Projecting Humanity Into the Far Reaches of Outer Space
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UN Day 2020 Crisis Brief Projecting Humanity into the Far Reaches of Outer Space Kaitlyn Keith ODU Model United Nations Society Introduction: Deep Space 2020 gravity and enter deep space, the region beyond Humanity has only skimmed the smallest our solar system. Today Voyager One is over 14 surface of just the solar system, let alone the million miles from Earth.3 Even now the universe. With current science, including visual possibility of sending people so far seems and radio astronomy, only four percent of the fantastic. But this situation may be about to visible universe has been explored, covering the change very rapidly. visible solar system, interstellar space, and nebulas. With technological advancements and the desire to uncover one of the universe’s most questioned subjects, interstellar communication, travel, and defense has become an ever-growing subject. The year 2020 is the fifteenth anniversary of humans in space. In the years since 1961 when Yuri Gagarin became the first human in outer space, 566 people from 41 countries have risen above the Earth’s atmosphere, and 12 have travelled as far as the Moon.1 None have gone Voyager 1 in leaves the solar system further. Even astronauts on the International Space Station go no further than Low Earth Could colonizing Mars be in the near future? Is Orbit, roughly 220 miles (350 kilometers) above the space between stars travelable? Are the planet’s surface.2 Only unmanned probes individual breakthroughs in the field beneficial have travelled to other planets. The International or harmful for society as a whole? As we Telecommunication Union (ITU) defines ‘deep struggle to go further, can space exploration space’ to start at 2 million km (1.4 million overcome the limits of traditional chemically miles) from Earth. Only in 2012 did the first propelled rockets and the barrier of the speed of artificial probe—Voyager One, launched in light? Are the breakthroughs humanity already 1977— reach beyond the Sun’s immediate has achieved the limit on what is possible? Is 1 ‘List of space travelers by name’, Wikipedia, 2 ‘Higher Altitude Improves Station's Fuel n.d., Economy’, International Space Station, 14 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_space_trave February 20111, lers_by_name ; ‘List of Apollo astronauts’, https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/exp Wikipedia, n.d., editions/expedition26/iss_altitude.html https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Apollo 3 ‘Voyager’, Jet Propulsion Laboratory, 5 astronauts October 2020, https://voyager.jpl.nasa.gov/mission/status/ Projecting Humanity into the Far Reaches of Outer Space international competition going to be too States and the International difficult to sustain? Community? ● Will the governments of UN Member This Old Dominion MUN Crisis Brief covers States respect the GoE’s basic technologies and issues of interstellar recommendations? Will they follow the communication, travel, and defense, both older leadership of Secretary-General António and new technological advances, and how one Guterres and the GoE improves the field. The universe is incomprehensibly vast, but humanity’s first Forms of Interstellar Science steps beyond the Earth’s orbit will be daring, Interstellar communication is the collection and dangerous and controversial. They may require output of signals between different planetary extraordinary degrees of political leadership and systems and stars. The field of interstellar unprecedented cooperation. The first human communication is constantly evolving and steps to other planets within our solar system, or changing; As of 2020, the technology that has even beyond our solar system will challenge been developed is functioning, making much that we take for granted on Earth. communication easier than travel. Although with these strides, there come downfalls. With the With these problems in mind, crisis starts from time it takes to receive output data from other the assumption of a mandate from the UN planetary systems, it could be anywhere from a Security Council, in the form of resolution couple of years to a completely new generation S/RES/2849 (2020), creating the Secretary- depending on where the signal was sent. General’s Group of Experts (GoE) to help guide these steps. No one can be certain how the GoE An important system for interstellar will work. The resolution establishes the basic communication is the US Deep Space Network framework for the GoE’s work, its mandate. (DSN). This system includes a series of antennas This mandate is general. Its powers are no at three different locations around the world and stronger than the Secretary-General it serves. forms the ground segments needed for said But unanimous approval by all fifteen members communication. These antennas can be used in a of the UN Security Council, including the five singular manner, collecting, transmitting, and Permanent Members (P5), is exceptional, and exporting data that helps us understand the creates a vital precedent