Isolated nation
One issue highlighted by Tiangong-1 is the Chinese Space program, which operates almost completely independently of other space agencies. While it is often good to have competition—because that is what drives innovation and achievement—there are areas where international cooperation is important.
Although international cooperation may not have prevented the problems with Tiangong-1, better appreciation of technical developments, including communications, made by all users of the space environment, can only help to raise the level of technical advancement by all. Big collaborations are likely to lead to fewer problems, and when there is a problem, collaborative expertise can help solve it more easily.
There is a clue to one of the great successes of the International Space Station (ISS) in its name. Even though political relationships between the US and Russia are frosty at times, the ISS acts as a major diplomatic link between the two nations. It would be wonderful if a similar bridge could be built with China.
Unfortunately, a decree by the US Congress in 2011 banned US scientists from bilateral collaboration with their Chinese counterparts, and it would take presidential intervention to set this aside. But the American political situation currently suggests such intervention is unlikely in the near future.
There is hope, though, that the European Space Agency and the Russian Space Agency (RosCosmos) could facilitate access by China to the ISS. A collaborative agreement between ESA and the CSA signed in 2014 set up several working groups to explore areas of common interest to the space agencies. If one of the Schenzhou spacecraft that serviced the Tiangong-1 space station could dock at the ISS (through agreement with ESA and RosCosmos), then the scientific and engineering achievement may pave the way for diplomatic and political negotiation.
Another issue raised by the incident is the much-debated subject of who owns space. Who is responsible when something goes wrong? The bottom line is, of course, who pays? The United Nations has an Office of Outer Space Affairs in which specialists in space law have drawn up treaties to cover such eventualities—but these are, by and large, designed to cover government responsibilities. But as space becomes ever more accessible, and tourism and resource exploitation led by private enterprise move closer to reality, existing laws and treaties are inadequate. It is surely time for a major reappraisal of space governance, in the way that the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea is regularly reviewed.
Let’s hope that the prospect of burning debris from Tiangong-1 raining down on Earth will herald a new area of cooperation between space agencies, a new set of treaties on space law—and a real prospect for truly international space exploration.
Monica Grady is a professor of planetary and space sciences at The Open University in the UK. Disclosure statement: Grady receives funding from The EU Horizon 2020 program and the STFC. She is a trustee of Lunar mission One.
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This article was originally published at The Conversation. Read the original article here. Photo: European Space Agency/Flickr/CC.
Disclaimer: This article does not necessarily reflect the views of AsianScientist or its staff.
