Space

Fifty years after the Apollo 11 moon landing, U.S. policymakers face the choice of whether to put humanity on a trajectory of peaceful cooperation or dangerous militarization in space. 

Policymakers should be careful not to focus to excess on the possibility of kinetic warfare in space.

The United States should work with partners abroad to reduce orbital congestion, resolve ambiguities surrounding space resource utilization, and defend the planet against asteroids and other space objects. 

Aspirations to return American astronauts to the moon after a nearly half-century absence should be rooted in science, not foreign policy.

A flood of technological innovation has left global governance floundering. A new blog series explores this inundation and how to strengthen the levees. 

Nature and technology pose a worrying array of threats to twenty-first century civilization. These global menaces and the catastrophic risks associated with them are the subject of a new International Institutions and Global Governance program blog series. 

Fifty years ago, a photo of Earth rising beyond the lunar horizon captivated the world and inspired the modern environmental movement. Humans have since despoiled the planet to the brink of environmental catastrophe.

The United States needs to champion international cooperation and work toward collective rather than unilateral security in outer space. 

The following is a guest post by Kyle L. Evanoff, research associate in international economics and U.S. foreign policy at the Council on Foreign Relations. A dash of competition could be the secret to improving global cooperation. In November 2016, the Stockholm-based Global Challenges Foundation launched the New Shape Prize, a $5 million contest to reimagine global governance for the twenty-first century. The competition, open to anyone with an internet connection, garnered 2,702 entries from residents in 122 countries during its ten-month span. Now, with the window for submissions closed and the judging complete, preparations are underway to showcase the top proposals at November’s inaugural Paris Peace Forum, a gathering that bills itself as the Davos of collective action. The New Shape Prize highlights an encouraging trend in world affairs: the rise of prize competitions as tools for global innovation. In diverse fields, governments and philanthropists are offering multimillion-dollar sums for breakthroughs with transformative implications. Contest sponsors hope to use prizes as low-cost, low-risk vehicles for bringing new and unexpected talent to bear in addressing some of humanity’s greatest challenges. The premise has promise. Whether these aspiring changemakers prove successful, however, will depend in large part on their ability to select appropriate goals and recognize the limitations of the prizes they offer. Prizes, Past and Present Inducement prizes, which reward future innovation rather than past achievement, are old instruments in the governance toolkit. The British Longitude Act of 1714, for instance, established prizes for devising more precise methods for determining a ship’s longitude, a navigational problem of growing importance in an era of increasing transoceanic commercial and military activity. Likewise, Napoleon set out a reward of 12,000 francs in 1795 for finding a better way to preserve food, a critical logistical challenge for his armies. In each case, the prize sponsor looked to the broader public to address a problem whose solution had long eluded the experts.     Legislators and heads of state have not been alone in dangling cash to induce competition. Twentieth century philanthropists jumpstarted the field of aviation with a series of prizes: The Daily Mail sponsored numerous competitions, and hotelier Raymond Orteig offered $25,000 for the first nonstop flight between Paris and New York, a reward famously captured by Charles Lindbergh. Contemporary philanthropists have followed suit—a 2009 report found that the aggregate value of large purses (over $100,000) had more than tripled over the preceding decade. Today, competitions to build nanoscale devices, map the ocean floor, and increase longevity are all underway, with at least one meta-contest even offering prizes for prize-design. One plausible catalyst for this profusion of purses was the success of the Ansari XPRIZE. Launched in 1996, the contest offered $10 million to the first team “to build a reliable, reusable, privately financed, manned spaceship capable of carrying three people to 100 kilometers above the Earth’s surface twice within two weeks.” Twenty-six teams