Recent Events and Challenges in Space
Competition between America and China is creating a new order in space. But even these powerful superpowers won’t be able to handle the rigours of space exploration on their own.
The idea of people residing and working on other planets, maybe within ten years, is among the most expensive and technically difficult aims to date. However, in a pluralistic society where international goodwill is rare, are such goals realistic?
On The Rising
With the launch of its Artemis mission, NASA has begun its return to the Moon. Three missions have been launched, the first of which was successful. The rockets and technology were put to the test during an unmanned flight. The third launch will send astronauts to the Moon for a week to conduct experiments, and the second mission will propel humans farther into space than they have ever travelled. The long-term objective is to reach Mars using the Moon as a launching pad.
However, the scheme is expected to cost $93 billion, a hefty price tag for American taxpayers who are already feeling the pinch. Nevertheless, even though Congress will give NASA less money overall than it requested in 2023, it continues to support its missions to explore space for people.
Tiangong, China’s own fully functional space station, was launched on schedule. Chinese spacecraft have sent probes to Mars and the Moon. By 2025, it intends to set up an unmanned research outpost on the Moon, and by 2030, astronauts would touch down there.
The Space Race
The Moon has been occupied by astronauts before, but going to Mars is a considerably harder step. There is currently no spaceship that can deliver people to the red planet, which is 250 times farther away than the Moon. The challenge of returning the men safely to Earth after months in space remains, even if scientists can launch a fuel-heavy rocket and land it on a planet with such a low atmosphere.
The two superpowers erected what is currently the largest structure in space along with 13 other cooperating nations. No one country owns it, and each needs the other to function.
More recently, countries stopped cooperating with Russia just a few weeks after the invasion of Ukraine. The European Space Agency (ESA) and Russia have cancelled two cooperative Moon projects and a combined Mars Rover mission to look for indications of life on the red planet.
At a time when China’s space program is expanding quickly, Russia is in a difficult situation. Even though China currently spends less on space than America does, China has launched more than 200 rockets in the last ten years.
China is aware that collaborations may provide both money and technical know-how. It has issued a request for proposals for scientific research and urged other nations barred from access to the ISS to join them.
Today, one can witness seventy-two countries who are the proud founders of their space initiatives and programmes as they cannot afford to be left behind in what is now viewed as the ‘new space race’.
The Billionaire Club in Space
Our daily lives depend on space in many ways. Satellites are essential for banking, communications, weather forecasts, and important surveillance equipment for governments. And the outside is becoming busy. Approximately 5,000 satellites were launched in 2021. In the previous 20 years, 800 or so were introduced yearly.
SpaceX, a firm run by Elon Musk, has already launched passengers into orbit. The multibillionaire businessman is reducing costs by using a reusable rocket. Not to be outdone, Jeff Bezos of Amazon intends to construct Orbital Reef, a for-profit orbiting outpost.
Collaboration is motivated by the possibility of financial benefit and scientific discovery. Private firms may contribute to a new era of space collaboration, but they must abide by local legal requirements. Businesses were forced to cancel contracts with Russia in 2022 as countries imposed sanctions.
Status Quo on Laws in Space
The collection of international laws controlling space, however, could impede the next major exploration of other planets. Since it was signed in 1967 by 31 countries, including the US and the Soviet Union, promising not to have nuclear weapons in space, the aptly named “Outer Space Treaty” has not been amended.
The UN adopted new rules in 1979 to control commercial exploration of the Moon, Mars, and beyond, but the US, China, and Russia have all refused to ratify them.
Conclusion
It is patently evident that the current global space governance framework which is a legacy of the Cold War is inadequate in an era where space is expanding and developing more quickly than multilateral bodies can keep up. The global space governance architecture as it stands today forbids several space activities and permits entities to operate under numerous and frequently divergent interpretations of existing accords. Although there have been numerous attempts to strengthen the governance structure, development in this sector has stalled, largely because of diplomatic deadlocks between international actors, which has had a detrimental effect on the long-term development of space.
Growing space debris, overpopulated orbits, radio frequency interferences, issues with spectrum allocation, and the emergence of counter-space capabilities are just a few of the numerous problems facing global space governance that cannot be resolved without the restoration of intergovernmental organisations with the capacity to establish an efficient outer space regime.t
