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Weightless wellness

Astronaut health care — prior to, during and post mission — has historically been served by specialized medical doctors called “flight surgeons.” While the name suggests surgeries are taking place in the air, it is rather misleading. But with longer space missions on the horizon, flight surgeons may soon be aptly named.

The role of flight surgeons, or aerospace medicine specialists, is varied but they are primarily responsible for the care of crews whether they are flying in space or in the air.

The current protocol is to stabilize the patient and send him or her back to Earth for medical intervention. That won’t work for a seven-month journey from Mars, so is it time for flight surgeons to up their game with actual surgery?

LISTEN TO THE DEEP DIVE

But what could go wrong? Doing surgery. In space. In microgravity.

The problem: There is little knowledge and even less experience. To date, there have been only minor procedures in space. But there is a lot of research focused on medical obstacles to deep-space, moon and Mars missions to come.

PREVENTING BLOOD LOSS

IMAGE: Freepik
What happens to the human body in space?

On Earth, we spend our days walking from room to room, home to car, car to office, running around the office, exercising and running errands. Every single step includes flexion and extension at the hip, knee, and ankle, involving 200 muscles. Read more›››

Strong muscles contribute to bone density health. The stronger a muscle is, the more it pulls on the bones it’s attached to, making them stronger.

This also means the weaker the muscles, the weaker the bones. So imagine if you were just floating about your day and not using any of the muscles or joints your body was designed for. What might happen to those muscles? And those bones?

According to NASA, lengthy stays in space can lead to muscle atrophy (loss) — a condition that astronauts aim to avoid with intensive strength-training sessions during missions on the International Space Station. Astronauts on a mission from five to 11 days can lose up to 20 percent of their body’s muscle mass. Short-term missions don’t have much impact on bone-density loss but longer missions do — and the effects are really noticeable upon return to Earth.

The normal weight bearing on the skeletal system on Earth can be a shock to weakened bones and would put them at higher risk of breakage and for osteoporosis. This risk factor continues to be an obstacle for long-term space stays for astronauts, with a monthly average of 1 to 2 percent bone mineral density loss. The World Health Organization says that an osteoporosis diagnosis is based on a 25 percent deficit on the average bone density of a 30-year-old. And osteoporosis is not reversible.

The International Space Station orbits the Earth at 400 kilometers from sea level and can be reached in anywhere from four hours to several days. NASA estimates a journey to Mars will take approximately seven months. This means by the time astronauts reach Mars, they could experience a 20 percent mineral loss.

But flight surgeons counter this with rigorous cardiovascular exercise and resistance training up to two hours daily. And after a six-month stay on the International Space Station, astronauts return with minimal loss.

Dr. Sergi Vaquer Araujo of the European Space Agency says the hydraulic resistance machines to maintain muscle mass and strength enable the astronauts to walk very quickly after their return to Earth.

“They all lose bone, but the amount is always within a very big safety margin that would classify as a normal human bone mineral density,” Vaquer Araujo tells KUST Review.

“All in all, what I’m trying to say is that if you look at the commonalities on how to treat those three things, bone, muscle and heart and vessels, they all benefit from exercise, our main drug, and we treat it as a drug.

“So that means what we’re doing in space works for six months, the one-year mission (on the Russian and American side) showed that, yes, it (effects of time in microgravity) is more pronounced, but still within manageable ranges.”‹‹‹ Read less

Innovations are underway to prevent blood or other fluids escaping the surgical site in microgravity conditions.

A surgical fluid management system developed by the astrosurgical team at University of Louisville in the United States was tested in 2021 aboard a Virgin Galactic flight. The technology, funded by NASA’s program to prepare for long missions, is basically a dome that fits over the surgical site to contain fluid. It is fitted with specific points where surgical instruments can be inserted without fluid escaping.

The fully automated test included injecting a blood-like fluid into the dome and manipulating the pressure within it to control bleeding. But the technology is multi-faceted and included tests of its irrigation abilities, suction and ability to vacate fluids from the dome. The dome keeps fluid in but also protects the surgical site from contaminants.

George Pantalos, head of the University of Louisville’s astrosurgery team, said the device operated as expected. “There was a little bit of variation in how things worked compared to gravity on Earth, but they weren’t showstoppers by any means.”

The team is also working on ways to allow non-surgeons to perform emergency surgeries as well as a space-saving 3D printer that will print recyclable surgical tools.

SURGICAL ROBOTS

Another potential path to success: robotic surgeries.

Remotely operated surgical robot MIRA (Miniature In-Vivo Robotic Assistant), created by Virtual Incisions’ Shane Farritor, will make a jaunt to the International Space Station for testing in 2024.