participated, investing over $100 million—more than ten times the value of the prize—into research and development. Mojave Aerospace Ventures, led by aerospace pioneer Burt Rutan, claimed victory in 2004 with SpaceShipOne, in what many hailed as a milestone for private spaceflight. On one hand, the Ansari XPRIZE, with its grand designs and positive outcome, exemplifies how prizes can facilitate large-scale change. The XPRIZE Foundation, its Silicon Valley progenitor, credits the competition with launching a $2 billion-plus private space industry—a tremendous accomplishment, given spaceflight’s historical state-centrism and recalcitrance to newcomers. Little wonder, then, that a host of ambitious prizes have emerged in the competition’s wake. The possibility of global change on the cheap has obvious allure.       On the other hand, the Ansari XPRIZE provides an object lesson in the limitations and risks of inducement prizes. Following his team’s success, Rutan entered into a joint venture to develop spacecraft for Richard Branson’s space tourism outfit, Virgin Galactic. Despite regular promises to offer suborbital joyrides to the public, Virgin has failed to launch a single paying customer in the fourteen interim years. The company was, however, party to the death of a test pilot, as well as several others, during this same period. The extent to which the Ansari XPRIZE actually contributed to increasing access to space, then, is a matter of contention, dependent on perspective and time horizon.  Setting the Global Prize Agenda Prizes can be powerful tools for change, but only under the right circumstances. For a contest to be useful, its objectives should lie on the edge of possibility. If the goals are too difficult, they will go unaccomplished; too easy, and accomplishment means little. Threading the needle demands considerable expertise in defining the problem at hand. Setting objective criteria for success is also essential, as expertise has its limits. Even first-rate judges are bound to make errors in assessing the prospects of unfamiliar, untested ideas. This implies that essay contests like the New Shape Prize, for which evaluation is necessarily subjective, can often produce suspect results and misallocate awards.   The need for objective criteria, however, does not imply that prize-design is apolitical. The 2012 Wolfson Economics Prize, which offered £250,000 for a plan for a country to leave the euro, and the 2013 IEA Brexit Prize, which offered €100,000 for a blueprint for Brexit, underscore how prizes can serve narrow interests. Even contests meant to increase the general welfare impose private costs and produce uneven gains: Many early aviators met their deaths while in pursuit of some purse, and private spacecraft provide a wider array of benefits to billionaires than subsistence farmers. Ignoring the political aspects of prize competitions can lead to blunders and precipitate backlash from aggrieved parties. Choosing appropriate goals, then, entails contextual understanding of who stands to gain or lose, and how. A competition produces winners and losers not only at its conclusion, but for years afterward, as second- and third-order effects play out. For the Global Challenges Foundation and the New Shape Prize, this means considering the geopolitical fallout that would occur if the contest were to lead to an international reordering. It also implies a moral duty to account for social opportunity costs, implement reasonable safeguards, and redress grievances as warranted. Prize sponsors, philanthropists especially, cannot claim credit for benefits while disavowing harms.   Inducing competition for the global good will require diligence and foresight in selecting goals and administering contests. National governments should establish guidelines for domestic prize competitions, intervening on a case-by-case basis to prevent abuses and mitigate risks. Philanthropists and other prize sponsors, meanwhile, should undertake wide-ranging public and expert consultations prior to, during, and after contests. Establishing multistakeholder prize committees, tasked with agenda setting and oversight, can help minimize harms and increase accountability. With the right measures in place, prize competitions can and will remain important tools for global innovation and change. Innovation and change, however, are not one and the same. Realizing the promise of these competitions requires that ideation lead to implementation, as well as the acknowledgment that there is no ‘magic bullet’ solution to complex global challenges—prizes are only one governance tool among many.

