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Perpetuation and Misrepresentation of Humankind in Outer Space Policy

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Perpetuation and Misrepresentation of Humankind in Outer Space Policy Frontier Society: Perpetuation and Misrepresentation of Humankind in Outer Space Policy by Hugo Dunon Blomfield B.Sc. Natural Resources Conservation, The University of British Columbia, 2000 A THESIS SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF MASTER OF SCIENCE IN PLANNING in THE FACULTY OF GRADUATE STUDIES (The School of Community and Regional Planning) We accept this thesis as conforming to the required standard THE UNIVERSITY OF BRITISH COLUMBIA October 2004 © Hugo Dunon Blomfield JUBCl THE UNIVERSITY OF BRITISH COLUMBIA FACULTY OF GRADUATE STUDIES Library Authorization In presenting this thesis in partial fulfillment of the requirements for an advanced degree at the University of British Columbia, I agree that the Library shall make it freely available for reference and study. I further agree that permission for extensive copying of this thesis for scholariy purposes may be granted by the head of my department or by his or her representatives. It is understood that copying or publication of this thesis for financial gain shall not be allowed without my written permission. 07/|0 IloOH Name of Author (please print) Date (dd/mm/yyyy) Title of Thesis: oV- vVw\(V/AfaA^L '\rv f)j\e/C ^ALO, PS^OJ Degree: Department The University ity of British Columbia t ) (\ J Vancouver, BC Canad/~» 1a _ ^— Abstract In January 2004, President George W. Bush announced a renewal of American space policy that encouraged the United States to return to the Moon by the year 2020 and thereafter proceed to Mars with human exploratory missions. This plan calls for NASA to lead a sustained human presence that would not only explore space, but also facilitate the growth of a burgeoning commercial space-based industry. This announcement was widely supported by the 1 international space community, a loosely affiliated group of people strongly bound by a persistent enthusiasm for the extraterrestrial extension of human settlement. The space environment however, is a peculiar legal and political domain ultimately governed by international treaties written at the United Nations. According to the UN, space is considered a 'global commons' whose use and development should only occur for the benefit of all humanity and future generations. The United States on the other hand, supports a worldview that, similar to its own settling sees the space environment as unclaimed territory whose development is open to whoever can face its challenges. By conducting an extensive literature review of international space treaties, United States civilian and military space policy documents, and the diverse opinions of the space community, this thesis exposes the conflicting worldviews for the use of outer space, ultimately highlighting the dangers to human sustainability of the competitive growth oriented paradigm. Plans for space exploitation expressing this worldview are critiqued using a set of principles developed to reflect the characteristics of more relevant space policy, with long-term human survivability as its fundamental purpose. Based on these principles, three scenarios depicting two possible and one preferable future are presented. These stories give the reader a realistic projection of potential directions that human expansion into space may follow. Ultimately, the preeminence of national sovereignty makes it virtually impossible to guide space activities for the benefit of all humankind and its future generations. Until humanity as an entity can be represented in the formulation of space policy, the regulatory environment of space will allow Earth's most powerful nations to project economic superiority. This expansionist worldview will ultimately undermine the Earth's ability to sustain human civilization. ii Table of Contents Abstract List of Figures and Tables Title 1. Prologue 2. Introduction 3. The Problem 1 4. Methods 2 4.1 Literature Review 2 4.2 Principles 2 4.3 Scenarios 2 5. The Worldviews 2 5.1. The United Nations 2 5.1.1. Founding of UNCOPUOS 2 5.1.2 Outer Space Treaty 2 5.1.3 Moon Agreement 2 5.1.4 The Last Quarter Century 5.2: The United States 5.2.1 Pioneers and the Western Frontier 5.2.2 Expansion and Manifest Destiny 5.2.3 The Spoils of War 5.2.4 The Sputnik Shock 5.2.5 The War of Words and Worldviews • 5.2.6 Shaping the Law 5.2.7. From Star Wars to Ground Forces • 5.2.8. The Doctrines of Preemption and Space Control • 5.2.9. From Ideology to Policy • 5.2.10. The Benefits of Transparency '• 6. The Principles 1 6.1. Sustainability 6.2. Ecological 1 6.3. Economic 1 6.4. Social ' 6.5. Cosmic 1 6.6. Multi-Generational 1 7. The Scenarios i 7.1. The Context i 7.2. Scenario 1: More Probable, Less Preferable ' 7.3. Scenario 2: Less Probable, Less Preferable ' 7.4. Scenario 3: Less Probable, More Preferable ' 8. Conclusions < 8.1. The Inevitability