SPACE and DEFENSE Volume Four Number Two Summer 2010 Multilateralism in Space: Opportunities and Challenges for Achieving Space Security by Theresa Hitchens European Approaches to Space and Security: Implications for Transatlantic Cooperation by Michael Searway India in Space: Factors Shaping the Indian Trajectory by Harsh V. Pant and Ajey Lele “Astronaut Envy?” The U.S. Military’s Quest for a Human Mission in Space by Roger D. Launius EISENHOWER CENTER FOR SPACE AND DEFENSE STUDIES Space and Defense Scholarly Journal of the United States Air Force Academy Eisenhower Center for Space and Defense Studies Editor-in-Chief Ambassador Roger Harrison, [email protected] Director, Eisenhower Center for Space and Defense Studies Academic Editor Dr. Eligar Sadeh, [email protected] Principal Scientist, Eisenhower Center for Space and Defense Studies Associate Academic Editors Dr. Damon Coletta U.S. Air Force Academy, USA Dr. Michael Gleason U.S. Air Force Academy, USA Dr. Peter Hays National Security Space Office, USA Major Deron Jackson U.S. Air Force Academy, USA Colonel Michael Smith U.S. Air Force, USA Reviewers Andrew Aldrin John Logsdon United Launch Alliance, USA George Washington University, USA James Armor Agnieszka Lukaszczky ATK, USA Space Generation Advisory Council, Austria William Barry Molly Macauley NASA, France Resources for the Future, USA Frans von der Dunk Scott Pace University of Nebraska, USA George Washington University, USA Paul Eckart Xavier Pasco Boeing, USA Foundation for Strategic Research, France Andrew Erickson Wolfgang Rathbeger Naval War College, USA European Space Policy Institute, Austria Joanne Gabrynowicz Scott Trimboli University of Mississippi, USA University of Colorado, Colorado Springs, USA Dana Johnson James Vedda Northrop Grumman, USA Aerospace Corporation, USA Theresa Hitchens Rick Walker United Nations, Switzerland Digital Consulting Services, USA Wade Huntley Annalisa Weigel Independent Researcher, USA Massachusetts Institute of Technology, USA Jonty Kasku-Jackson David Whalen National Security Space Institute, USA University of North Dakota, USA Ram Jakhu George Whitesides McGill University, Canada NASA Headquarters, USA Roger Launius Ray Williamson National Air and Space Museum, USA Secure Word Foundation, USA Space and Defense Scholarly Journal of the United States Air Force Academy Eisenhower Center for Space and Defense Studies Volume Four ▪ Number Two ▪ Summer 2010 Articles Multilateralism in Space: Opportunities and Challenges for Achieving Space Security 3 Theresa Hitchens European Approaches to Space and Security: Implications for Transatlantic Cooperation 27 Michael Searway India in Space: Factors Shaping the Indian Trajectory 47 Harsh V. Pant and Ajey Lele “Astronaut Envy?” The U.S. Military’s Quest for a Human Mission in Space 61 Roger D. Launius Eisenhower Center Program Summaries Space Situational Awareness Workshop 79 Summer Space Seminar 79 Asia, Space, and Strategy Workshop 80 National Space Forum 80 Transatlantic Space Cooperation Workshop 81 Multilateralism in Space: Opportunities and Challenges for Achieving Space Security Theresa Hitchens United Nations Institute for Disarmament Research Human activity in space has, from the dawn of international legal instruments and multilateral the space age, been characterized by a “push institutions that govern space activities – me, pull you” dynamic between competition many of which sprang from the Cold War era and cooperation. There is no doubt it was the and the efforts by the United States and Soviet Cold War rivalry between the United States Union to put boundaries around their military and the then Soviet Union that drove initial space race. For example, there is more and efforts to breech the space frontier, and that more competition for the limited resource of military competition has long been, and frequency spectrum, particularly for satellites continues to be, a central factor in states’ in the coveted and ever more crowded pursuit of space capabilities. At the same time, geosynchronous (GEO) orbital belt.2 The past even during the height of tensions between the 20 years have also seen an explosion in the two superpowers, international cooperation in use of space-related technologies for tactical the space exploration and sciences was military applications, such as weapons considered a high priority. Not only did the targeting and real-time imaging, creating United States and the Soviet Union seek to potential geopolitical instability among major cooperate with each other regarding human space players as each seeks to reduce its own space flight, but they also reached out to other vulnerabilities in space and exploit those of less-developed space players. potential adversaries. This fragile balance between