Reacción a "Reactions to study warning about risks of uncontrolled rocket re-entry"

In November 2015, mysterious black spheres were found in different municipalities of Murcia (Spain). These objects were identified as fuel tanks from a space rocket, which had been abandoned in space and eventually disintegrated in the atmosphere. Rockets are one of the most common sources of space debris, as parts of the rocket are frequently left in orbit and end up falling to Earth in an uncontrolled manner. The time and place of fall of such fragments is virtually unpredictable. In addition, rocket parts are bulkier and heavier than those of satellites, so they are at greater risk of surviving atmospheric re-entry - where most space debris normally disintegrates - and eventually impacting the Earth's surface.

Traditionally, the risk of space debris from rockets causing human casualties on its fall to Earth has been considered negligible. A standard exists in the US to limit the likelihood of such accidents, but the country's own military failed to apply that standard to more than half of its launches between 2011 and 2018.

This new analysis published in the journal Nature Astronomy shows that, given the increasing number of space launches, the probability of one of these fragments hurting a person is becoming increasingly high. Michael Byers and colleagues estimate the probability that falling rocket debris will cause human casualties in the next decade at 10%. To this must be added the risk of damage to infrastructure, which is much higher.

The authors of this analysis go further by highlighting the fact that, given the distribution of the world's population, and the risk of falling space debris depending on latitude, some countries in the global south are considerably more likely to suffer such accidents than the countries responsible for the greatest number of launches, such as the United States, China, Russia and European states, mainly located at latitudes above 30 degrees, where the risk is lower.

There are international treaties that to some extent regulate space activities, but in many respects these treaties, drawn up in the 1960s and 1970s, have become obsolete and are insufficient to regulate the new scenario that is opening up for the space sector. For their part, national space legislation is often tailored to each country and its particular interests. For all these reasons, it is necessary to promote space ethics, analogous to bioethics. Space ethics reflects broadly on space problems, such as falling space debris, and encourages informed dialogue between the whole of civil society. Only in this way is it possible to lay the foundations for space law to develop international legislation that is fair to the world's population as a whole.

On the other hand, and as the authors of this analysis published in Nature Astronomy warn, there are similarities between this problem of space debris and other much more serious environmental, and therefore social and economic, problems associated with the climate and ecological crisis, in the sense that it is the particular and short-term interests of a minority of countries and companies that paralyse the necessary transformations. In yet another example of the lack of multilateralism, a minority of countries and large companies are promoting a new space sector tailored to their interests, which will ultimately have consequences.

In short, there is an urgent need for a multilateral drive in which the different countries of the world, in the light of scientific knowledge, take strong international action to regulate a multitude of activities, including space activities, which are currently developing in an uncontrolled manner and threaten the near future of humanity.