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.

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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.

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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. This was to have a drive for followed by him getting his MA in aerospace higher education and engineering from the Indian Institute of Science. greater work. He holds In 1978 Banda came to the United States to a Master degree in attend Wright State University, where he engineering from Xi’an completed his PhD in aerospace engineering. Jiaotong University. A After all of this education, Banda joined the US fighter pilot in the Air Force Flight Dynamics Laboratory in 1981 People's Liberation Army Air Force, he was as a civilian engineer. He started his budding selected to be a CNSA astronaut in 2010. In career from his living room as an in-house 2016, Chen was sent off with other Chinese researcher. Over the years, he earned a multitude astronauts on a mission lasting 33 days and of awards for his work in engineering. landed back safely. This marked the longest Chinese manned flight to date. For the Shenzhou 11 mission, Chen was awarded the Spaceflight

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Projecting Humanity into the Far Reaches of Outer Space

Merit Medal (Third Class) along with the appointed to the four star (Full General) position honorary title of ‘hero astronaut’ by China’s of Chief of Space Operations for the US Air Central Military Commission Force.

Elon Musk: Born in Pretoria, Sergey Nikolayevich South Africa, Musk has Ryazansky: From always had a strong tie to Moscow, Ryazansky has engineering and great science. always had a deep love By age 10, his interest in for space, which he shared computing grew massively with his grandfather. In when he was given the newest 1996, Ryazansky computer of that year. This graduated as a activity gave him the title of biochemistry major. After “nerd” leading to massive college, he worked as a bullying throughout his childhood. Musk gained researcher at the Institute a passion for greater, which contributed to him of Biomedical Problems. In 2003, his work moving to Canada. After moving to the US he made him stand out and be selected as a research attended the University of Pennsylvania, where cosmonaut. In 2005-06 Ryazansky participated he studied economics and physics. He was in a 105-day space mission on the International accepted for a PhD program at Stanford Space Station. He arrived in September on the University but dropped out. Today he is most Soyuz TMA-10M spacecraft, accompanied by famous as chief of Tesla car company, and Russian cosmonaut Oleg Kotov, and American SpaceX, the space launch firm he created in astronaut Michael Hopkins. He is retired as an 2001. astronaut, but highly active as a consultant on manned and unmanned space exploration.

General John William ‘Jay’ Camille Fournier Raymond: Born in Saelovèze: Saleovèze was 1962, Raymond born in September of 1972 graduated from in Marseille, France. With Clemson University a strong interest in stars with a degree in from a young age, her Administrative interstellar journey Management. This followed in suit. In 1991, led him to be commissioned an officer in the US she enrolled in the Institut Air Force. In 1989 to 1993, Raymond had Supérieur de l’Aéronautique et de l’espace and served as an operations center officer under the graduated with a Master in Aerospace Strategic Aerospace Division at Vandenberg Air Mechanics and Avionics. After graduating, she Force Base. From 2010 to 2012, Raymond began working for Icarus Interstellar, working served as Vice Commander and Deputy on Project Icarus. Project Icarus is an Commander at the Yokota Air Base in Japan. international project working towards the first This gathered many international connections as humankind interstellar mission. She continues to well as local, and led to promotion in 2009 to the work on this project to date and has emerged as rank of Brigadier General. In 2019 he was

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Projecting Humanity into the Far Reaches of Outer Space

one of Europe’s most prominent advocates of Galactic bulge. He then proceeded to give manned space research. lectures and write books until 2001. In 2001 he was appointed to the Presidential Commission on the Future of the United States Aerospace Chief Master Industry. Best known as a public intellectual and Sergeant Roger commentator on astronomy and space Towberman: exploration, he has received many major awards. Towberman joined the US Air Force in 1990. Today he is the senior enlisted, non- Major Lui Yang: commissioned officer Lui was born in (NCO) in the newly Zhengzhou, created US Space Henan, in the Force. Starting with countryside. the Air Force, he Coming from a showed great prowess. In 1992 he completed working family, cryptologic language, leadership and intelligence Liu went on to training at Goodfellow Air Force Base in Texas. People’s In March 1997, he became a C2 Network Liberation Air Analyst on Kelly Air Force Base. He continued Force (PLAAF) this until 1999 when he served in a number of Aviation assignments as Operations Superintendent in University. After intelligence and operations units. In July of 2019 graduating with he was appointed the Command Senior Enlisted qualifications as a pilot, she began service on Leader of the US Space Force, where he serves active duty with the PLA Air Force in 1997, now. rising to the rank of Major. She logged 1,680 hours of flying before being selected for astronaut training. She was selected for the crew of the mission Shenzhou 9. This was the first Neil deGrasse manned mission to Chinese space station, Tyson: A native Tiangong 1. Lui became the first Chinese New Yorker, in woman to go into space. While in space, she 1972 Tyson started made breakthroughs in space medicine. She is attending Bronx still an active astronaut, contributing as a pilot High School of and space medic. Science. Tyson went to Harvard where he majored in physics. Even though he showed great brilliance, his original work ethic was lacking. In 1991 he completed his PhD in astrophysics at Columbia University, with a dissertation on Abundance distributions along the minor axis of the

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