competitive Finally, the February 2009 collision between a pressures and cooperative benefits has helped working Iridium communications satellite and to create the foundation for the rapid a defunct Russian Cosmos military satellite – expansion of global space activities over the the first-ever collision of two intact satellites last 50 years that has greatly benefitted that created a very large debris field – spurred economic and social development around the concern among satellite owners, operators, world. There are now some 1,100 active and governments about the challenge of spacecraft on orbit and more than 60 states tracking, avoiding, mitigating, and removing and/or commercial entities owning and/or uncontrolled space debris that threatens operating satellites.1 satellite operations.3 For all three of these However, the ever increasing usage of space 2GEO is located at 36,000 km in altitude, where satellites by more and more actors is inevitably leading essentially remain over the same spot on Earth allowing to pressures on the rather weak body of continuous broadcasting to fixed receiver sites. 3See “Iridium 33 – Cosmos 2551 Collision” at http://www.agi.com/media-center/multimedia/current-events/ 1James N. Miller, Testimony to the House Armed Services iridium-33-cosmos-2251-collision/default.aspx; and also see Committee Strategic Forces subcommittee, 16 March 2010, Orbital Debris Quarterly News, http://orbitaldebris.jsc. http://armedservices.house.gov/pdfs/StratForces031610/ nasa.gov/newsletter/newsletter.html (both accessed May Miller_Testimony031610.pdf (accessed March 2010). 2010). 4 Theresa Hitchens/Multilateralism in Space: Opportunities and Challenges for Achieving Space Security reasons, it is becoming important for nuclear space race among the international multilateral cooperation to avoid harmful community.5 Most critically, the OST competition, accidents, and increased potential establishes space as a global commons “not for conflict in space, which is legally subject to national appropriation by claim of enshrined as a global commons. This, in turn, sovereignty, by means of use or occupation, or increases the need for more attention to, and by any other means.”6 It further prohibits the more focused work by, the three major stationing of weapons of mass destruction in multilateral institutions aimed at ensuring the space or on celestial bodies; limits uses of the global commons of space remains safe, Moon and other celestial bodies to exclusively secure, and available for the use of all: (1) the peaceful purposes; and forbids the United Nations Committee on the Peaceful establishment of military bases, the testing of Uses of Outer Space (COPUOS); (2) the weapons, and military maneuvers on the International Telecommunication Union Moon and other celestial bodies. (ITU); and (3) the United Nations Conference on Disarmament (CD). As of January 2009, 100 countries have ratified the OST and 26 others have signed, This article will review the status of, but not yet ratified.7 The OST is the basis for opportunities for, and challenges to these three the four other international treaties governing multilateral institutions. It will further space activities, all of which were developed examine the arguable need for better cross- and negotiated under the auspices of fertilization of effort among the three, given COPUOS. the interconnectivity of space activities in the civil, commercial, and military arenas, and the 1. The 1968 Agreement on the Rescue of potential for competition and accidents to Astronauts, the Return of Astronauts, and contribute to a climate of tension and potential the Return of Objects Launched into Outer conflict. Space (Rescue Agreement), with 90 ratifications, 24 signatures and one acceptance of rights and obligations as of Foundations of Multilateralism January 2009. 2. The 1972 Convention on International The Outer Space Treaty (OST) of 1967 Liability for Damage Caused by Space provides the basic foundation for international Objects (Liability Convention), with 87 space law, and could be seen as the central ratifications, 23 signatures and three pillar of the current multilateral institutional framework.4 OST was primarily negotiated in a bilateral back and forth between the United 5One should note that the negotiations took place in the States and the Soviet Union, both of which aftermath of the Cuban missile crisis, which itself gave added submitted drafts to the United Nations (UN) impetus to superpower efforts to control their nuclear competition. General Assembly in 1966, as a means of 6Treaty on Principles Governing Activities of States in the mitigating what both sides saw as a risky Exploration and Use of Outer Space, including the Moon and elevation of the nuclear