The tiny MIRA robot will conduct small surgical-type functions inside a small compartment with simulated materials.

Robotic surgeries contain the internal organs and bodily fluids while reducing contamination. They also offer less invasive procedures with quicker recovery time, which means lower risk of infection – especially important considering microgravity’s damaging effects on the human immune system.

MICROGRAVITY AND WOUNDS

Microgravity also appears to have an effect on wound healing. Current research indicates slowed cellular growth and decrease in collagen fibers. A 2022 paper published in Nature suggests that time spent in space leads to a reduction in red blood cell count in astronauts — a condition known as anemia. Oxygen-rich red blood cells are instrumental in building tissue for wound healing.

Space anemia was originally thought to be caused by initial exposure to microgravity resulting from bodily fluids shifting upward. Further research, however, shows that the anemia is present during and after exposure. This also should be considered for surgical aftercare on long-term missions.

These are only a handful of challenges.

Then there is the matter of who is going to perform such surgeries. Currently medical officers on board spacecraft aren’t doctors — they are flight crew with 60 hours of medical training. Flight surgeons monitoring the health of astronauts currently do so from the ground.

Flight surgeons for astronauts aren’t typically astronauts themselves or surgeons for that matter. If flight surgery is in your path, however, you are in for a bit of a long haul. On top of a four-year degree, four years of medical school and three years of residency, it will be another two years of specializing in space medicine to reach the final frontier, says NASA flight surgeon Rick Sheuring in an interview with the University of Strathclyde in Glasgow, Scotland.

That’s a 13-year journey, plus astronaut training. But it could just land you on the cutting edge of space-medicine development.

THE CURE

Though many of these developments are in process, Dr. Sergi Vaquer Araujo, intensive care medicine specialist and leader of the European Space Agency’s space medicine team, says there will be limits to what can be done. This means astronauts will have to accept that there are health issues that simply can’t be properly addressed in space.

But some conditions can be anticipated and prepared for.

Vaquer Araujo’s team works closely with NASA to prepare a kit that will address as many likely emergent scenarios as possible. Not necessarily open-cavity surgeries, but treating illnesses and performing procedures, such as suturing small wounds or extracting teeth, that have been performed on the International Space Station.

“Imagine a micrometeorite penetrates the vehicle and penetrates the chest of an astronaut, for instance, and then not having the tools to manage that. That would be a pity, and the person dies because I didn’t have the tools,” Vaquer Araujo says.

What tools to take to space can be a high-stakes guessing game.

“That’s a very frustrating thing, but one has to be also realistic, and if you cannot have everything you need to assess the chances of that happening and if the chances are low, you need to take a gamble,” he tells KUST Review.

IMAGE: Abjad Design

He says astronauts are well aware of the risks, but as a doctor, there are still ethical concerns with sending people on a mission without every possible means to maintain their health and safety.

The European Space Agency and NASA have different approaches to how they build their medical kits, but they are complementary. The organizations continue to work to combine them.

The philosophy goes something like this: It’s not what happens, it’s what the body needs to solve the problem.

“For example, if I’m bleeding, what I need is to stop the bleeding and administer fluids. But if I have septic shock, meaning I have a completely uncontrolled infection, I also need fluid and I will also need the same tools for both things to know the status,” he says.

“What this all means is when you’re in a critical medical situation and conditions escalate to a failure of a system, those failures are diagnosed with almost the same tools. So, our approach is to try to find all those commonalities and build our kit, so at least we have something to treat those commonalities. So, you do not think whether this could be a micrometeorite that penetrates the chest — you just know that if you have insufficient lung function, you will need oxygen,” Vaquer Araujo says.

OTHER THINGS TO CONSIDER

He is encouraged by the fact that the ESA’s kit and NASA’s are in line up to 90 percent now. They also agree that at this stage, major surgery in space is not feasible. And the challenges of microgravity are not necessarily the major concerns.

For complicated open surgeries, a full operating room is imperative, which means more space in space is required.

But this space would also require an amount of flammable oxygen that would put the entire crew at risk.

Also to consider are the sterilization capabilities, which Vaquer Araujo believes is the biggest concern.

You also need the skill of an actual surgeon on board, but what if that surgeon is the patient? And what type of medical doctor do you put on board as the surgeon? What if you place an internal medicine doctor in the field and there is a trauma issue? And that ”surgeon” spends the two years prior to the mission training as an astronaut but not treating patients — what risks does two years away from practicing pose?

The list of questions is unending. The cure, it seems, is time, innovation and a lot of money.

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There’s a new kind of neighborhood
watch and it’s the bees’ knees

According to the World Health Organization, right up there with climate change, air pollution and pandemics, growing resistance to antimicrobials is one of the top 10 threats to public health globally. But the solution may lie in a tiny honey bee.

