The sky and the land were once connected, far more than they are today, according to the Gamilaroi people of Eastern Australia. In their creation stories, a traumatic event occurred aeons ago, which ripped humanity apart from the skies above. Other indigenous groups across the country teach similar stories, and many perform ceremonies to rebuild their bonds with Sky Country.
As humans become an increasingly space-faring species, we might feel we’re getting closer to our Sun, the planets and stars. But our off-world activities have deposited thousands of man-made objects in our planet’s orbit. Congestion in the cosmos causes difficulties for scientists seeking to unlock the secrets of our universe, and obscures our view upwards from the surface of the planet. It also risks weakening our connection with the skies, threatening to cut humanity off from important aspects of our history, culture and way of life.
We often view space as an infinite resource – a great empty canvas on which we envision endless exploration. But lower Earth orbit, the band of space relatively close to the planet, is anything but. Since the launch of Sputnik by the Soviet Union in 1957 fired the starting pistol for the space race, states and private companies have sent thousands of objects into orbit around our planet, and it’s getting a little crowded. The number of satellites had been edging upwards on a fairly steady trajectory, until 2019, when it accelerated. That year, SpaceX launched Starlink: a mega-constellation of satellites intended to cover the globe, providing worldwide broadband internet access. There were 2,460 satellites orbiting the Earth in 2019, according to the Satellite Industry Association annual report. At the time of writing, astronomer Jonathan McDowell’s database of satellite launches records that there are 9,321 active satellites above our heads. Starlink alone accounts for 5,422.
The success of the Starlink constellation has prompted envious glances from governments and rival corporations. In 2022, Ukrainian forces used Starlink internet services to coordinate military actions, replacing networks that had been degraded or destroyed. This generated headlines worldwide and gave SpaceX a say in global military affairs. Many governments have already started work on their own versions. This year China began launching satellites into space with the goal of rolling out another mega-constellation that would cover the globe, providing secure communications to its military. Reports also suggest the Chinese government is seeking to launch a separate, civilian constellation to provide connectivity to a gigantic fleet of automated cars. The US Government Accountability Office projected in 2022 that 58,000 satellites would be launched by 2030.
As more satellites are launched into space, the risk of collision increases. This is particularly worrying, given that the only governance in place is outdated. The Outer Space Treaty was signed in 1967 by almost every nation in the world, including the US and the USSR at the height of the Cold War. The document lays out guidelines for what you can and cannot do in space, but failed to predict the number of private companies now operating off-world. Industry experts worry the treaty is not fit for purpose, and there have been calls to rewrite it. Satellites are also governed by a UN agency, the International Telecommunications Union, but laws have proven hard to enforce.
The dangers of debris
The danger posed by collisions appears to be snowballing. While we haven’t yet seen two functional satellites crash into each other, active satellites have collided with the defunct ones ghosting around the planet. There is also an enormous amount of debris hurtling around at extraordinary speeds. This debris comes from rockets, space stations, and mostly from collisions in space. According to the European Space Agency, there are now approximately 670,000 pieces of debris in the Earth’s orbit larger than 1 cm. A 1-cm-sized object is thought to be big enough to disable a spacecraft and pierce the shields of the International Space Station. Each new collision adds to the debris, and with the rapidly increasing number of satellites circling the globe, collisions are likely to become harder to avoid.
The worst-case scenario is a cascading effect called Kessler Syndrome, where debris causes collisions exponentially until only a cloud of junk is left. Given our reliance on satellites, the result would be chaos. Global Positioning Systems (GPS) would cease to operate, causing bedlam in the air, seas and roads. The global economy would face collapse as we’d be unable to use credit cards and digital payments, and manufacturing would suddenly halt due to the timing technology used by most factories and plants.