in international law. universe and our place in it. The antennas can Specifically: also be grouped together to receive more specific data and travel further depending on the ● The Group of Experts makes it possible desired mission location. Other forms of for UN Secretary-General António interstellar communication include radio Guterres to plan to organize frequencies, laser communications, multinational cooperation in space to a interplanetary optical communications, and deep degree never possible before. Will the space optical communications. All these forms GoE be able to agree on these of communication are currently functioning, but challenges and make useful there is great need for growth within the field. recommendations for UN Member Comparable systems exist in China, Europe, and Russia. 2 Projecting Humanity into the Far Reaches of Outer Space subject, essential to global security. At least 20 UN Member States have military satellites in outer space, mostly these are reconnaissance satellites. All five Permanent Member States of the UN Security Council rely on reconnaissance and navigation satellites, such as the American GPS network, and its Chinese, European and Russian equivalents. All five Permanent Member States are experimenting, with not just militarization of space (military use of space) but space weaponization (stationing weapons in space or firing weapons into space from the A Deep Space Network [DSN] antenna in Goldstone, Earth). In 2007 China notoriously experimented California with anti-satellite weapons (ASAT), a missile that destroyed an old Chinese-owned satellite, The Soviet Union and the United States have led creating a debris field that renders a large swath research and practical experience studying of Low Earth Orbit unusable to this day. interstellar travel, since the early 1970s. Much has been learned, especially from the Soviet Technological Advance Space Station Mir in the 1980s and 90s, and the Space and technology are intertwined. The first International Space Station (ISS) which replaced US designed rocket was able to reach the edge it later in the 1990s and continues to orbit the of space in 1946 on the WAC Corporal Mission. Earth today. Some of the problems of long- This was rapidly followed by similar duration safe flight have been resolved, accomplishments in the Soviet Union. especially the effects of life in a gravity-free environment for up to a year. But much remains The key milestone for human space flight came unknown. on 12 April 1961, when the first manned flight, Vostok 1, carrying astronaut Yuri Gagarin, was Much also has been done on Earth, including launched from the Soviet Union. Two years later experiments to simulate long-duration space in 1963, the Soviet Union sent another manned missions, the medical problems, the flight carrying the first woman into space, psychological and social problems, and the Valentina Tereshkova. The first piloted mission dangers of space like surges in solar radiation. to orbit the moon was in 1968 on the US Apollo 8 mission by NASA. Subsequently several The Unavoidable Military countries have sent unmanned probes to the Dimension Moon, Mars, Venus, and Asteroids. American space probes have reached Saturn and Among the field of interstellar communication other outer planets. Beginning with Viking 1 in and travel, defense becomes a rising need. Space 1977, the United States also has sent probes into has become an ever-growing and adaptive Deep Space. 3 Projecting Humanity into the Far Reaches of Outer Space Jeff Bezos: Now, in the year 2020, technological advances Bezos is a well- have come to a stop. Inventors and scientists are known entrepreneur, constantly trying to create new technologies and industrialist, and ways of achieving greatness. Has technology creator. In 1964 truly reached maximum potential or will this Bezos was born group coming together be able to overcome and in Albuquerque make the next big breakthrough? to teenage parents. After How far to go? A nebula in the Milky Way years of fast- food work he Galaxy. A deep space photo from NASA’s enrolled in a Student Science Training Program Hubble Space Telescope at the University of Florida, where he told an audience he would be the first to colonize space. Participants He transferred to Princeton University to major in engineering, where he graduated with a 4.2 Siva GPA and president of several organizations Subrahmanyam revolving around space. In 1994, Bezos created Banda: Born in Amazon. With annual revenue over USD 260 Andhra Pradesh, billion in 2019, it is the world’s largest private India, Banda had a firm by revenue. Bezos is the world’s wealthiest gift for science individual. In 2000, Bezos created Blue Origin, from the start. a firm dedicated to lower the costs of space After an average flight through re-usable launchers. In 2019 childhood, he Bezos unveiled plans for a moon lander known enrolled in his as Blue Moon. Regional Engineering College in Col. Chen Dong: Born Warangal, India. in 1978 in Luoyang, There he received a Bachelor of Science degree, Henan, Chen was raised with a focus on electrical engineering.