Opinion: Why I’m a space environmentalist — and why you should be, too | CNN

Editors Note: Astrodynamicist Moriba Jah is an associate professor of Aerospace Engineering and Engineering Mechanics at the University of Texas at Austin, and co-founder and chief scientist of Privateer, a space data intelligence company. The views expressed in this commentary are his own. View more opinion on CNN.

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There are currently over 27,000 pieces of human-made objects being tracked as they orbit Earth, but that only includes objects larger than a softball. If you consider all debris, that number is estimated to be closer to 100 million. This can be anything from dead satellites still in orbit to pieces of metal, screws or flecks of paint.

But what does that mean for us?

Thanks to space exploration, and our history of putting objects into space, we know more about ourselves, our planet and our universe. Our lives today depend on whats in space: communications systems, weather forecasting, financial transactions and even the location and navigation functions on your cell phone rely on satellites. Many of the innovations we have come to love, like memory foam mattresses and LASIK eye surgery, came about because of our celestial exploration.

Courtesy of The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) photographic archives

Space research may seem far removed from daily life, but a surprising amount of NASA technology has found more earthly uses. Today’s wireless headsets are an updated version of technology developed for astronauts in the 1960s. Before then, headsets used by airplane pilots were bulky and uncomfortable, but NASA commissioned a headset that could be implanted in an astronaut’s helmet. It was used to transmit Neil Armstrong’s words when he landed on the moon.

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In the 1970s, former NASA engineer Frank Rudy developed shock-absorbing, gas-filled membranes fitted into the soles of running shoes. The idea drew on a process called « blow rubber molding, » used by NASA to create lightweight space helmets. It was the basis of the « Nike Air » system, and was adapted by other shoe companies, helping protect runners’ joints from impact injuries.

TONY KARUMBA / Stringer

In the 1990s, NASA was looking into ways to create smaller cameras for spacecraft. It came up with the « complementary metal oxide semiconductor » (CMOS) image sensor, which produced high-quality digital photographs. As the technology developed it was licensed by the likes of Sony and Samsung, according to NASA, and CMOS is now a standard in digital cameras and phones. But camera phones aren’t just for fun. The « Eyephone » app, for example, scans eyes to detect diseases such as cataracts and glaucoma, and is aimed at people living in rural areas in developing countries.

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This indoor vertical farm in Belgium grows lettuce using LED light rather than sunlight. Vertical farms do not require soil and use little water, controlling light, air, humidity and temperature to optimize growth. NASA first developed this technology in the 1990s with the aim of growing plants in space.

Courtesy of The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) photographic archives

Back in the 1960s NASA worked on creating a device to purify drinking water for astronauts. It used silver ions to kill off bacteria without affecting the taste. The technology has since been used across the world for drinking water and in swimming pools. The PentaPure brand system was used to purify water on Space Shuttle missions and is now used in homes and disaster relief efforts.

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This ear thermometer is being used at a medical center in Paris. Thermometers that measure the infrared energy emitted from the eardrum were developed in the early 1990s by Diatek Corporation, which was a part of a Technology Affiliates Program at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL). The ear thermometers were based on technology JPL created for its Infrared Astronomical Satellite (IRAS), which remotely monitored the temperature of stars and planets from the infrared radiation they emit.

Courtesy of The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) photographic archives

Superinsulators used in cold weather gear such as winter coats, boots and sleeping bags stem from a technology that was first used to combat extreme temperatures in space. A material called « Radiant Barrier, » developed by NASA in the 1960s, is now used in home insulation.

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Cochlear implants can give a sense of sound to deaf people, by using electrodes to stimulate the auditory nerve. A rudimentary version was trialled in the 1950s, and the idea was further developed by Adam Kissiah, a hard-of-hearing engineer at Kennedy Space Center. He had worked on sound and vibration sensor systems for NASA in the 1970s and used his knowledge to develop the life-changing implant.

NASA

Tasked with feeding astronauts on long space missions while also minimizing the weight of food, NASA turned to freeze drying. It refined existing techniques to the point where it says it can now retain 98% of the nutrients at 20% of the original weight. NASA also developed freeze-dried ice cream. These days, freeze-dried food is used in everything from emergency survival kits to disaster relief.

