In these days you can already turn your eyes to heaven. Not to expect divine salvation “from above” for a world that is in the process of dismantling itself again. But the view towards the sky also stands for mankind’s dream of a different habitat, somewhere out there in the universe. In which things could be more peaceful, freer and generally less burdened than is the case on earth.
Distance does not protect against disappointment. It’s not peaceful out there anymore. At least not since the moment mankind began to conquer space. What is allowed to happen there is still regulated by a document from 1967.
The “Outer Space Treaty”, the space treaty signed in the White House by the USA, the former USSR and 60 other countries on the evening of January 27, 1967 was made for a world and a universe in which almost nothing was going on, at least much less than today. In the spirit of the peace movement and the protests against the Vietnam War, it states that space exploration is being carried out “for the benefit and in the interests of all countries” and is “a matter for all mankind”. It is said to be guided by the principle of cooperation and by “consideration of the relevant interests of all other contracting states” and sees all astronauts as “messengers of mankind”.
That sounds nice and peaceful and yet it is fluffy and meaningless. As hard fact, the document only states that nuclear weapons are banned in space. The rest is Wild West.
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The orbit has now become a race track. Around 7,000 satellites orbit the earth, most of which can be used for civil but also military purposes. Almost half of them are no longer functional, but continue to fly as space debris and trigger tens of thousands of collision warnings at ground stations every day. With no one keeping accurate records of what else these flying satellite zombies can do, you’d rather not risk a crash.
Since 2015, seven countries have launched a military space program, including Russia, China, India, Iran and North Korea. These are not abstract activities. There are numerous examples of how individual protagonists of the new armament in space test their leeway to dangerous limits. As early as 2007, China tested a weapon system with which it is possible to carry out a direct attack from Earth in space. In 2019, India also made an attempt with such a satellite destruction weapon and shot down one of its own satellites. It has long been possible to operate militarily in space from our soil. We’ve come down to earth, even in space.
As if that weren’t enough, military experts believe that China has developed laser weapon systems that can be used to selectively switch off sensor communication from satellites. In 2018, for example, the Russians disrupted the GPS communication of a NATO exercise in Scandinavia. Conversely, such systems can also be used to simulate satellite signals that do not exist, i.e. to fake them.
Space is an almost rule-free space for military build-up
In the summer of 2019, for example, there was an incident in the port of Shanghai in which a US container ship and a few other freighters received GPS signals that experts believe came from the Chinese military, including information about attacking speedboats. Fortunately, the captain of the US freighter was able to verify with his own eyes and a telescope that this information was not correct and thus prevent a catastrophe. But this is Information War 2.0, in which disinformation freely fluctuates between Earth and orbit.
No one on Earth can see with the naked eye what is happening up there in space. The military experts also operate with systems that are endlessly far away and have never been used before. This is the great risk of the militarization of space, the “tyranny of distance”. Once a conflict begins, it’s a millisecond’s decision to fire yourself before your own weapons are shut down.
In the light of these developments, it is a joke that space is a near-rules space for military build-up. A new international treaty is urgently needed that sets limits on what can be done with weapons in orbit. Two international groups of experts are working on this. One of the documents describes the principle of “proportionality of all actions” as an essential requirement for all engagement in space. We can observe on Earth how some people interpret this. In Ukraine.
In this column, Miriam Meckel writes fortnightly about ideas, innovations and interpretations that make progress and a better life possible. Because what the caterpillar calls the end of the world, the rest of the world calls a butterfly. ada-magazin.com
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