Why we’re heading for an armed space race

By the time the Vulcans made first contact with humans, they’d been observing them for centuries. They believed humans to be irrational and emotional, and concerned with unleashing that volatile mixture into the galaxy, they withheld information that would advance their progress into space. Given our track record – our wars, our enslaving of our fellow humans, our rape of the Earth’s resources and wanton destruction of her climate to name a few lows – you can see their logic.

Of course, this is a fictional Star Trek scenario, where scrappy humans err but overcome their struggles with ingenuity and poise – perhaps that’s the most fabricated aspect of the whole thing. Though the US president signing a mandate to establish Space Force is all too real.

As a Trek fan who watched the Trumpian hordes wee their pants in glee at the prospect of Space Force, the comparisons between fiction and reality must be drawn. Trump’s throwaway mumble has effloresced into a sixth special branch of the United States military, taking responsibility from the US Air Force that currently oversees space operations. The difference illustrates a point of departure from what space exploration has long represented: a peaceful endeavour for the benefit of humanity.

To clarify: I don’t think we should be worried about Space Force. As much as some would love to have astronaut marines conducting zero-gravity laser battles, we’re a long way off yet. Plus, an organisation whose logo looks like a toddler’s potato print isn’t something we need to waste our time on. What does concern me is what it represents; what the context of Trump establishing it and the intended message sent by doing so. The administration has told Nasa to get us to Mars – while simultaneously funding a new military body. If space is the ocean, the International Space Station is a pebble on the shore. We’ve barely dipped our toes in, yet we’re watching America wading out in combat boots.

This is a dick-swinging contest in space. Space was once the prompt that stretched human creativity and ingenuity beyond the realms of the possible, yet half a century on it’s increasingly becoming the backdrop to displays of force. The militarisation of space is already underway, with satellite communication and guided weapons in use by the military for decades. China took the decommissioning of an old weather satellite as the opportunity to test a prototype intercept missile. In 2001, Donald Rumsfeld’s space commission called for weapons in space to protect US interests. This was followed by a withdrawal from and dissolving of the US-Soviet Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty. The US space policy states that the defence secretary will develop capabilities, plans and options to protect US interests. Space Force, though it sounds comical, is a sharp reminder of where things are headed: an arms race in space.

Existing space law is spartan. Only five treaties exist, though recognised by the UN General Assembly, not all states have ratified each of them. The keystone is the 1967 Outer Space Treaty, which notably opens with talk of peaceful exploration and co-operation irrespective of country, for the benefit of all humanity. Captured in those minutes is a sincere and heartening belief that exploring this new frontier would strengthen bonds and deepen trust between nations. We’re obligated to clean up after ourselves and to come to the assistance of others. Weapons of mass destruction are prohibited, as is a military presence on the moon or any other celestial body. The mutual recognition between states that space is precious, unspoiled and must be protected is the beating heart of the treaty. Yet there’s no specific interdict to protect us from the actions of those who interpret the treaties with a less pacifist perspective. It leaves us with the discomfiting question of how this might play out in times of conflict.

I’m not so sure precious, unspoiled space is compatible with humanity as we are now. We’ve yet to manage amiable co-existence on Earth, yet we presume it’ll all be okay in low Earth orbit and beyond where there’s little else to point our guns at than each other. Geopolitical tensions will not magically resolve themselves beyond the exosphere, and as we venture further, greater tests of integrity will emerge. What happens when a country reaches Mars first – will they claim it because there are no territory laws? What if one state wants to terraform, and another objects to introducing our biological footprint? Our most complex and challenging of dilemmas are yet to come, and when the presence is militaristic, every challenge looks like a conflict.

It’s seductive to picture space as above our imperfect earthly reality, imagining a peaceful place above the Karman Line where international disputes dissipate into nothingness for our best selves to finally emerge. Though the Star Trek concept of a benign, peaceful space presence seems profoundly at odds with our conduct on Earth. Harmony in the heavens seems the greater fiction unless we can be united in cosmic wonder as we venture out together.

I’d like to think that in two centuries’ time Space Force and the desire to conquer space will be mentioned on gleaming white starships with all the horror of a Starship captain lamenting the eugenics wars. I’d like our descendants to look back at this volatile time as the infancy of the human project and as a point of instruction on precisely what no to do for the good of humanity and our celestial neighbours.

Though as physicist Carl Sagan warned, power and ignorance are a combustible mixture. If we choose to wander into the hinterland with an arsenal instead of knowledge, it will blow up in all our faces.