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Monday, February 18, 2019, 12:57
China on moon should have world’s attention
By Dennis Pamlin
Monday, February 18, 2019, 12:57 By Dennis Pamlin

With its successful landing of a probe on the moon on Jan 3 — the first ever on the far side of the moon — China helped humanity take another step toward becoming a space-faring civilization.

Unfortunately, in the world we live in, this success was viewed by many from a confrontational perspective. US President Donald Trump has already declared that he wants to create a new Space Force by 2020. 

The plan is to make that space force the sixth branch of the military. Without leadership, space could become the next major conflict zone and any space activity could be seen as a provocation by competing forces.

With many global challenges, we can and should not waste resources on a military space race. Current weapons technology means the consequences of a future space war could also be fatal for humanity. 

At the same time, it is obvious that the resources for military expansion into space would be much better used if they were invested for peaceful purposes — as well as addressing urgent global challenges such as world poverty, growing inequity and the accelerating ecological collapse due to biodiversity loss and climate change.

With its successful moon landing, China now has the attention of the world and thereby an opportunity to help shape the direction of global space exploration. A new direction for space exploration could also help set a new standard for global collaboration. Clarifying that space exploration should be peaceful is a good first step. 

However, the current situation provides us with a unique opportunity and China should consider establishing a three-pronged approach to sustainable space exploration that would be integrated into an ecological civilization agenda.

First, a new set of global goals for space exploration should be presented. The International Space Station (ISS), where the United States, Russia, Japan, Europe and Canada collaborate, has demonstrated that international space collaboration is possible. 

A global action plan to develop the technology to prevent future asteroid impacts through the capacity to detect, track and deflect asteroids could be one of humanity’s greatest collaborative achievements, and reduce one of the main long-term threats to human civilization. 

China could also propose a global approach to the first human settlement on Mars, and help ensure that the settlement is built on sustainable technologies. These initiatives should be science driven with total transparency and a research agenda where people all around can collaborate.

Second, the excellent work by the United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs, which demonstrates the benefits of space exploration for global sustainability, should be accelerated. China could challenge all countries and companies active in space exploration to make relevant solutions for key global challenges available for free. An even stronger link between space exploration and global sustainability would help strengthen peaceful collaboration.

Third, it is time to integrate global infrastructure development on Earth with peaceful space exploration. The establishment of the first permanent colony beyond Earth is within reach. This generation could be the first one to experience how we as Homo sapiens become a space-faring species. A long-term plan for equitable and sustainable space exploration is an important part of such a journey.

By exploring how all major infrastructure investments on Earth can help accelerate and guide space exploration in a sustainable direction, we can ensure that space becomes a shared project that is about increased benefits and knowledge for all. 

The development of technology on Earth and in space should support each other so that they can help us move beyond our destructive industrial civilization and focus on the transition to a global ecological civilization.

As the largest infrastructure project on the planet, the Belt and Road Initiative could lead the way by integrating not just traditional sustainability goals, but also by helping develop and deliver on sustainability goals for an emerging space civilization.

We already see leading thinkers arrange events such as the UN Industrial Development Organization’s “BRIDGE for Cities — Belt and Road Initiative: Developing Green Economies for Cities”. During the BRIDGE event in 2018, links between the Belt and Road Initiative, space exploration and sustainability were discussed with representatives from both China and Europe. Hopefully, we will see more meetings in 2019 at which a peaceful space agenda can be discussed in the context of global sustainability goals.

It will take some time getting used to thinking of humanity as a space civilization. However, many of the children born today will be alive in 2100 and by then, we will most certainly be a space civilization. 

The question is: What kind of civilization will that be? Let us do what we can so that those alive in 2100 will be able to look back at 2019 as the year when, despite many conflicts and problems, the world took the first significant steps toward a space-based ecological civilization.

The author is a senior adviser at the Research Institutes of Sweden. The author contributed this article to China Watch, a think tank powered by China Daily. The views do not necessarily reflect those of China Daily.


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