Antimicrobials are medications used to remedy and avert infections. You might be familiar with some of them — antibiotics, antivirals, antifungals — to name a few. Some have been described as the most effective medicines created. The antibiotic penicillin is approaching its 95rd birthday on Sept. 28, and in 2021, it was estimated to have saved over 200 million lives.

The problem is antimicrobials are overused and misused, and this causes bacteria and other disease-causing organisms to develop resistance to their effects. Also at risk are areas where resistant microbes spread due to lack of clean water and public sanitation. So it is imperative to understand where the resistance exists to combat the problem.

This is where our friends the bees come in.

Bees come in contact daily with natural substances like water, soil, air and pollen — all containing evidence of antimicrobial resistance. A 2023 study revealed that honey bees, because they live where humans live, are an effective indicator of whether microbial resistance affects a population. And with an estimated 10 million annual deaths due to antimicrobial resistance expected globally by 2050, these small biomonitors could save a lot of lives.

The team from Macquarie University in Australia tested 144 European honey bees from 18 hives and determined that 83 percent tested positive for one or more antimicrobial resistance targets and 39 percent tested positive for two or more.

The short lifespan of the honey bee of only four to eight weeks and its 2.5 kilometer foraging area means the data is current and local. And with 700,000 deaths annually from drug-resistant diseases, the data needs to be accurate.

While honey bees can be found in almost every country in the world, the team acknowledges there are flaws in nearly every method of antimicrobial monitoring, and a global system of combined monitoring results would be most effective in combating the issue of antimicrobial resistance. Consistency in the methods would also enhance accuracy.

IMAGE: Pixabay

Antimicrobial resistance isn’t limited to humans — plants and animals are also at risk. So, it’s imperative to also determine the sources of the resistant bacteria. The study reports, “It is crucial to determine the major sources that introduce resistant bacteria into the environment, which include sewage and sewage treatment plants, industrial sources, as well as agriculture and aquaculture.” It also indicates that there is far too little research in this area.

So, knowing whether these bacteria are picked up at the beach, local swimming pool or from eating local fruits and veggies could be a catalyst for temporary interventions.

Across the board, the team concludes a rounded and effective program includes a comprehensive surveillance system; determination of the extent of the resistance; understanding where monitoring is required; the most effective method of monitoring; and testing of microorganisms at the genetic level.

Regardless of the ”what,” everyone needs to be on the same page so the world needs a consistent and controlled handle on antimicrobial resistance and it needs to extend to areas where resistant bacteria have high risk of transmission.

Essentially, there is a ways to go before there is a cohesive system of monitoring and testing antimicrobial resistance, but the honey bees, with more than 3 billion colonies in the United States alone and an increase in the population by 80 percent since the 1960s, are a reliable and abundant resource.

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Back down to Earth

The space race — the Cold War competition between the United States and the Soviet Union — brought innovations not just into the aerospace realm but into everyday life. Here are eight technologies that came out of that period — and three you thought came out of NASA but really didn’t.

| SATELLITE TECHNOLOGY AND GPS

Satellites were developed as a way to communicate with spacecraft and relay information back to Earth. Today, satellites are used for a wide range of purposes, including communication, navigation and weather forecasting. The Global Positioning System (GPS) was developed to navigate and track the position of spacecraft. Now, the average consumer uses GPS for navigation, while farmers use it for precision agriculture. By combining GPS location data with readings from sensors on farming machinery, farmers are able to determine crop yields in different areas of their fields.

| LISTEN TO THE DEEP DIVE

| COMPOSITE MATERIALS

The need for lightweight materials that could withstand the extreme conditions of space led to the development of advanced composite materials. These are now used in a wide range of applications, including aircraft, automobiles and sports equipment. Innovations in shock-absorption materials coupled with robotic and extravehicular activities in space are now being adapted to create more functionally dynamic artificial limbs on Earth.

| WATER-PURIFICATION SYSTEMS

Water in space is precious, so systems were developed to recycle and purify it for reuse. These systems are now used in such settings as hospitals, disaster-relief efforts and developing nations. The electrolytic silver ionizer developed by NASA in the 1960s is widely used on Earth to clean recreational pools.

| MEDICAL EQUIPMENT

The space race led to the development of medical equipment that monitored astronauts’ health during long-duration missions. Plus, digital imaging technology developed for use in space helped create CAT scanners and radiography.

| SMARTPHONE CAMERAS

Experiments miniaturizing cameras for use in space led to the active pixel sensor now used in the standard smartphone camera. Today’s smartphones also employ embedded web technology used onboard the International Space Station to conduct experiments remotely over the internet.