This week: Facebook, the CLOUD Act, using blockchain to bypass sanctions, and the convergence of outer space and cyberspace. 

The tasks of securing outer space and cyberspace are converging, and experts are worried that the space industry is not taking cybersecurity threats seriously. CFR Senior Fellow David P. Fidler explains in a new brief. 

The following is a guest post by Kyle Evanoff, research associate in international economics and U.S. foreign policy at the Council on Foreign Relations. Today marks the fiftieth anniversary of the Outer Space Treaty’s entry into force. The UN agreement, which took effect on October 10th, 1967, created a binding legal regime for the cosmos (Earth notwithstanding). Declaring outer space to be the “province of all mankind” and dictating that it be used for peaceful purposes, the treaty eased U.S.-Soviet tensions, helping to lay the groundwork for the détente of the following decade. The agreement was, in many respects, a triumph for multilateralism. Half a century later, however, the Outer Space Treaty has entered something of a funk. Despite the universal aspirations of the UN Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space, which molded the document into its completed form, many of the principles enshrined within the text are less suited to the present than they were to their native Cold War milieu. While the anachronism has not reached crisis levels, current and foreseeable developments do present challenges for the treaty, heightening the potential for disputes. At the crux of the matter is the ongoing democratization of space. During the 1950s and ‘60s, when the fundamental principles of international space law took shape, only large national governments could afford the enormous outlays required for creating and maintaining a successful space program. In more recent decades, technological advances and new business models have broadened the range of spacefaring actors. Thanks to innovations such as reusable rockets, micro- and nanosatellites, and inflatable space station modules, costs are decreasing and private companies are crowding into the sector. This flurry of activity, known as New Space, promises nothing less than a complete transformation of the way that humans interact with space. Asteroid mining, for example, could eliminate the need to launch many essential materials from Earth, lowering logistical hurdles and enabling largescale in-space fabrication. Companies like Planetary Resources and Deep Space Industries, by extracting and selling useful resources in situ, could help to jumpstart a sustainable space economy. They might also profit from selling valuable commodities back on terra firma. As a recent (bullish) Goldman Sachs report noted, a single football-field-sized asteroid could contain $25 to $50 billion worth of platinum—enough to upend the terrestrial market. With astronomical sums at stake and the commercial sector kicking into high gear, legal questions are becoming a major concern. Many of these questions focus on Article II of the Outer Space Treaty, which prohibits national appropriation of space and the celestial bodies. Since another provision (Article VI) requires nongovernmental entities to operate under a national flag, some experts have suggested that asteroid mining, which would require a period of exclusive use, may violate the agreement. Others, however, contend that companies can claim ownership of extracted resources without claiming ownership of the asteroids themselves. They cite the lunar samples returned to Earth during the Apollo program as a precedent. Hoping to promote American space commerce, Congress formalized this more charitable legal interpretation in Title IV of the 2015 U.S. Commercial Space Launch Competitiveness Act. Luxembourg, which announced a €200 million asteroid mining fund last year, followed suit with its own law in August. Controversies like the one surrounding asteroid mining are par for the course when it comes to the Outer Space Treaty. The agreement’s insistence that space be used “for peaceful purposes” has long been the subject of intense debate. During the treaty-making process, Soviet jurists argued that peaceful meant “non-military” and that spy satellites were illegal; Americans, who enjoyed an early lead in orbital reconnaissance, interpreted peaceful to mean “non-aggressive” and came to the opposite conclusion. Decades later, the precise meaning of the phrase remains a matter of contention. While the Outer Space Treaty has survived past disputes intact, some experts and policymakers believe that an update is in order. Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX), for instance, worries that legal ambiguity could undermine the nascent commercial space sector—a justifiable concern. Russia and Brazil, among other countries, hold asteroid mining operations to constitute de facto national appropriation. And while there are plenty of asteroids to go around for now (NASA has catalogued nearly 8,000 near earth objects larger than 140 meters in diameter), more supply-side saturation could lead to conflicts over choice space rocks. The absence of clear property rights makes this prospect all the more likely. Plans to establish outposts on the moon and Mars present a bigger challenge still. Last week, prior to the first meeting of the revived National Space Council, Vice President Mike Pence described the need for “a renewed American presence on the moon, a vital strategic goal” in an op-ed for the Wall Street Journal. His piece came on the heels of SpaceX Founder and Chief Executive Officer Elon Musk’s announcement at the 2017 International Astronautical Congress of a revised plan to colonize the red planet, with the first human missions slated for 2024. Musk hopes for the colony to house one million inhabitants within the next fifty years. While mining might require only temporary use of the celestial bodies, full-fledged colonies would necessarily be more permanent affairs. With some national governments arguing that mining operations would constitute territorial claims, lunar and Martian bases are almost certain to enter the legal crosshairs. And, even under the favorable U.S. interpretation of the Outer Space Treaty, states and private companies would need to avoid making territorial claims. If viable colony locations are relatively few and far between, fierce competition could make asserting control a practical necessity. Even so, policymakers should avoid hasty attempts to overhaul the Outer Space Treaty. The uncertainties associated with altering the fundamental principles of international space law are greater than any existing ambiguities. Commercial spacefaring already entails high levels of risk; adding new regulatory hazards to the mix would jeopardize investment and could slow progress in the sector. While the current property rights regime may be untenable over longer timelines, it remains workable for now. The United States, for its part, should exercise transparency wherever misunderstandings are possible. International cooperation, especially for missions that would establish settlements on the celestial bodies, could preempt accusations of national appropriation while increasing the expertise and resources brought to bear. Likewise, civilian rather than military agencies should operate any permanent crewed installations, so as to alleviate concerns over whether U.S. purposes are in fact peaceful. After decades of stalled progress, humanity may finally be on the verge of creating a multiplanetary civilization. Extensive off-world operations would open possibilities for scientific exploration, inspire future generations, and provide a life-raft in case of global catastrophe. With the technical and financial barriers to space development falling, policymakers must ensure that laws and treaties help to expand rather than limit the sphere of human activity.