Beard reaches a similar conclusion in Chapter 15, but via rather different means. He argues that weaponising space for the purposes of enhancing a particular nation’s military force violates territorial and political sovereignty in the same way as would positioning military assets in offensive positions on the ground, potentially jeopardising the one opportunity that states have to join together and forge a truly collective response to the management and preservation of space. In Chapter 16, I outline how artificial intelligence is set to become more important to space robotics as we travel greater distances from Earth. Contrary to some theorists who suggest that strong artificial intelligence presents a dire threat to attempts to attribute responsibility, my purpose in this explorative paper is to demonstrate that whilst autonomous space-faring military technologies certainly exacerbate some traditional problems and cause us to rethink who we ought to hold responsible for military war crimes or other events occurring in space, our traditional notions of responsibility are capable of overcoming the supposed ‘responsibility gap’.

Part V delves into the bioethical challenges that we face as we progress into the age of commercial spaceflight and even contemplate human voyages to Mars and beyond. In Chapter 17, Sara Langston poses a number of important questions: should physicians and medical facilities screening potential space flight participants be accredited or hold special aerospace medical knowledge and expertise? How do we define and regulate the relationship between corporate screening physicians and commercial space flight providers? What is the physician’s duty to disclose potential health risks in order to allow for informed consent? How should physicians distinguish and balance health risks, caution and benefit in human spaceflight? How should health professionals reason when the associated health risk profiles are unknown or uncertain? In Chapter 18, Keith Abney and Patrick Lin take matters one technological step further and extend the human enhancement debate to the discussion of commercial spaceflight in considering the bioethics of enhancing humans specifically to meet the rigorous demands of space travel. They consider how we should account for the uncertainty inherent in enhancement practice, how we might determine the level of acceptable risk and who should be charged with making the relevant decisions. In Chapter 19, Jane Johnson turns to an old question with new relevance in thinking about the role of animal astronauts. She explains how these subjects of space research are inherently, situationally and pathogenically vulnerable. Existing mechanisms for addressing the vulnerability of animal astronauts are discussed and shown to be wanting since they generate further vulnerabilities that are ultimately overridden by a purported ‘greater good’ for humans, the plausibility of which slips away for those like Johnson, who find the justification for space research to be weak.

Finally, Part VI is broadly concerned with responsibility and governance. In Chapter 20, Chris Pak provides a unique look at space exploration through the lens of science fiction. Particular consideration is given to the portrayal of entrepreneurs who engage in space exploration, colonisation and the adaptation of planets for human settlement, with a view to exploring how these stories can aid real-world thinking about space policy. In Chapter 21, Meera Baindur seeks to philosophically understand the idea of place and territoriality in outer space. Unpacking the concept of place in such descriptions has implications, we are told, for both international policies on space exploration as well as the ethical issues around the equal sharing of outer space. In Chapter 22, Christopher Ketcham and I explore what India’s foray into space means for economical space exploitation and how this complicates the duty of other countries to provide humanitarian aid. We also consider the requirement for laws and policies that encourage fair and open access to space resources and how the International Law of the Sea might provide a base upon which we can build a more modern space treaty. In Chapter 23, Christopher Ketcham goes on to provide a fictional narrative, detailing the wide variety of considerations that we must remain cognisant of in embracing international cooperation on space affairs and treaties.

References

Gannon, M. 2014, ‘Is Private Spaceflight Safe? What Virgin Galactic’s Fatal Crash Means’, viewed 29 December 2014, http://www.space.com/27638-virgin-galactic-crash-private-spaceflight-safety.html.

Lin, P. 2006, ‘Viewpoint: Look Before Taking Another Leap for Mankind – Ethical and Social Considerations in Rebuilding Society in Space’, Astropolitics, 4(3): 281–94.

NASA 2013, ‘Russia Meteor Not Linked to Asteroid Flyby’, viewed 29 December 2014, http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/asteroids/news/asteroid20130215.html#.VKEQZKdlAQ.

XPRIZE Foundation 2014, Ansari XPRIZE Home Page, viewed 29 December 2014, http://ansari.xprize.org.

PART I
Space Exploration: Concepts and Justifications

Chapter 2
The Moral Philosophy of Space Travel: A Historical Review

Nicholas Campion

As human activity in the solar system intensifies, so the need for an ethical debate on its impact increases. But how should this be approached? In 2003 Mark Williamson published a paper in Space Policy, in which he argued (2003, p. 52) that, compared to other issues, ‘space demands a somewhat different [ethical] philosophy,...