The Future of Geography

It’s taken a long time to get where we are. The Big Bang theory suggests that 13.7 billion years ago, give or take the odd few thousand years, every single thing in the universe that exists today was compressed into an infinitesimally tiny particle existing in nothingness. Some concepts related to the universe can be difficult to get your head around, and ‘nothingness’ is one that scientists argue over endlessly. They go into notions such as quantum vacuums, in which ripples in space can cause things to pop into existence, but after reading and rereading the theories several times over I’m never much further along.
The universe is expanding – but into what? What is outside its current boundaries? I can’t imagine nothing. An endless wall of grey does the trick (beige is also available), but only for a second because, of course, grey is something and not nothing... and then I give up. Fortunately, theoretical physicists and cosmologists are made of sterner stuff.

None of the things discussed here may happen, but without an adequate legal framework the temptation to try to make them a reality grows, especially when one country fears another may be gaining an advan-tage. We are already in an arms race in space, and it needs to be halted. Too often people fall back on the agreements of another age, notably the Outer Space Treaty.

We need greater clarity and shared commitments to transparency, shared resources, debris collection, spacecraft disposal, freedom of navi-gation, deconfliction, release of data, situational awareness and space traffic management, all within a respected rules-based order to which all parties agree. The Big Three space powers – China, the USA and Russia – agree on very little at the moment, and they know that what happens in space is an extension of what happens on Earth. They are ambitious and suspicious of each other’s intentions – the Chinese Americans both want to write the new international rules for space.
They will need to be persuaded by everyone else that it is in their interests to cooperate.

The legal systems we have in place regarding space are nowhere near as comprehensive as in other spheres such as maritime law. They require drastically updating, and in some cases need to be scrapped and new ones drawn up. Technology has outpaced law. Without laws, geopolitics – and now astropolitics – is a jungle.

Given all recorded human history, it is unlikely that we will recognize our common humanity and work together in space to harvest its riches and then distribute them equally, but even with nation states and blocs competing with each other there will be common benefits for us all. The probability that we will project into space our current concept of sovereignty, in which nation states have power over mutually recognized territories, should not hold us back from our destiny as a species.

Stephen Hawking gets (almost) the last word. ‘Spreading out may be the only thing that saves us from ourselves. I am convinced that humans need to leave Earth.’ Enjoy the ride.