Humans Our environmental problems are on the way to export to space

To be clear, the space is not exactly wild in the West. The 1967 Space Treaty—The Magna Carta of Space Law — established a framework for guiding responsible behavior in space and fundamental principles. Negotiated and written during the Cold War during major political tensions, the binding treaty largely addresses the concerns of a time when the apocalypse was a closer threat than space junk. On the one hand, it banned the deployment of nuclear weapons and other weapons of mass destruction in space. Four other international treaties dealing only with outer space and related activities were followed. Among them are 1972 Liability Convention, which establishes who should be responsible for damage caused by space objects, and 1979 Lunar Agreement, which seeks to prevent the commercial exploitation of outer space resources, such as mining resources for the establishment of lunar colonies.

Nowadays, they have become commonplace space activities (think about launch plans) hundreds and tens of thousands of satellite constellations or even ambitious proposals for extracting resources from asteroids close to Earth) this activity corresponds to the rules made at the time when it was in the realm of science fiction.

The authority documents on space law are vague in relation to many of the scenarios that are now emerging, and the Moon Agreement has too few signatories to be effective. As a result, today’s private space companies can examine the half-century-old foundation space treaty and the four agreements that followed, and reinterpret their outcome in a way that could be beneficial, according to Jakhu. For example, efforts to exploit asteroids, according to the Outer Space Pact, require governments not to extract and maintain natural resources from an asteroid, but private companies can. (At best, the grandfather of the space pacts does not provide a clear answer about the legality of asteroid mining.) As private companies prioritize making money, “the basic rules of space must be expanded, built, and complied with.”

There have been efforts made to deal with this problem. The United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs (UNOOSA) and government, non-governmental and commercial experts bring together regulatory bodies the foundations for new governance to address current gaps in space law. In view of the wind of space activity in recent years, UNOOSA has written some guidelines. waste mitigation and long-term sustainability. (The regulations suggest debris mitigation, disposal practices, and generally good behavior, such as recording and tracking all space objects and advising them to remove 90 percent of their orbits by the end of the mission). to address policy gaps in space law— “soft laws” or non-binding international instruments that are legal obligations that no one has to fulfill. However, some nations — such as the United States, China, and India — have introduced rules of international law for good behavior in space to allow space activities in their national legislation.

Multinational initiatives led by individual space countries, such as the one recently sponsored by the US Artemis Agreements, an alternative signal. In the name of NASA’s human-space flight program linked to the Moon, these are general guidelines to be followed while nations explore the Moon, namely to be at peace, work together, and leave no rubbish. However, the Agreements have not yet been signed by major US allies and space partners, such as Germany and France. In the meantime, a concrete path to an international agreement may soon come. In the first week of November, representatives from the United Kingdom It was proposed by the United Nations organizing a working group — the first step in treaty negotiations — to develop new rules of conduct beyond the Earth.