| INTERNET OF THINGS

From embedded web technology came the Internet of Things: remote wireless connectivity between devices in smart homes, smart cities and wearable technology.

| INSULATION MATERIALS

To combat extreme temperatures in space, NASA developed insulation from aluminized polyester called Radiant Barrier, used today in home insulation. Plus, the foil blankets draped over athletes at the end of a grueling event evolved from a lightweight insulator NASA developed to protect spacecraft and people in space.

| WIRELESS HEADSETS AND VIRTUAL REALITY

Astronauts need to float free, hence the development of wireless headsets. Earth-bound high-resolution virtual-reality systems use the head-mounted panoramic display developed to let astronomers and geologists study 3D images of other worlds.

| 3 THINGS NOT INVENTED FOR SPACE

Urban myths link NASA to many materials and gadgets. In fact, the agency didn’t invent Teflon, Velcro or the powdered-drink mix Tang. Teflon had been around since the 1930s, Velcro since the 1950s and Tang was on the market just as NASA was finding its feet.

Mercury astronaut John Glenn drinking Tang in orbit as part of an experiment did, however, do a lot for the brand. NASA may not have invented these products, but it helped to popularize them. Having your product associated with astronauts and the space race connected it with science and discovery.

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Mining the moon

The space race of the 1960s was about which country would put boots on the moon first. While some of the frontrunners are the same, today’s space race is quite different: Today it’s about who might build on the moon first.

It’s been more than 50 years since a human set foot on the moon. Now China and the United States are working toward habitable long-term structures.
But why would we want to build on the moon?

  Listen to the Deep Dive

Basically, it’s a first-come, first-served situation. No one owns the moon — there is no border divide, no land-ownership dispute and no indigenous aliens to bargain with (that we know of) — it’s all just there for the taking. So, it only makes sense that everyone wants to take it.

Though the Outer Space Treaty states no one owns the moon and no one can own parts of the moon, the rules for private companies are ambiguous. In 2020 the U.S. Trump administration produced an executive order that allows private companies to mine on the moon.

IMAGE: Darya Kawa Mirza
Charting a journey through the history of lunar water exploration

For centuries, scientists have theorized about whether water exists on the moon. From bountiful lunar oceans to arid, thirsty regolith, theories of water on the lunar surface have been extreme. Today there is no longer need for theory as the lunar surface provides answers to the question: Can I get a drink of water on the moon? Follow the science as it reveals how early theories led to what we know today: Read more›››

1645: First map of the moon is produced by Dutch astronomer Michael van Langren, suggesting the dark holes on the moon visible to the naked eye are oceans.

1892: American astronomer William Pickering suggests that because the moon has no atmosphere, any water would evaporate.

1960s: Scientists theorize the extreme cold of parts of the moon that never see the sun could be home to frozen water.

1969-’72 Regolith collected by the Apollo mission turns up devoid of water.

2008: Re-examination of lunar soil samples reveals H2O molecules.

2018: A team of scientists confirms ice rests inside craters at both lunar poles. The temperature here never rises above -250 degrees Fahrenheit.

2020: NASA confirms water on the sunlit surfaces as well.

2023: China mission discovers tiny glass beads containing water in lunar soil where meteorites smash into the moon. There are billions, perhaps trillions, on the surface, each no bigger than the width of two hairs.‹‹‹ Read less

And now that we know the moon isn’t made of cheese, players are hard at work to get pieces of what it is made of.

It must be something spectacular for them to want it so badly, right?

Sorry to disappoint, but with the exception of a handful of new minerals, it’s really not much different from what we have here on Earth.

“The Earth and the moon are made out of the same stuff because the solar system was made out of the same stuff,” says Ian Crawford, professor of planetary science and astrobiology at Birbeck University of London.

  Locally sourced materials

The problem is that stuff here on Earth doesn’t help us build structures in space, and that‘s the long-term plan: Build on the moon without carting materials all the way from Earth or robbing Earth of its resources. “Gradually increasing access to lunar resources may help bootstrap a space-based economy from which the world economy, and possibly also the world’s environment, will ultimately benefit,” Crawford says.

Don’t forget about the cost, says Sean Swei, director of the Space Technology & Innovation Center at Khalifa University. “Here, the cost is most likely measured by the amount of energy needed to perform mining and conversion. For example, sending 1 liter of water to the moon costs about U.S.$1.2 million. If we could come up with a much more effective launch vehicle, the cost could drop to U.S.$10,000. Hence, large payload delivery to the moon might still be reasonable, though for sustainability we’d still want to enable in-situ resource utilization.”

