Space Sustainability

~ A Research Paper by Htoo Myat Noe, Shazwa Moideen & Sarah Jemaa

ABSTRACT

Space has become much more globalized. There are many more players in it. Some people call it the democratization of space. But there are certainly many more space faring countries around then ever before. There are many more private sector actors that are more capable than ever before. And so, it is a much more complex world than when we were responding to a space race, or dealing with the immediate aftermath of the Cold War. The sustainability of space exploration is without a doubt a pressing issue that has been brought to light within the past decade, with private space companies within the commercial space sector gaining more traction, breaches of national security and radio interference increasing in occurrences and the concern of satellite debris plaquing the space community. All of these issues bring along with them long-lasting impacts not only on the space industry, but may also result in geopolitical conflict and diversion of financial resources from academia and governmental space organizations, as will be elaborated later on in this paper. Therefore, with all these taken into consideration, this paper gravitates towards the stand that space sustainability is an issue that should not be taken lightly, and that new space laws and regulations must be passed to ensure the continuance of space exploration, an implementation that demands for a multi-stakeholder approach that entails fast execution and effective public-private collaboration amongst countries and organizations on a global scale. Read whole research paper here