Easier access to space imposes new environmental responsibilities on humanity

AS 2020 IS remembered as the year of covid-19, we can only hope 2021 is the first post-covid year, and one in which we start to apply the lessons we have collectively learned. There appears to be growing consensus around the idea that the pandemic is not humankind’s greatest challenge, but that the spectre of climate change looms with far greater urgency and potential for widespread disaster. Perversely, as our exploration of space gives us greater insights into our planetary systems, it is also fouling the Earth’s atmosphere and orbital environment. We are making as much of a mess of the space surrounding our planet as we are of the planet itself.

As providers continue to develop lower-cost launch vehicles and reduce the turn­around between launches, access to space has never been easier than it will be in 2021. It is now the norm for launches to carry multiple payloads as smaller, more agile spacecraft replace larger, heavier satellites. A new generation of small satellites is creating a bewildering array of data sources and applications.

The role of governments in space will shift, with a new emphasis on blue-sky research, funding innovation and developing startups. Governments will also support the sector by acting as customers for data and analytical services, rather than procuring and developing systems.

With the increasing dynamism of the private sector, satellite design and engin­eering can be done much more quickly, slashing satellite-development times from over three years to under one. The extreme reliability of long-term, large-scale space systems is no longer a requirement, further driving down cost barriers to entry and democratising access to space. The garages that gave birth to Silicon Valley are now space-capable. Clean-rooms can be small, inexpensive facilities or shared resources.

In the year ahead we will realise we can untether not only from Victorian notions of education to prepare young people for the workplace, but from the idea of a “workplace” as we knew it. The space industry provides a striking example. The final stages of the Emirates Mars mission pre-launch process were accomplished by a team working from home—and, in fact, the whole mission was put together by a multinational team working over Zoom and other collaborative online tools. Our mission-control facility is based around a pair of relatively nondescript rooms with screens and laptops. Gone are the days of hundreds of workstations arrayed around 100-metre screens of the kind found at Cape Canaveral.

This is driving an explosion in innovators and operators seeking to explore the commercial potential of space, eclipsing the small coterie of large companies surviving on lucrative government contracts. SpaceX, Planet, Capella and others are reproducing in spacecraft smaller than a kitchen chair what used to take complex systems the size of an SUV. These new space punks are agile, aggressive and fast-moving. The price of Earth-observation data is plummeting just as quickly as the applications for new data streams are exploding.

One key element of the new datasets we are exploring is a growing understanding of our own planet—of our atmosphere and the changes in our climate that threaten our health, well-being and our very future. With that greater understanding comes greater responsibility and the need to invest in technologies that mitigate our collective environmental impact.

In developing our new solutions, we have given ourselves new problems. One man’s miraculous small satellite is another man’s space junk. Working in space sciences renders one stark fact obvious. In all of the observed universe, the only breathable atmosphere available to humanity sits snugly around this planet. It is a tiny, tiny layer—75% of our breathable atmosphere lies in a fragile zone that extends an average of 13km from our planetary surface.

New space players will need to address the issue of sustainable access to low-Earth orbit. We will need to do something about the fast-growing and dense corona of junk we have placed around our planet. Developing an innovative approach to dealing with space debris, and safely de-orbiting satellites without incurring additional costs on the development of space systems, will allow this new business model to flourish. In the rush to explore this new frontier, we must not neglect our responsibility to an element of our environment that is just as fragile as our forests, rivers and seas.■

This article appeared in the Science and Technology section of the print edition of The World in 2021 under the headline “Space for opportunity”