  Progress is underway

NASA in 2022 announced it hired four private companies to mine the lunar surface. The first is Lunar Outpost, a company with a mission to settle humans on the moon. Lunar Outpost charged NASA a dollar for the private company’s rover to pick up a bit of lunar soil, take a snapshot of it and transfer ownership to NASA.

This marked the beginning of commercializing lunar minerals. It also marked the first action in NASA’s plan to build a long-term dwelling for humans on the lunar surface by 2030

NASA’s Artemis program launched its first phase to test its new mega-spaceship in 2022. It was uncrewed — by humans — and it successfully returned to Earth with all of its mannequins and stuffed toy Shaun the Sheep unharmed.

Artemis II will take astronauts on a junket around the moon, and Artemis III will be the boots-on-the-moon finale with an ultimate goal of establishing habitable bases.

  Printing a place to live

But for those bases they’ll need building materials. And they’ll use modern technology to produce them. This is where 3D printing comes in.

NASA has toyed in the past with 3D printing on the International Space Station, using lunar regolith for research purposes. But in 2022 the agency announced it had awarded a U.S.$60 million contract to tech-construction company Olympus to construct a 3D laser printer that will build on the moon and Mars.

Meanwhile, Khalifa University is working on autonomous/robotic assembly of large habitat infrastructures on the moon. This race is on.

The Chinese space program also aims to mine the moon for exploration purposes. And while building a safe, sustainable shelter on the moon is paramount for all players, so is the discovery of possible energy sources.

China, too, is pursuing 3D printing. According to a 2023 Reuters report, China is hoping to use the technology to 3D print a lunar station. Its 2028 mission has a robot tasked with constructing a brick from moon minerals.

CAPTION: This photo might look a bit strange, yet those are the actual colors of the lunar surface (with a bit of a push to make them distinguishable and more visible). Those colors come from the minerals found there. Areas rich in iron, for example, have an orange tint, while areas rich in titanium have a blue tint. IMAGE: Ritesh Biswas

The United States and Russia have discovered five new minerals on the moon. But China’s 2020 lunar mission resulted in the discovery of a sixth: a phosphorus mineral named Changesite-(Y). On Earth, phosphate plays an essential role in plant growth. While it is not known what the phosphate from the barrel-shaped moon crystals will reveal, it could be a possible energy source for those long-term lunar visits.

Scientists in China analyzing the Changesite-(Y) crystal determined it contains an isotope of helium-3, which is scarce on Earth.

  A better nuclear material?

This discovery could be an energy game-changer, says Gerald Kulcinski, director emeritus of the Fusion Technology Institute at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

“The amount of energy in the helium-3 on the moon could produce all the electricity needed on the Earth for about 1,000 years,” he says. Astronauts from the U.S. Apollo program discovered in 1970 that helium-3 is in almost every sample brought back from the moon, Kulcinski says.

Helium-3 is effused by the sun and transported through the solar system by solar winds. But Earth’s magnetic field repels helium-3; only a small amount penetrates the atmosphere.

The moon, however, has about 1 million metric tons of the material, Kulcinski tells KUST Review.

The moon’s resources could be a proverbial goldmine for nuclear energy. Experts say 40 grams (eight teaspoons) of helium-3 could provide the energy equivalent of 5,000 tons of coal. Because helium-3 is not radioactive itself, it could provide safer and cleaner nuclear energy.

“He-3 is one of the advanced fusion fuels that can release enormous amounts of energy without the drawbacks of greenhouse gases from fossil fuels or large amounts of radioactive waste from fission reactors,” Kulcinski says.

  What else is there?

So if there’s energy resources in abundance on the moon, surely, you might think, there are many other untapped assets there too. Sadly, you’d be wrong, says Birbeck University’s Crawford.

Though much of the moon is unexplored, Crawford says he believes there won’t be any significant future finds to benefit us on Earth. He contends this race is about what we can use while in space — whether it’s a lunar station or a Jeff Bezos hotel in Earth’s low orbit — and the media hype of the race is geo-politics at play.

“It’s interesting and important from a scientific point of view, and though there are only 10 locations on the surface of the moon from which we’ve actually collected samples and analyzed them, I doubt there are going to be any big surprises that are going to be relevant,” he tells KUST Review.

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Final frontiers

Outer space, including the moon and other celestial bodies, is not subject to national appropriation by claim of sovereignty, by means of use or occupation, or by any other means. — Outer Space Treaty

It’s the year 2122. A space tug owned by the Weyland-Yutani Corp. and diverted by a distress signal has discovered a potentially valuable asset on a distant planet. But rival company Blue Sun says it registered an intellectual property claim on the planet’s biological resources even though it had never sent teams there.

|  Listen to the Deep Dive

Who should prevail in court? The scenario may be set in the far future, but the law the decision might be based on is rooted in our past.

|  Individuals in space

All countries have laws, rules and governing bodies determining what is legal — and what is not. Emigrate to a new country, adopt a new legal system. But what about moving to a new planet or space station? Under which — or whose — jurisdiction would your new home fall? Would there be one at all?

