Regulating space

Science and te ao Māori experts consider the issue of regulating space. Although the first Outer Space Treaty was signed in 1967, access to space is changing and becoming easier as the commercial sector grows.

Questions for discussion:

• Should regulations be similar to air traffic control? Or should they be more complicated?
• Should governments be responsible for satellites launched from their territory? Or should the business who launched the satellite be responsible?
• Why do Sarah and Philipp think it might be less complicated to have an aerospace business in Aotearoa than in other places?
• David says that space regulation is an unfolding question for all New Zealanders. What do you think he means by this statement?

Transcript

Mark Rocket

Chief Executive Officer, Kea Aerospace
Founder and President, Aerospace Christchurch

I defer to Stephen Hawking. He was a strong advocate of developing space technology for the benefit of humanity. And if you think about it, you’ve got to live in these closed-loop habitats. You’ve got to, by virtue of that, become sustainable.

Stefan Powell

Chief Executive Officer, Chief Technical Officer, Co-founder, Dawn Aerospace

That’s a question we have to solve, because if we don’t, there’ll be a limit to how far we can go. So how do we do that? Well, certainly in part through regulation.

Professor David Noone

Buckley-Glavish Professor of Climate Physics, Department of Physics, University of Auckland

Yeah, regulation of space is sort of a tricky one – there’s different perspectives – and at the very simplest level, we can imagine the regulation of space is similar to air traffic control – you don’t want to launch two rockets with two satellites that crash into one another – and so there needs to be a set of regulations and rules in place.

Stefan Powell

Regulation ensures that everyone launching something up to space gets it signed off by a third party. Usually, the government is responsible for satellites launched from their territory.

Dr Sarah Kessans

Senior Lecturer, University of Canterbury

Here in New Zealand, because it’s a young space industry, we don’t have a lot of the loopholes and we’re building the right regulations around what we’re trying to do – we’re not complicated by historical regulations.

Dr Philipp Sueltrop

Chief Technical Officer, Kea Aerospace

The more convoluted your regulatory framework is, the harder it is to start something new. So starting a space company in Europe is far, far more difficult than doing it here.

Stefan Powell

In developing these regulatory frameworks, government and industry really needs to work hand in hand in figuring out what’s possible and how we’re going to build a sustainable future. We bring the side of what’s possible in terms of technology, they bring the side of what’s possible in terms of the public’s interest.

Dr Pauline Harris

Astrophysicist, cosmologist, kairangahau Māori
Senior Lecturer, Te Kawa a Māui – School of Māori Studies, Victoria University of Wellington
Chairperson, Society of Māori Astronomy Research and Traditions

For Māori, there’s iwi that see real potential, and then there’s communities that have real issues. What needs to happen is to ensure that Māori are included, especially when things are on their lands, so that everyone can have their say.

Professor David Noone

One of the interesting details that’s emerged with respect to some of these regulations is a real shift in the paradigm that we think about access to space. Historically, they were major investments by government, and most governments have oversight by the people through democratic processes. We elect our officials, and they’re the ones who are making decisions about the ethics of space on our behalf. What has changed is, through the commercialisation of space, it’s now companies have a lot more stake in the way space is utilised. And so, as an individual citizen who may not be a shareholder in a company, I no longer have direct say in the process that governs the ethics of space.

There’s also a question about democracy and group-think around shared resources. It does require a group thought process in and around the ethics, and whether a small number of companies is large enough to govern that group-think about what we value in space is unclear.

David Perenara-O’Connell

Māngai, Tāwhaki Joint Venture

We’re going on a journey to understand what activities are compatible with the values that we hold dear – whether the values of our hapū and our whānau or the values of New Zealand society at large. This is a journey for New Zealand Aotearoa as a whole, and it is an unfolding conversation.

Acknowledgements
Mark Rocket, Kea Aerospace
Stefan Powell, Dawn Aerospace
Professor David Noone, University of Auckland
Dr Sarah Kessans, University of Canterbury
Dr Philipp Sueltrop, Kea Aerospace
Dr Pauline Harris, Victoria University of Wellington and SMART
David Perenara-O’Connell, Tāwhaki Joint Venture
Stephen Hawking lecturing and in zero gravity, NASA
Kea Atmos prototype in flight, Kea Aerospace
Dawn Aurora space plane in flight, Dawn Aerospace
Outer space regulatory regime webpages, MBIE
Ariane 5 launch and people working in ground control and in viewing room, Arianespace, CC BY 3.0
Aerospace event with the Hon. Dr Megan Woods, ChristchurchNZ
Drone footage of wetland, Manaaki Whenua – Landcare Research and University of Waikato
Time-lapse of Aotearoa New Zealand landscapes, Manoj Kesavan, Filmsutra (Facebook)
American space shuttle launches, NASA
Blue Origin rocket engine, N2e, CC BY-SA 4.0
Blue Origin New Shepard, NASA, CC BY-NC 2.0
Virgin Galactic hangar, Lindsay Eyin, CC BY 2.0
Belly of Virgin Galactic White Knight Two and SpaceShipTwo, Jeff Foust, CC BY 2.0
Sir Richard Branson in White Knight, Arfinn Christensen, CC BY 3.0
Tāwhaki launch at Kaitōrete Spit, Tāwhaki Joint Venture