Artist’s Impression of Apollo-Soyuz Test Project: NASA
By John Barentine,
Principal Consultant and Executive Officer at Dark Sky Consulting and co-founder of Space Environmentaism
A Blog for Keep Space for Peace Week, October 2025
Outer space is changing rapidly, especially the space near Earth. Private actors now dominate the human technological presence in space due to reusable space launch technologies. These technologies forced down the cost of launch, which in turn facilitated a rapid increase in the number of satellites in orbit.
This new era began in the past decade, and these commercial activities, currently driven primarily by thousands of satellites serving broadband internet to customers on the ground, are growing by leaps and bounds. The Space Foundation estimates that the value of the global space economy could exceed one trillion U.S. dollars by 2032.
The Center for Space Environmentalism is a group of scientists and advocates who hold that outer space has become a distinctly human environment, and that alongside the terrestrial environment, it is worthy of our respect, consideration, and long-term stewardship. We established this new organisation in 2025 to inspire, inform, and guide the preservation and protection of the space environment. We envision a future in which humanity’s interaction with the natural world beyond the Earth’s atmosphere is minimally intrusive and informed by rigorous assessment and research, preserving the pristine nature of space not only for enjoyment, science, and inspiration for current and future generations, but also for its own sake and sovereignty.
The “NewSpace Race” brings the prospect of significant and potentially irreversible changes to the space environment. Space warfare represents one of the most worrisome threats. Various world powers have already announced plans to ramp up spending on military activities in space they insist are either defensive in nature or “passive”, such as orbital surveillance of rivals’ space assets. The proposed U.S. Golden Dome missile defence program echoes Cold War initiatives such as the Strategic Defence Initiative, known in the 1980s by its popular moniker ‘Star Wars’. That built on an earlier Cold War history that saw, among other actions, the testing of nuclear weapons in space.
Although the signing of the Outer Space Treaty (OST) in 1967 somewhat dampened aggressive posturing in space, it did not prohibit the militarisation of space outright. The OST states that “the establishment of military bases, installations and fortifications, the testing of any type of weapons and the conduct of military manoeuvrers on celestial bodies shall be forbidden.” But it goes on to say that “the use of military personnel for scientific research or for any other peaceful purposes shall not be prohibited.”
In 2019, the U.S. Space Force was introduced as a new branch of the U.S. military with plans to build bases and deploy troops in space. It appears that so long as weapons testing and base building do not happen “on celestial bodies,” and a military presence there exists for “peaceful purposes,” space militarisation — at least in orbit and on transiting spacecraft — is permitted.
Now, as the space domain shifts from publicly funded dominance by nation states to private commercial interests, those private actors are eager to become defence contractors. For example, the same technology developed by the American company SpaceX for its Starlink communication satellites is finding new military applications in the form of “Starshield”. The company describes the product as “a secured satellite network for government use, leveraging Starlink for national security.”
Some of the company’s former employees have moved on to found space weapons companies using the same disruptive approach SpaceX took to “Old Space”. SpaceX has also secured contracts to launch the majority of the U.S. Space Force’s national security missions in the fiscal year 2026. Meanwhile, reckless and destructive antisatellite weapons tests have generated considerable new space debris fields.
States and their military contractors are already setting their sights on more distant worlds. With countries like the U.S. and China determined to return to the Moon in this decade, the prospect of competition for lunar resources and resulting territorial disputes looms large. Billionaire space entrepreneurs who fancy themselves as the saviours of humanity envision a human presence on Mars by mid-century. Their outlook is at turns both lawless and libertarian, jettisoning a world they see as beset by unfair rules and needless regulations for one in which literally “anything goes”. The rush to extract the resources of the Moon, Mars, and worlds beyond may well ignite terrestrial disputes and even warfare with real and deadly consequences.
Humanity is rapidly approaching a turning point where decisions about the space environment made today may affect people living centuries from now. We seek a safe and sustainable space environment for all people of all nations and for its own sake. Yet the existing international governance framework established by the OST fails to recognise that some actions are inherently detrimental to the space environment and Earth-space continuum and should not be undertaken in order to preserve that environment.
As states increasingly view outer space as the ultimate high ground — the literal “Final Frontier” — opportunities to participate in decision-making are narrowing for the public while widening for defence and commercial stakeholders. Our organisation therefore aims in part to increase both awareness of the high stakes we collectively face in space governance as well as the consequences of inaction.
We call on people, governments and private actors everywhere to take the following actions, among others:
- Extend the protections and considerations of existing terrestrial environmental law to the space environment;
- Prohibit destructive antisatellite weapon testing in space by international treaty with meaningful enforcement provisions; and
- Intentionally solicit and incorporate the views of the public in the rulemaking and legislative processes concerning space activities from the beginning, particularly from traditionally underrepresented and/or marginalised groups.
We believe in the promise of the Outer Space Treaty that the exploration and ‘use’ of outer space should be peaceful. Yet we also recognise the inherent limitations of the worldview expressed in the Treaty in that it does not go far enough to meaningfully prevent bellicose actions in space. It is our intention to campaign against dangerous and aggressive acts in space that threaten international peace and security as well as the integrity of the space environment. Working with like-minded others, such as the Global Network Against Weapons and Nuclear Power in Space, we are oriented toward the goal of truly keeping space for peace – for people and environment alike.