Maritime law could be one model to follow. When a ship is in international waters, the laws of the country of registration apply. An American cruise ship in the middle of the Pacific follows the American legal system. Should that ship drift into another country’s territorial waters, it would fall under the jurisdiction of the country whose territory it is physically in.

Currently, a spacecraft is considered an extension of its country of origin. So while on your space shuttle bus to your new home on the moon, the maritime international waters model applies. Upon landing, that’s where things get complicated.

According to the 1967 Treaty on Principles Governing the Activities of States in the Exploration and Use of Outer Space, including the Moon and Other Celestial Bodies (more commonly known as the Outer Space Treaty or OST), “outer space, including the moon and other celestial bodies, is not subject to national appropriation by claim of sovereignty, by means of use or occupation, or by any other means.”
Space belongs to no one — no law applies universally. Literally.

Enter “extraterritorial jurisdiction.” According to this principle, people are subject to the laws of their home country even outside its territories. When a person is in another country, that country’s laws supersede the home country’s laws — but when they aren’t in any country, like on the moon, the home country’s laws do apply. Two people on the moon could be subject to different laws.

The 1998 Space Station Agreement says, “Canada, the European Partner States, Japan, Russia, and the United States may exercise criminal jurisdiction over personnel in or on any flight element who are their respective nationals.” Extraterrestrial jurisdiction applies.

Yun Zhao is head of the department of law at the University of Hong Kong. In an article for Space Policy, Zhao writes: “Objects and personnel inside space objects that are transported from Earth into outer space do not enter a legal vacuum during their sojourn; they continue in a confirmed legal relationship with the Earth. This legal relationship is maintained and connected by registration.”

The Convention on Registration of Objects Launched into Outer Space requires entities to establish and maintain the registration of space objects. It’s maritime law again, just in the vastness of space instead of the waves. According to Zhao, whether the space object is governmental or non-governmental is of no consequence: If an American company launches a spacecraft, it’s an American spacecraft and any person on board is subject to American law.

So far, fewer than 700 people have been to space. All planned to return — but what will govern those who choose to stay there?

|  Extraterrestrial human settlement

The China National Space Administration has been rapidly developing its space program, including a successful landing of a rover on the far side of the moon in 2019, and Mars in 2021. It has expressed interest in establishing a crewed lunar base and plans to send crewed missions by 2030.

Outer space, including the moon and other celestial bodies, is not subject to national appropriation by claim of sovereignty.

The Russian space agency, Roscosmos, has a long history of space exploration and has expressed interest in establishing a lunar base in partnership with other countries. NASA plans to send astronauts back to the moon by 2024 under the Artemis program, with plans for long-term space exploration and settlement. Within the next 100 years, the UAE aims to establish a human settlement on Mars. Historical explorations on Earth have taught us that whoever gets there first lays claim to the land.

But can this — and should this — apply to the extraterrestrial?

For the most part, current space exploration is an international collaborative effort. The challenges of exploring and utilizing space are immense and no single country can achieve them alone. By working together, countries can pool their resources, share expertise, and spread the risks and costs of space exploration. Look up at the International Space Station, a prime example of successful international collaboration in space, an unlikely if not impossible endeavor if it weren’t operated by a partnership of five space agencies: NASA, Roscosmos, the European Space Agency (ESA), Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) and the Canadian Space Agency (CSA).

Space exploration is inherently a global effort, and if this spirit of collaboration can continue, the Outer Space Treaty of 1967 could be enough to protect humankind’s interests in space. As no one may claim ownership of any celestial body, everything in space becomes the common heritage of humanity.

Perhaps this will suffice. Certainly, president of the International Institute of Space Law and ESA’s special advisor for political affairs Kai-Uwe Schrogl believes in it:

“Common heritage is the only thing that can save us,” Schrogl tells KUST Review. “We can learn from our experiences here on Earth and develop these principles of common heritage for space. Look at Antarctica or deep-sea mining.”

GRAPHICS: Anya Lambert & Anas Albounni

In 1960, U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower proposed that the principles of the Antarctic Treaty of 1959 be applied to outer space. The signatories to the Antarctic Treaty (of which there were only 12 in 1959, but a further 17 signed by 2010) recognize “that it is in the interest of all mankind that Antarctica shall continue forever to be used exclusively for peaceful purposes and shall not become the scene or object of international discord.”