Experts have proposed various methods to dispose of existing orbital debris, such as using nets to capture junk, or harpoons and other satellites to help de-orbit dead satellites, but nothing has been implemented on the scale that would be needed were Kessler Syndrome to become a reality. “Nobody really that I’ve seen has any plans for what to do if that scenario develops, in terms of rapidly getting that debris out of orbit,” says John Barentine, principal consultant at Dark Sky Consulting. “It’s scary stuff but it’s not science fiction.”
The current level of crowding already causes concern for astronomers, as space clutter obscures observations of the cosmos from Earth. The first Starlink satellites were launched on 23 May 2019. The very next evening, amateur astronomers spotted them with the naked eye. They became more distant as they reached a higher orbit and spread out, but as more were launched, incidents of satellites photobombing astronomers’ work began to occur more regularly. Starlink satellites, and all mega-constellations aiming to provide internet access, are usually held in a relatively low orbit. They’re also fairly large – around four metres in length – and could get bulkier in the future as more components are added. This makes them visible in space because, like all metallic objects, they reflect light.
These reflections contribute to what’s often called skyglow, the cumulative effect of the brightening of the night sky. This increased brightness seriously affects the work of astronomers, who are unable to make observations in certain areas at times because the sky is simply too luminous. If skyglow were to continuously increase, it would reach the point where stars began to disappear in the skies, even in rural areas where earth-based light pollution is low. Some satellite companies have responded to the concerns of astronomers and have attempted to find ways to reduce the glare. In September 2023, SpaceX’s latest batch of Starlink satellites were equipped with a coating that aimed to bounce light back into space, rather than towards Earth. Astronomers have not yet gauged the effectiveness of this strategy. Also last year, European astronomers released a study finding that space debris contributed to skyglow even more than active satellites.
‘We store information in the sky’
We often see space as empty and lifeless, and thus unworthy of our protection. But many indigenous groups don’t share that view. “One of the areas that we really focus on is the interconnectedness of all things. In other words the sky and Mother Earth are no different, because what is above is below and what is below is above,” says Juan-Carlos Chavez, an indigenous scholar whose traditions are from the Yaqui Peoples on the Mexico/US border. Among the potential casualties of polluting the skies are the cultural practices of indigenous people. “Imagine that we are offering good words to Grandmother Moon or Mount Tacoma, and suddenly we’re looking at the night sky and there’s a blinking light that goes across,” Chavez says. It disrupts the connection to the spirit world.
Karlie Noon is a Gamilaroi astronomer based in Canberra, Australia. She was the first indigenous woman to obtain a double degree in maths and physics and divides her time between exploring the evolution of the Milky Way and sharing indigenous science related to space. In Australia, many indigenous groups use “songlines” to record pathways across time, land and sky. Through song and storytelling, songlines work as an oral map, but also as a cultural passport, offering validation to anyone who can recite them. Noon says satellites and space junk are now putting this knowledge in jeopardy. “That’s what oral cultures do, they store the information in places so you then can go and access it when you need to,” she says. “And that’s what we do in the sky, we store information in the sky. We store knowledge, culture, language. And so if we can no longer access these places, it also threatens that knowledge.”
The Torres Strait Islanders in Australia are one of many indigenous groups who use the stars and skies to navigate on land and at sea, and to predict the weather. Some islanders are able to survey the appearance of the stars to determine turbulence in the atmosphere, humidity and pressure changes. This helps them forecast seasonal and weather changes on a very local level.
Despite their connection with the stars, indigenous voices are often overlooked when it comes to the activities of humanity in space. These activities are not only scientific, but also cultural. On 8 January this year, the private space company Astrobotic launched a moon lander loaded with instruments built by Nasa. It also carried the cremated remains of at least 70 humans and one dog. The ashes were booked aboard the lander by two companies, Celestis and Elysium Space, which offer people (and their pets) the chance to have their remains interred on the Moon. When the president of the Navajo Nation, Buu Nygren, learned of these plans shortly before the launch, he asked Nasa and the US Department of Transportation to intervene in the mission and consult with Indigenous Nations. But despite the objection of the Navajo Nation, which sees the Moon as a sacred cultural place in the sky, the launch went ahead. (As it turned out, the lander burned up over the Pacific Ocean, an accident caused by a technical fault.)
