A lot of secrets are carried high above us in the objects cluttering the Earth's orbit. A quick Google search tells me that there are nearly 10,000 satellites circling our planet, about half of which are active, primarily facilitating communications, navigation, observation and research. They are joined by space probes, crewed spacecraft and a couple of space stations (the International Space Station and a Chinese space station). The number of objects in orbit is growing quickly. There's also a lot of space debris whizzing round, collisions between which could proliferate into the Kessler Syndrome – an unstoppable cascade of collisions as the debris breaks up.
Among the objects in space, as I learnt from an article in The Times at the weekend, is the Chinese shuttle Shenlong ('Heavenly Dragon') and an American shuttle X–37B. More intriguingly, the article said that 'no one really knows what they are doing up there, except their secretive Chinese and American handlers.' The two shuttles were launched at roughly the same time and experts cited by The Times speculate that it is not a coincidence. The two shuttles seem to have attracted a lot of attention, based on the assumption they are competing rather than cooperating as an extension of the geopolitical rivalry between China and the United States on Earth.
It is a reminder of the strategic competition happening in space, being played out far above our heads. The Chinese seem to have decided to focus on the moon, having pledged to build a lunar base by 2035. They are not the only ones with such ambitions. We should be alert to the new space race because of how lightly governed it is as a realm, something that can be understood from looking back at the context in which governance of space emerged. It matters because ultimately what happens in space, whether on the moon or elsewhere in orbit, has important consequences for everyday life on Earth.
Space and the cold war
The secrets used to be more terrestrial. When the Soviets launched Sputnik in 1957, it startled the Americans into hysteria. The Soviet space programme was shrouded in secrecy and Sputnik fed many Americans' concerns that the Soviet Union was technologically outpacing the United States. In 1961 the Soviet Union caught the West unawares again by sending Yuri Gagarin into orbit.
Sputnik coincided with growing talk in America of a 'missile gap', the belief that the Soviet Union's ballistic missile arsenal was growing larger and more advanced than the United States' arsenal. The 'missile gap' was baloney, leading Dwight D. Eisenhower to caution against the influence of the 'military–industrial complex' in his valedictory address as president. The military and associated industries had used the secrecy of the Soviet Union's missile development programme to their benefit, encouraging beliefs that the Soviets had the technological edge as a way of gaining more funding for the US defence industry. The secret of the underground concrete bunkers in the USSR was that they were empty.
In the meanwhile, the United States had created NASA and it ultimately 'won' the space race with the landing of the crew of Apollo 11 on the moon in 1969. An important treaty governing human activities in space had been signed two years earlier. The Outer Space Treaty pledged that space, including the moon, 'would be the province of all mankind.' Signatories agreed not to militarise the moon and that no state could claim sovereignty over space. But, in keeping with its function as a cold war arms control agreement, much was not covered by it. It speaks of all states being free to explore and use space for peaceful purposes, but to a lot of ambiguity remains when it comes to matters surrounding mining or potentially extracting water on the surface of the moon. There was a 1979 'Moon Treaty' addressing these issues but none of the major powers has signed that particular agreement.
As Roger Boyes noted in a radio interview last year, once someone has a base on the moon there will be no one to police their activities. Every year since 2014, the UN General Assembly has adopted a resolution on 'no first placement of weapons in outer space' but the United States and most European countries have repeatedly voted against or abstained. Notwithstanding a number of international agreements on specific activities in space, the reality is that a fierce competition is underway for technological and political dominance.
Supra–geopolitics today
China's moon–base project has a number of partners, including Russia (and even Belarus). Other states are also actively developing their space programmes. At the beginning of last year the African Space Agency came into being. A year ago this month, India landed a spacecraft near the moon's south pole. A day earlier, the latest Russian effort to land of the moon had failed – Russia sees itself as a player in the contest in space nonetheless. Referring to India's success, I labelled the contest supra–geopolitics. (I'll stick with that label, since I'm not aware of another in wide usage, albeit I can see extra–geopolitics might catch on instead.)
It's not just states in the competition, however, with private companies eager for a slice of the pie. The goal of SpaceX is to colonise Mars. I'm pretty sure international law hasn't even begun to address the rights and responsibilities of settling on other planets.
The US, as one might guess, is actively expanding on its space presence. The US Department of Defence has a Space Development Agency which, according to its website, is a 'constructive disruptor of space acquisition' that 'will quickly deliver needed space–based capabilities to the joint warfighter to support terrestrial missions through development, fielding, and operation of the Proliferated Warfare Space Architecture.' It might sound like gobbledygook but it boils down to making use of infrastructure in space to support US military campaigns on Earth. I think.
The article in The Times speculated, based on what the Pentagon has said about the shuttle's mission, that X–37B is testing an ability to escape being tracked or observed by others. The writer noted sagely: 'If X–37B's plans for space are as innocent as the Pentagon claims, it is not clear why it should want to avoid scrutiny in this way.' All the major powers have invested in a space component of their armed forces: a report earlier this year stated that China was growing its military capabilities in space 'at a breath–taking pace'; other reports in the spring claimed that Russia had developed a new anti–satellite weapon (i.e. a weapon that can destroy other satellites). China, India and the United States also possess anti–satellite capabilities.
Concerns about the militarisation of space are not a new phenomenon. In 1962 the United States detonated a nuclear bomb in low Earth orbit in its Starfish Prime test. President Ronald Reagan liked the idea of a missile defence system that involved interceptors deployed in space. Most modern military forces use satellites for intelligence and communications.
As the global powers and their militaries turn more attention to their space forces, the potential for weapons being placed in orbit should concern everyone. We rely on satellites each time we use Google Maps to reach our destination, or buy something with a credit card. The objects in space govern much more of our everyday lives than we probably realise.
The contest for the domination of space may be taking place high above our heads, but its consequences will be felt down here on Earth. An adversary, as the dominant power in space, could bring much of our social and financial lives to a standstill by incapacitating the right satellites. The stakes couldn't be higher.
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