Do you believe the Outer Space Treaty (1967) provides any glimmer of hope for cooperation beyond competition between the US and China? Would updating that treaty in any way serve as a productive avenue to de-escalate and perhaps deepen collaboration between spacefaring nations?
It's a good question. I would say that the Outer Space Treaty serves as an attempt to try to limit the extent to which space can be militarized, but in my understanding does not create a path for cooperation amongst the countries involved. The modern extension of this is the Artemis Accords (https://www.nasa.gov/specials/artemis-accords/index.html), signed by the US and its partners which does entail some cooperation amongst signees, but I don't see any path towards China joining that group
In your article, you included this "These organizations have expressed interest in leveraging private partnerships in furthering all kinds of advanced space capabilities like on-orbit refueling, advanced propulsion systems, and rapid space-based delivery to anywhere on Earth’s surface."
My question relates to "rapid space-based delivery to anywhere on Earth's surface". Can you tell us more about the context of this? Is this about the delivery of weapons, or is this a wild idea from our friends at Amazon? :-)
Thanks for the question! It's hard to say what the ultimate use case would be, but I think the US military would say that the applications of rapid point-to-point delivery would range from providing medical supplies in case of a natural emergency to putting US military personnel anywhere on Earth at a moment's notice. Here's an article that goes into more detail! https://arstechnica.com/science/2021/06/the-military-wants-to-use-rockets-for-cargo-delivery-anywhere-on-earth/
Do you believe the Outer Space Treaty (1967) provides any glimmer of hope for cooperation beyond competition between the US and China? Would updating that treaty in any way serve as a productive avenue to de-escalate and perhaps deepen collaboration between spacefaring nations?
It's a good question. I would say that the Outer Space Treaty serves as an attempt to try to limit the extent to which space can be militarized, but in my understanding does not create a path for cooperation amongst the countries involved. The modern extension of this is the Artemis Accords (https://www.nasa.gov/specials/artemis-accords/index.html), signed by the US and its partners which does entail some cooperation amongst signees, but I don't see any path towards China joining that group
In your article, you included this "These organizations have expressed interest in leveraging private partnerships in furthering all kinds of advanced space capabilities like on-orbit refueling, advanced propulsion systems, and rapid space-based delivery to anywhere on Earth’s surface."
My question relates to "rapid space-based delivery to anywhere on Earth's surface". Can you tell us more about the context of this? Is this about the delivery of weapons, or is this a wild idea from our friends at Amazon? :-)
Thanks for the question! It's hard to say what the ultimate use case would be, but I think the US military would say that the applications of rapid point-to-point delivery would range from providing medical supplies in case of a natural emergency to putting US military personnel anywhere on Earth at a moment's notice. Here's an article that goes into more detail! https://arstechnica.com/science/2021/06/the-military-wants-to-use-rockets-for-cargo-delivery-anywhere-on-earth/