There is immense potential for sustainable innovation in the ever-growing space
economy — in ways that could bring the industry’s own impacts, and an infinite
source of solar power, back down to Earth.
Ever since the Soviets launched the first satellite into outer space on
October 4, 1957, shooting human-made apparatuses into the vast world far above
our own has captured our collective imaginations; and that fascination only grew
once humans began walking on the moon — by way of Apollo 11 in 1968, then
Apollo 17 in 1972.
The space economy takes off
In September of 1982, Europe’s Arianespace
became the first commercial launch-service provider; and in 1984, Ronald
Reagan signed the Commercial Space Launch
Act —
mandating NASA to encourage the privatization of spaceflight and authorizing
the Office of Commercial Space Transportation to regulate private
spaceflight in the United States.
And the private space industry literally really took off in September of 2008,
with the first successful launch of SpaceX’s Falcon
1 rocket.
Since then, the launching of objects (satellites, probes, landers, crewed
spacecrafts, and space station flight elements) into our planet’s orbit and
beyond has increased dramatically. According to Our World in
Data,
globally, 120 objects were launched into space in 2010; by 2023, that number
jumped to 2,664 — an increase of 2,120 percent.
The privatization of space travel has played a major role in this exponential
jump (commercial launch activity increased 50 percent from 2022 to 2023),
leading to what is now known as the space
economy — with much of
the traffic floating above the sky consisting of satellites, which are projected
to increase an additional 700
percent
by 2030.
Lots of energy, lots of smoke
The problem is, each time an object or a person is propelled into space, an
enormous amount of energy must be used to fight the powerful force of gravity.
Anyone who has seen a space launch knows the required force to blast off creates
an enormous amount of smoke.
Overall, the space launch industry only produces a small percentage of all the
C02 emitted by human activities. Nevertheless, as the industry grows, so will
the amount of the gases it emits into the atmosphere.
According to
Space.com,
rockets launched into space emit 100 times more C02 per passenger than do
commercial flights — so, imagine the environmental impact if the space industry
becomes as mainstream as the airline industry.
Pollution from spacecraft also differs from more earthly sources such as
factories, cars and even airplanes — since rockets release harmful gases from
the ground all the way up to the outer layers of the atmosphere; and the higher
the pollution, the longer it
lingers
in our planet’s air and skies.
The space industry also affects the environment in another unique way: Rockets
launched into space eventually make their way back to Earth — burning up as they
are pulled back in by the force of gravity, releasing additional pollutants that
can also affect the
atmosphere
in ways scientists have yet to fully understand.
Solutions
There is no doubt the space industry is increasingly adding stress to a planet
that is already overdosing on pollutants from human industrial activities; but
that doesn’t mean it should be villainized.
For decades, space exploration has fostered a more profound understanding of
climate science; and modern-day satellite communications can provide more
insights on how to combat climate change, potentially providing us with clues on
how to adapt to a warming world.
But the privatization of the industry has opened it up to an extraordinary
amount of investment and unprecedented growth; and the increasing amount of
contaminants it releases into the air at so many levels can no longer be
ignored.
In 2022, British telecommunications company Inmarsat released its Space
Sustainability
Report;
which encourages space industry leaders, governments and regulators to work
together on a solution that is based on five
principles
— including ensuring a level playing field for operators on a global scale, the
creation of a new regulatory framework that is strictly enforced, the detachment
of sustainability from national security concerns, and the sharing of
information about the location of satellites, without revealing their purpose.
Harvesting renewable energy from space
In January 2023, the California Institute of Technology‘s Space Solar Power
Project was launched into orbit. The
mission: Build solar farms in space to harvest solar power and send it to the
Earth’s surface.
The mission was a success and proved our ability to capture energy from the sun
with objects in outer space — a nearly infinite source, since solar energy
obtained from space isn’t limited by factors such as nighttime, cloud cover or
adverse weather events.
Building solar power plants in space would be enormously expensive; but as
Andrew Wilson — a researcher at the Advanced Space Concepts Lab at
Scotland’s University of Strathclyde — told
Space.com, once built, the
space solar plants would pay for themselves much faster than any Earth-based
renewable power-generating technology; and the space-based harvesters could
potentially take in eight times
more
solar power than Earth-bound solar panels. NASA is currently developing
technologies that will “indirectly benefit space-based solar power,” according
to a recent
report
from the NASA’s Office of Technology, Policy and Strategy — such solutions
could offset much of the space industry’s climate-changing impacts on the
Earth’s atmosphere.
There is immense potential for sustainable innovation in the ever-growing space
economy — in ways that could not only clean up the industry’s own impacts, but
benefit our planet and our human health for many years to come. We just need to
invest the time, funds and energy to make it happen — an enormous opportunity
for the public and private sectors to unite in the name of planetary health and
human success both below and beyond the stratosphere.