Space Powers (disordered thoughts)

Often, especially during the early years of the space age, there was no clear financial incentive for a nation state to attempt to reach space. Reasons that a state might choose to invest the substantial resources necessary for space flight are as varied as they are intertwined with one another. The desire for security, prestige, scientific research and exploration, and finally, social or commercial pressures all contribute to a nations decision to invest in space travel. When the space race began most of the focus was centered around national security and prestige. For both the United States and the USSR, getting to space was as much about showing off to the rest of the world that they were first as it was about protecting their national security interests. The space race was framed around who could make it to space first, then who could make it to the moon first. As monumental as these moments were, they were mostly for the benefit of their people who could cheer and feel national pride as their country made some new first accomplishment. In many ways this was propaganda and did not accurately express what was occurring in secret during the space race. The non-military competition of the space race was in fact essentially a cover for the military to develop intercontinental ballistic missiles that could accurately hit targets across the globe. However, this could only be done if one knew what target they were trying to hit. For the United States especially, they did not have very good intel on much of the USSR’s territories. The US was so in the dark that they had only heard rumors of some soviet cities, but they did not know anything beyond that. In order to combat this information gap, the united states needed satellites that could fly over the USSR and survey the land and geography of the country.

 

After the space race ended, the reasons for new countries to develop space technology grew. Often they were still duel use, however economic reasons also started to take hold. Countries such as Luxemburg found that could try and fill an economic niche and invest in asteroid mining. Other countries such as India have contributed their research toward sending people to space for a social return of national pride and popular support for the President Modi.  Finally, countries such as the UAE have devoted significant resources into space travel for the purposes of scientific research. They have sent the mars satellite “Hope” to orbit mars differently than the five other satellites currently in orbit. They hope that it will give their universities a unique view of mars that will translate into new scientific discovery.

 

The Missile Technology Control Regime is a group of 35 countries whose goal is to prevent missile proliferation. This is done through a method of embargo; the countries part of the regime will halt trade with a nation state found to be developing unmanned ballistic missiles with a payload capacity of over 500kg. The regime is not a formal agreement, rather it is an international understanding that each nation state that is part of the MTCR will do their part to limit the proliferation of these unmanned missiles. This is the loophole in the regime however, even though the technology needed to create a manned spacecraft is not that different than that of an unmanned spacecraft, one is allowed under MTCR guidelines and the other is not. This seems to be the main way that a country not part of the regime can begin to research space travel. The focus must be solely on manned spacecraft as this does not count as military ballistic missile technology to the MTCR.

I don’t necessarily believe that attempting to prevent more countries from acquiring ballistic missile technology is an unreasonable goal. There are many countries such as North Korea that really shouldn’t have nuclear weapons or ballistic missile technology. The more states that have the ability to kill all human life on earth with nuclear weapons the more likely that is to happen. Since I believe that this is by definition the highest stakes that can exist, a large effort to prevent this from happening can be justified ethically. Where I have a problem with the MTCR is the way that they go about preventing a country from developing nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles. The guidelines that prevent unmanned missiles, but not manned spacecraft is a loophole that seems ready to be exploited. I don’t think that there is that much of a difference between these kinds of missiles and it seems to be a rule made mostly for show. The MTCR needs to develop a set of guidelines that determine whether a country is stable enough to create these missiles without being embargoed, or they should simply allow countries that are able to develop the technology on their own do it and get into space. The system as it exists now, with no binding rules or instructions for MTCR nations on how to act when a nation state not part of the regime inevitably tries to become a space power, is a flawed one with no teeth. It’s at best a bright eyed, but illogical attempt to keep the world a safer place, and at worst an unwritten agreement among the 35 richest countries to monopolize the development of space and keep the economic possibilities of space travel to themselves. Regardless of where the MTCR actually falls on this scale what’s clear is that this needs to be formalized by the united nations to describe exactly what situations dictate which responses by all members, not just the ones who feel like following at any given time. 

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Reagan’s Arms Race

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Canadian Space Agency