Lost In Space

 

WORLD

Lost in Space

Last year, the United Arab Emirates became the first Arab state to send a probe to Mars. It was called Hope, wrote National Geographic.

The US and China also sent rovers to the Red Planet, taking advantage of the optimum alignment occurring between Mars and Earth – NASA’s Perseverance recently released audio and video of its descent, reported CNN. Meanwhile, China’s Tianwen-1 just arrived in orbit around the fourth planet from the sun, added the Hill. A Chinese rover on the moon also found a strange rock on our satellite, according to the International Business Times.

The uptick in international space activity recently underscores the role that space exploration is playing in geopolitics today.

To regulate that activity, the US and seven other nations recently signed the Artemis Accords, codifying the rules for doing business in outer space. These include measures that create safety zones to prevent conflict as well as rules that ensure countries act transparently regarding space and share their scientific discoveries. There are also provisions allowing private companies to extract lunar resources, the Washington Post reported.

The accords were an outgrowth of the 1967 Outer Space Treaty, which bans nuclear weapons in space and forbids claims of sovereignty over the moon and other celestial real estate. Most of the world has accepted those rules.

The United Kingdom, Australia, Canada, Japan, Luxembourg, the United Arab Emirates and Italy signed the Accords along with the US. This diverse group is just the tip of the iceberg, however.

Meanwhile, no treaty can eliminate competition.

As science news outlet Phys.org explained, Chinese leaders have “poured billions” into their space program. They want to put a space station crewed with “taikonauts” – the Chinese term for astronauts – in orbit next year. The dream of landing humans on the Moon traces back to Mao Zedong, the late communist Chinese ruler who in 1957 vowed to compete with the Soviet Union after the launch of Sputnik, the first artificial Earth satellite.

China is also cooperating with Russia on preparations for a lunar base, the Russian state-owned news agency Tass reported. Russian officials have also raised the possibility of working with the European Space Agency. In contrast, the US has banned NASA from cooperating with China.

Writing in Foreign Policy magazine, risk analyst Mark Rosenberg and financier Peter Marber warned that America was at risk of falling behind in an important sector at a time when that sector could answer many of the country’s other problems. “It could build entire industries, create new jobs, green the economy – and unite the country behind a common purpose,” they said.

Nearly five centuries ago, Italian astronomer Galileo Galilei looked to the heavens and saw Venus and Saturn and dreamed up a universe that among other things revolved around the sun – no small feat of imagination or bravery back then.

But he would have been hard-pressed to imagine how space could be at the center of a new kind of competition between nations or how celestial bodies can make all the difference to those millions of lightyears away.