We've witnessed the impact of dumping garbage into the ocean. Carelessly disposed waste clogs up major sea lanes, depletes ocean resources and, in general, problematizes commercial and noncommercial activity at sea. Though each of these impacts has a different time scale, they all fall disproportionately on those who are least equipped to deal with them.
The effects of "garbage," or debris, in outer space aren't quite the same, but they do ultimately threaten the safety, and the very possibility, of space activity. As Spencer Roberts, a space writer for The Wire and Jacobin, puts it, we have littered orbital space with trash. According to the DOD, there are over 27,000 pieces of debris in the tiny part of our post-mesosphere bubble optimal for orbit. Once any of those objects collide, thousands of additional pieces are generated – some very small (particles really) – but their kinetic energy can be wickedly damaging to intact spacecraft or satellites in their paths. Writing for Earth.org, Charlotte Luke cited estimates that half of such debris stays in orbit for a century – and points out that the debris that falls can pose additional potential hazards. Luke adds that over the next 200 years, "debris larger than 20 cm across will multiply" by 150%, but smaller debris will multiply much much faster.
This area, "low Earth orbit," is a little over 2000 km up and, as mentioned, narrow in terms of the space that satellites and other near-earth vehicles have to traverse. Because of that, there is a constant danger of debris hitting not only other debris, but all the stuff that isn't yet debris. Luke points out that the International Space Station has had to perform more than 25 "debris collision avoidance maneuvers" since 1999. And since the ISS carries humans and other life, it's not just pieces of tech hitting other pieces of tech. The humanitarian disaster resulting from the collision of a dangerous piece of space debris with a manned spacecraft would also be disastrous for spaceflight, its impact possibly greater than even that of the awful space shuttle disasters.
Although some writers dismiss the planetary impact of falling space debris, maintaining that the majority of it burns up in the atmosphere, there are many reasons to be concerned with the environmental and public health effects of debris that re-enters the Earth's atmosphere. Luke writes:
debris from Russian Proton rockets, launched from the Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, litters the Altai region of eastern Siberia. This includes debris from old fuel tanks containing highly toxic fuel residue, unsymmetrical dimethylhydrazine (UDMH), a carcinogen which is harmful to plants and animals. While efforts are made to contain fallout from launches within a specified area, it is extremely difficult to achieve completely . . . [in Russia] in 2007, 27 people were hospitalised in the Ust-Kansky District of Altai with cancer-related complications, many of them citing the rocket fuel as the suspected cause.
Many experts say we're nearing disaster conditions. A couple of years ago, European Space Agency officials warned that collision avoidance maneuvers were increasing for all kinds of ESA vehicles. Fittingly, the incident most cited in 2019 was one where an ESA satellite (a public entity) had to dodge a small Space-X internet provider satellite-craft. This kind of incident is going to become more and more common with the fleets of communication satellites that are filling our skies.
What eventually happens is the much-feared "Kessler syndrome," essentially "a cascading effect of collisions, and feedback collisions" and which means that even if we stopped launching things now (unlikely), the effects will continue for centuries, similar to the way carbon in the atmosphere will continue to hasten climate change long past a post-carbon transition. We're at a tipping point on space debris now, and there's no real international coordination, authority or agreement to force private operators to retrieve their debris. And just in case we think that eliminating debris is going to be easy, "destroying objects in orbit is not an option as it would simply generate smaller debris." Retrieval means actual retrieval, and it's difficult to imagine that this will be easy, although it does present entrepreneurs with another opportunity to make money from the folly of their industry. But even retrieval begs another question: what happens once debris is removed from space? Where will it go?
What can we do about this situation? Failure is not an option. After all, communications technology, like that facilitated by orbiting satellites, is important. Furthermore, space development is inevitable and, if we can limit the externalities, beneficial for humanity. Space debris is a true "tragedy of the commons" mostly because space entrepreneurs and private corporations' first inclination is to find ways to sweep their negative externalities under the rug, hoping someone else will do a more comprehensive cleaning in the future. That's the nature of short-term profits and the bottom line. But the problem, of course, is that eventually nobody will be able to make any of those profits, and we won't be able to use space for nonprofit reasons either.
The problem, as space consultant George Zarkadakis discussed earlier this year, is that the amount of debris is increasing at a rate near-exponential. "A recent European conference in space debris has warned that space junk in orbit could increase 50 times by the end of the century." For Zarkadakis, a critic of excessive privatization, the solution must begin with holding private companies accountable, making sure that there is tracking, compliance, proactive planning, both external and internal regulation. The current expectation is that private space companies have an "Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) agenda" agenda to make these regulations explicit. Such protocols need to be mandatory.
You can think of regulations as closing the gaps between what’s presently being done and the potential for widespread benefit. Just as a company like Accurate Append might fill data gaps to facilitate the mutually beneficial relationships between companies, organizations and campaigns on one hand and clients, supporters and donors on the other, regulations help to bridge the gaps between personal gain and public benefit to the advantage of all.
Ultimately, private companies should welcome such regulations. They make their industry more predictable and give firms clear thresholds and standards above which developers will know they are "in the clear" or their liability at least somewhat limited. Scientists should welcome the regulations because it means greater harmony between private and public space projects. Governments should welcome the opportunity to create and enforce them to prove that international management of space resources is possible and desirable.
