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on Earth today.” The code needs to anticipate humanity's movement toward
these vast material and energy resources, as is already happening in the
entrepreneurial space community today.
For the Code not to anticipate something so central to Asia's vision for space
is not a small matter. Such a code is likely to establish important incentives
and understanding for the long term. If the language and purposes of the
text do not establish development as a separate, co-equal or even paramount
end, it is unlikely to be encouraging of the agenda for economic growth at
the heart of Asian space programmes, and reinforce the disproportionate
securitisation of space.
While drafters in the arms control communities in EU and the U.S. may see
space and space programmes through a “securitised” lens with a head-nod to
exploration, the Asian space powers fundamentally see space and their space
programmes in terms of economic development. Within the hierarchy of
values, the Asian powers are likely to see the value of “space sustainability”
less as an end-in-itself, and more as an enabling end to sustained economic
development in general—whether it be for a significant near-term expansion
in communications and remote sensing technology in support of the
challenges of sustainable growth on Earth, or the vastly ambitious visions of
Asia's space visionaries. Similarly, the Asian space powers are likely to see the
obligations in the Code as more in their interests if they understand them as
being a critical enabler to their larger planned programmes of inclusive
growth—toward which both their national and international policies are
aligned—rather than in the context of arms control.
While the draft preamble mentions “activities of exploration and use of
outer space for peaceful purposes,” the weak existence of the word “use” is
completely inadequate, and the preamble and purpose should be modified.
A code that properly accounted for Asian equities would strongly assert the
purpose of: economic development and the expansion of mankind into the
universe.
The current draft fails
to establish survival
and human habitat
expansion as a
purpose. While some
believe this may not
be possible, there are
many—such as the
U.S.-based National
Space Society (NSS),
the largest
international
grassroots space
advocacy
organisation–for
whom this is the
fundamental purpose
of a civil space
programme.
Human Survival and Human Habitat Expansion
A caricature of East and West is that the West is very short term in its
thinking while in the East the history of millennia-spanning civilizations
What's in a Code?: Putting Space Development First | www.orfonline.org 31