Sounds familiar. There are many overlaps between the Antarctic Treaty and the Outer Space Treaty, which makes sense: They’re both remote, extreme environments with potentially valuable resources, and lots of people want to explore, exploit and possibly make territorial claims.

While only 50 countries have signed the Antarctic Treaty, 112 countries are party to the Outer Space Treaty, with another 23 signed but not ratified. This is encouraging to those with Schrogl’s worldview of optimism and common heritage, but there may be a more earthly reason: The Outer Space Treaty started as the 1963 Limited Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, which prohibited nuclear weapons tests or detonations under water, in the atmosphere or in outer space. One hundred twenty-six countries signed that one.

However, as Schrogl points out to KUST Review: “We haven’t seen anyone break the Antarctica Treaty, and we haven’t seen anyone break space law.”

Within the next 100 years, the UAE aims to establish a human settlement on Mars.

As for claiming land, the Antarctica example works again. During the Antarctic Treaty discussions, many countries wanted to claim part of the continent by virtue of their citizens having reached there first, with some claims overlapping. The moon and Mars may offer more surface area to divvy up, but just like it was decided no country could claim sovereignty over any part of Antarctica, so too should the Outer Space Treaty hold up.

Zhao agrees: “More than 50 years after the OST entered into force, it is justifiable to hold that the non-appropriation principle has successfully ensured the safe and orderly development of space activities.”

|  Commercial space activities

The increasing commercialization of space is leading to new legal challenges, particularly in the areas of intellectual property and the use of space resources. Private companies like SpaceX and Blue Origin are playing an increasingly important role in space exploration, and there is a growing need for regulation of their activities. This includes issues related to liability, intellectual property and the use of space resources. As private companies begin to exploit resources like water and minerals on the moon and other celestial bodies, clear legal frameworks will need to be developed to govern these activities.

For the University of Hong Kong’s Zhao, intellectual property protection plays a significant role in promoting the sustainable development of space commercialization.

“Over the past few decades, the space sector has witnessed an accelerated speed of commercialization,” Zhao says. “Due to the advancement of space technology and gradual reduced cost of space exploration, private entities are looking for new chances to participate in the development of space commercialization. However, existing policies and treaties fail to consider international intellectual property.

GRAPHICS: Anya Lambert & Anas Albounni

 

“Given that space exploration heavily relies on technology, which certainly requires intellectual property rights protection, the expansion of space commercialization further enhances such demand. Without an explicit and standing legal basis in space law that provides IP protection to private entities, they may be deterred from investing and thereby actively participating in commercial space activities.

“Space commercialization cannot be disconnected from IP protection. The essentially public nature of outer space law appears to clash with the private nature of IP law,” Zhao adds.

At its core, IP law relates to the establishment and protection of intellectual creations, such as inventions, designs, patents and trademarks. IP law offers economic incentive because it allows people to benefit from the information and intellectual goods they create, protecting their ideas and preventing copying.

For the companies charging ahead in an unclear framework, the Outer Space Treaty holds up.

“Article II of the OST also states that outer space cannot be appropriated by means of use,” Zhao says. “Therefore, from a legal point of view, neither the scientific use nor commercial use of outer space will ever be sufficient to validate a territorial sovereignty claim. Landing on the moon constitutes a ‘use’ of outer space, but it does not and can never constitute a ‘national appropriation’ that leads to territorial sovereignty. The major purpose of Article II was to protect outer space from the potential conflict which may be caused by territorial or colonization-drive[n] ambitions.”

While he wants further clarification for the future, Zhao isn’t too worried for those private entities going forth now: “In general, the IP regime we have now should be fine.”

|  Space debris

With more and more objects being sent into space, the amount of space debris is increasing rapidly. This debris poses a significant risk to both manned and unmanned space missions, and there is currently no comprehensive international legal framework to regulate its removal.

University of Hong Kong’s Zhao points to the Outer Space Treaty:

“Article VI makes states internationally responsible for their national activities in space, and Article VII makes states internationally liable for their launch of space objects into outer space and the damage caused thereof.

Sounds simple enough, and Kaitlyn Johnson, author of the Center for Strategic and International Studies report on key governance issues in space, calls space debris mitigation one of the best developed areas of space law.

“Space debris is a growing problem with almost every launch,” she writes. “Many space experts acknowledge that without norms of behavior or debris removal missions, the space environment may be permanently damaged.

We haven’t seen anyone break the Antarctica Treaty, and we haven’t seen anyone break space law.

– Kai-Uwe Schrogl

There are several international mechanisms, national policies, and industry efforts to curb the creation and proliferation of space debris, but despite this progress, few international standards or norms exist.”

