US General Says Space Needs Traffic Rules
On Thursday, a top U.S. general called for international rules to control chaotic space traffic, saying that satellites are increasingly being put at risk of collision.
General James Cartwright, vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said it was no longer feasible for the U.S. and other countries to keep up with the orbiting satellites if kept a secret.
"We’re going to have get to some level of regulation. Nobody wants to do that," Cartwright told a conference sponsored by the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a US think tank.
The general told the AFP news agency that it was a daily question to ask: "How many people are going to run into each other in space today if we don’t cajole, plead with somebody to move out of the way in the next orbit cycle?"
"How many people are going to step on each other’s signals?"
A collision between a Russian and U.S. satellite last year brought concerns over a lack of traffic controls in space and the growing amount of space debris.
Over 50 years after the start of the space age there are still no globally agreed rules for space traffic.
"We’re going to have to get some sort of a management construct for how we do business out there," he told AFP.
Cartwright said the military was not out to "take over" space, but said the number of satellites was growing and there needed to be a "shared understanding" among countries so "we can do business in a safe way out there."
Cartwright also said covering the defense space program in a blanket of secrecy was damaging the country’s commercial interests.
"By keeping it secret, what we have done is so disadvantage our own industry that we’re becoming non-competitive in this environment, because we can’t do what we need to do in technical and intellectual capital to go out there and compete in the global market."
"Our ability to build components etcetera is lagging," he told AFP. "Our ability to compete on the international market for commerce in space has really taken a dive."
He compared the current secrecy applying to military space satellites to flying a fighter jet over New York City without paying heed to other traffic in the area. Cartwright is now taking part in the drafting of a new U.S. military space strategy review.
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Image Caption: A Beehive of Satellites – The launch of the first artificial satellite by the then Soviet Union in 1957 marked the beginning of the utilization of space for science and commercial activity. During the Cold War, space was a prime area of competition between the Soviet Union and the U.S. In 1964 the first TV satellite was launched into a geostationary orbit to transmit the Olympic games from Tokyo. Later, Russian launch activities declined while other nations set up their own space programs. Thus, the number of objects in Earth orbit has increased steadily — by 200 per year on average. The debris objects shown in the images are an artist’s impression based on actual density data. However, the debris objects are shown at an exaggerated size to make them visible at the scale shown. (ESA)
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