This lack of representation is part of a broader problem, as indigenous people are also underrepresented in academia and science. As an astronomer, Noon has to confront falsehoods denigrating indigenous knowledge systems in Australia. “One of those myths is the idea that indigenous people [have] no mathematical systems,” says Noon. “It’s simply not true.”
Jessica Heim, a cultural astronomer at the University of Queensland, is one of the rare academics advocating for a more collaborative approach that includes indigenous groups and draws on their expertise – although, she notes, these groups are fiercely diverse and some may not want to share knowledge.
Heim and others work with the International Astronomical Union to try to amplify voices that are often overlooked in space matters. However, despite the importance of the issue to their histories and cultures, some indigenous groups struggle to prioritise it given the many other challenges they face. Internet satellites provided by companies like SpaceX can also be extremely useful to some indigenous communities, especially when they’re located in remote areas.
Conservation is a complex field of study, often having to confront unintended consequences. When it comes to space, it is relatively new. One man has become the face of the movement to make space more sustainable. Moriba Jah is a space environmentalist and associate professor of aerospace engineering at the University of Texas at Austin. In 2021, he co-founded Privateer, a company that monitors congestion in space orbit and promotes sustainability. When asked if he thinks there are enough indigenous voices in the industry, his answer was unequivocal. “Hell no, man. Because the big voices in the space industry are governments, billionaires and the big companies, and none of those are indigenous.” He adds that in the US, Native American tribes should be consulted on matters of space because they are constitutionally recognised as distinct governments, like states.
Is there another way?
Privateer, which Jah co-founded alongside Apple founder Steve Wozniak, has sought to establish more sustainable practices in the space economy. The company’s Wayfinder tool tracks orbital clutter. It recently launched Pono, a service dubbed the rideshare for satellites, aiming to limit single-use satellites and reduce the number of unnecessary launches.
To further his ideas, Jah recently published a charter demanding that the space industry adopt a “circular space economy”. This would introduce “traditional ecological knowledge” practices, a catch-all term used to describe the teachings of indigenous groups. It would require initiatives like recyclable satellites and effective debris removal techniques. “In general, traditional ecological knowledge is founded on the premise of the interconnectedness of all things,” Jah says. “Be very observational and understand your relationship in and with the environment, and give the environment time to provide feedback on unintended consequences.”
These are exciting ideas, but they are being floated in an industry that has traditionally had very little interest in conservation. While Privateer has given hope of a more environmentally friendly space industry, the chances of reversing existing clutter are slim. Efforts to remove debris from lower Earth orbit have failed to gather momentum, partially because there’s no money to be made from removing space junk and the costs can be prohibitively high.
The new space race raises concerns that humanity is on course to make the same mistakes of imperialism, only off-world. For indigenous voices, this fear is particularly acute given the past violence against their communities. “The night sky is a place to colonise – those are the words that are used,” says Chavez. “It’s a virgin, as I’ve heard some people say, an area where we can go and extract [materials] … We’re basically replicating the disastrous behaviours we’ve had here [on Earth] but now we’re going to Father Sky.”
While the space industry brings many benefits to humanity, the emphasis has shifted over time towards purely commercial exploits. The private companies that now dominate space largely do so with profit in mind, rather than a shared mission to learn more about our universe. Our history is full of cautionary tales of unregulated industries racing to capture new markets – only asking if we can, rather than if we should. If we lose our access to the skies, we could reverse decades of technological progress, limit our exploration of the cosmos and cut ourselves off from vital parts of our history and culture. We would do well to listen to indigenous peoples, who hold some of the most ancient knowledge we as a species possess.
This article is from New Humanist’s summer 2024 issue. Subscribe now.