The few that do exist, Johnson adds, are out of date with today’s technology and the proliferation of commercial satellites. She points out the recent near miss between an ESA Earth observation satellite and one of SpaceX’s first satellites for its broadband internet provision plan. The U.S. Air Force tracked the two satellites, noting the chance of collision as 1 in 1,000. In the end, ESA chose to maneuver its satellite away from the SpaceX orbital path.

“In just this single example, it is clear that the lack of agreed international norms and processes for space-traffic management could have caused a devastating event in the space environment,” Johnson writes. “A lack of defined international regulations means the choice of how to proceed is left to the satellite operators, but in cases where satellites are not operational, and cannot be maneuvered out of the way, all the international community can do is wait and watch.”

P.J. Blount, IISL’s executive secretary and lecturer in law for Cardiff University, firmly agrees the most pressing concern for policymakers is the safety of operations in Earth’s orbit.

“At the moment, there is increasing congestion in parts of Earth’s orbital space, which has been coupled with a proliferation of space debris,” he tells KUST Review. “Space operations are coordinated through a variety of ad hoc frameworks, but as operators and objects increase these frameworks are strained under these burdens. While understanding how resource activities may work out in the future is important, on-orbit congestion and the need for space traffic is a problem that the space industry faces today.”

Johnson says 2019 saw the real start of united efforts to better coordinate space-debris management and space-traffic management measures. It started with the International Astronautical Congress in 2019, she says, where the international space community collectively called for better space-situational awareness and the need to mitigate debris-creating events in the space domain.

Later that year, the 92 member states of the United Nations Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space (COPUOS) approved 21 new guidelines for space sustainability.

(For more on space debris check this out: Cleaning up our space)

These guidelines are voluntary and not legally binding, but Johnson says they signify a united effort to track all objects in space and to limit debris.

Part of this is the guideline encouraging increased communication between countries and non-governmental entities, and a United Nations information platform to manage space traffic.

2019 also saw the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) update its primary document on space-debris mitigation guidelines, making its compliance requirements stricter. The ISO crafts and promotes international standardization for policy areas including food safety, health care, agriculture, commercial technology and space.

GRAPHICS: Anya Lambert & Anas Albounni

Compliance with ISO standards is generally accepted as industry best practice, and Johnson points out that several nations follow ISO guidelines and either write the standards directly into their national policies or use them as a basis for crafting unique policy.

Developing international guidelines and policies takes time, and Johnson worries that real efforts to protect the space domain will not occur until a major debris-creating event takes place. However, she also highlights the strong industry and multinational consensus that protecting the space environment and focusing on efforts to mitigate the creation of debris should be an international priority.

|  What lies ahead?

“The 1967 OST was made before the era of space commercialization,” Zhao tells KUST Review. “It contains only general principles; there is a need to further clarify the application of these principles in our modern life with a lot of new development. There are loopholes in the current legal regime and an urgent need for the international society to negotiate to come up with some documents guiding new space activities.”

Schrogl also highlighted the need to update and develop space law for the modern space race, but remains optimistic about the future:

“The threat that member states (of the OST) go alone is omnipresent,” he tells KUST Review. “We have cases and cases where we see this on Earth but we have also seen over the last 50 years or so where respect for international law and the rule of law is growing. Wherever countries think ‘I can be first,’ they try and find loopholes or even use brute force, and we have to be realistic about that. But at the same time, if you look at it with a historical perspective, it’s not so bad how, in particular, space law has been applied and respected.”

So what does 21st century space law look like?

For Zhao, expert in intellectual property law, IP is the main concern. He highlights scientific experiments carried out in space where no countries can claim sovereignty and says we’ll need to determine the rules for IP claims for these results. For him, whether the national legal regime would apply to these situations is the big question.

Schrogl doesn’t know what the future holds for space law but recognizes the sheer number of issues to be ironed out:

“Space law has expanded. From the beginning, it was meant to provide an understanding of the status of outer space and the status of the actors in outer space. This it did extremely well: It’s a space for free use and non-appropriation, states are responsible and liable, and private actors can only act if they are authorized by the states. This holds true today. But space law’s extension has to regulate the behavior of these actors. We need provisions for space traffic management to avoid accidents and collisions, for cleaning space debris, and for long-term sustainability.”

Space law isn’t standing still: There’s COPUOS working to develop guidelines and principles for the exploration and use of space resources. The International Institute of Space Law helps international organizations and national institutions cooperate to develop space law, and the International Astronautical Federation leads space advocacy across 75 countries. There are 11 academic journals dedicated to space law and policy.

And while Schrogl admits progress is slow, “we’re building a new dimension of space law.”