of Economic Hegemony < • 8.2. Game Theory and the Rationality of Cooperation I 8.3. The Paradox of Humankind < 8.3. A Need for Reflection I in List of Figures and Tables Table 5.1. United Nations Treaties and Principles on Outer Space 24 Figure 5.1. Definitions of U.S. Air Force Space Command Mission Areas and Support for Space Control 55 Figure 5.2. Examples of U.S. Air Force Space Command Mission and Sub-Mission Areas for Space Control ..55 Figure 5.3. U.S. Air Force Space Command's Military Space Power Construct for Space Control 56 Figure 6.1. Interaction of Perspectives to Address Long-Term Human Survivability in the Space Industry...66 iv Frontier Society: Perpetuation and Misrepresentation of Humankind in Outer Space Policy By Hugo Dunon Blomfield A Thesis For: The School of Community and Regional Planning, University of British Columbia www.scarp.ubc.ca The International Space University www.isunet.edu 1 1. Prologue For the past year and a half, I have been in what could be interpreted as an academic limbo. I am officially a student of the School of Community and Regional Planning at the University of British Columbia; however I have spent the majority of my time and effort studying the perceptions and policies for the utilization of outer space at the International Space University, based out of Strasbourg, France. My friends and associates at planning school would ask me what space has to do with planning; while my friends and associates at space school would ask me what planning has to do with space. To me both disciplines are inherently linked, and I am fascinated by the consistent ignorance I have perceived about this relationship in both academic fields. The visions of 'space planners' will shape the direction of human development. However, many of them are unaware of or even unwilling to understand the social, economic, and ecological complexities of human society. Meanwhile, 'Earth planners' are completely oblivious to the influence of space policy in shaping the longer-term visions of human development. Both carry on, unaware of each other, towards a path of unsustainability. The study of space more often than not means the exclusion of Earth. This is the case at the International Space University's (ISU) Summer Session Program (SSP), an intense and valuable program that I have been involved with for the past 18 months, a program that relocates to a different university around the world each year. According to the SSP 2004 Program Handbook, ISU's credo is to be "an institution dedicated to the development of the human species, the preservation of its home planet, the increase of knowledge, the rational utilization of the vast resources of the Cosmos, and the sanctity of Life in all terrestrial and extraterrestrial manifestations" [ISU, 2004]. At the 2004 SSP in Adelaide Australia however, out of fifty-nine mandatory lectures there is not even one covering the topics of human socio-economic development or the evolution and properties of Earth's ecological life-support systems. In training the next generation of space leaders, ISU perpetuates a fundamental flaw prevalent in the space community: the complete omission of any human-ecological context. This misaligned perception means that the space community is completely unsuited to plan for humanity's long-term future, a task it has already assigned itself. This thesis addresses this problem. 2 2. Introduction The purpose of this thesis is to highlight the diametrically opposed worldviews that shape the visions and policies of both the United Nations and the United States for the future development of outer space. I argue that if long-standing human predispositions for mistrust, competition and growth, characteristics deeply ingrained in the American position, are extended to extraterrestrial expansion and development, the survivability of Homo sapiens will be compromised. A shift in perception amongst the space community, especially its leaders and policy-makers, towards one that values cooperation and mutually reliant behaviour would provide the necessary environment for the industry to address more fundamental challenges to human security such as ecological degradation, economic inequity, and social unrest. By leading the expansion into space without such a shift, the United States and its space enthusiasts risk inviting criticism and condemnation from less developed nations whose economies have been burdened by centuries of colonialism and who have minimal hope of competing in the expensive yet lucrative business of space development. Such a fate would only reinforce socio-economic inequity across the world, thus furthering the desperation felt by the world's growing disadvantaged. In an age where some are envisaging human outposts on the Moon and even the manipulation of Mars' hostile environment to render it habitable, others must rely on the crude extraction of resources from increasingly degraded ecological systems on Earth for their mere survival.
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