Katharine Lotze / Staff

Foil blankets are used by paramedics to retain a person’s body heat, and they’re widely used to keep runners warm after a marathon. These metallic sheets originated from NASA research in the 1960s, when it was looking to insulate spacecraft and protect astronauts and equipment from the extreme temperature changes of space.

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In the 1960s NASA developed Temper foam as a shock-absorbing filling to improve the comfort of its pilots’ airplane seats. It has since been used to pad the helmets of football players, protect bedridden patients from bedsores, as molded seating for people with severe disabilities, and in memory foam mattresses.

Until now, space has been seen as a free-for-all the next frontier to explore. But what we forget is that its also an ecosystem and like any ecosystem, exploration of it has come at an environmental cost. Even the tiniest speck of debris, orbiting at around 15,700 miles per hour, can damage satellites and disrupt the services that have become essential to our daily lives. Even worse, large pieces of debris can fall from the sky and crash on Earth. In July, remnants of a Chinese rocket returned from orbit and landed in the Indian Ocean. While we are fortunate that it didnt cause further damage, we may not be so lucky next time. Theres an appreciable chance that someone will be killed by space debris this decade.

Ive always felt a sense of stewardship toward this place we know as our home, Earth. That feeling came to fruition most intensely while on a trip to Alaska in 2015, when I saw the way certain indigenous groups live in harmony with our planet despite the terrible environmental and societal damage caused by colonization. I thought: We, as humanity, will not survive if we do not embrace stewardship over ownership.

Ownership asks us to make claims to rights, whereas stewardship asks us to make claims to responsibilities. The effect on the environment, and our ability to use it harmoniously and sustainably, is determined by whether we adopt an ethos of ownership or of stewardship.

As an astrodynamicist, who studies the motion of natural and human-made bodies in space, I knew space was a neglected ecosystem that needed to be protected. If this next frontier is full of junk, we wont be able to fully explore or tap into the innovations that space can provide. That will jeopardize our ability to reliably know more about ourselves and our planet knowledge that stems uniquely from space-based data.

There is much redundancy in space. Over 4,500 active satellites currently orbit Earth. This number has doubled in the past two years and will continue to grow, but many of them are unnecessary. We often see many different satellites in a common orbital highway that provide the same services. This redundancy stems from an ownership as opposed to a stewardship perspective. As weve seen on Earth, a lack of shared resources across borders and sectors has allowed this free-for-all to perpetuate, leading to greater pollution in space and the increasing likelihood of debris falling from the sky. To be sure, competition in and of itself is not a bad thing. However, when competition exists without holistic management of resources and ecosystems, the outcome is detrimental for all a tragedy of the commons.

Armed with this knowledge, and inspired by indigenous traditions of environmental stewardship, I became what I like to call a space environmentalist.

So how do we solve this growing concern of space debris and not repeat the same mistakes weve made on Earth? How can you become a space environmentalist too?

The good news is that there are already large-scale solutions in play. Government agencies are beginning to get involved. In July, the White House released its orbital debris implementation plan, outlining 44 specific actions for government agencies to lead. The European Space Agency is launching its first debris removal project in 2025.

In the private sector, the Space Sustainability Rating (SSR), which went live this summer, provides a data-based rating system to quantify the sustainability of space missions, while offering practical guidance to improve sustainability performance.

For an average citizen, being part of the solution can feel overwhelming but we all have a role to play. It begins with taking note of whats happening, spreading awareness and learning more about how interconnected everything actually is. Everyone needs to understand that what we do in one location on Earth influences our oceans, our air and yes, space. And we need to act accordingly.

I co-founded and serve as chief scientist at Privateer, a company which supports these efforts by developing proprietary tools to monitor human-made objects in space. We aim to show people the evidence of this interconnectedness so that they are more reluctant to say, thats not my problem, and we want to guarantee a safe and accessible future for humanitys space resources.

Ultimately, space sustainability is more than just tracking satellites and debris accurately. Its vital that these data are used to support the responsible and harmonious use of space. We must find ways to share space between private companies, government agencies and academia across nations, generations and cultures.

Space is a global commons. It belongs to no one.

At the end of the day, we all need to become space environmentalists.