It has become common knowledge that Homo sapiens are made of stardust. The carbon, nitrogen, oxygen, iron, and all of the other things necessary for life and evolution weren’t created by the Big Bang. These elements were created by the nuclear fusion within stars, and the only way they spread throughout the universe was through the explosion of some of these stars in supernovas.

Looking up at the stars has always inspired our species. Roberto Trotta argues in his Starborn: How the Stars Made Us (And Who Would We Be Without Them) that the night sky is humankind’s only true global commons, one shared across millennia and civilizations.

From inspiring masterpieces of art (think Van Gogh’s Starry Night and Adam Elsheimer’s The Flight into Egypt) to shaping religious beliefs to providing the objects of study that ushered in the scientific revolution, the stars have been integral to the development of humanity.

And it wasn’t just these higher pursuits. Trotta writes:

From the moment Homo Sapiens walked out of the plains of Africa, paying attention to the stars and phases of the moon helped our ancestors predict the availability of food, stalk prey at full moon, and travel long distances. When Earth’s climate underwent a period of rapid swings 45,000 years ago, the slightest advantage in locating resources would have made the difference between survival and extinction—the ultimate prize paid by our less star-savvy cousins, the Neanderthals.

Yet this view is in the process of being dramatically altered. The night sky has become filled more and more with human-created objects. According to the website Orbiting Now, there are now about 9,900 active satellites in orbit. In September 2022, the US Government Accountability Office projected that 58,000 satellites would be launched by 2030. A study conducted by Quilty Space, a research and consulting firm, found that if all the missions planned by the 350 government and commercial entities they analyzed actually happen, a whopping 478,000 satellites would be in space by 2030—though Quilty estimated that only 20,000 are likely to actually make it to orbit. McKinsey and Co. projects that number to be 27,000. 

Modern satellites come in all sorts of shapes and weights, from tiny ones the size of a Rubik’s Cube to the standard workhorses that weigh over 2,000 pounds. Most get their power from solar panels and have other panels to protect their systems from intense heat. All contain communication and monitoring systems along with the capability to use propulsion to course-correct if they are drifting out of their orbit. 

Upon reaching orbit, after hitching a ride on a rocket, most satellites fly east to west, following the direction of the Earth’s rotation (the north-south polar orbit requires more fuel). Flying in that direction in Low Earth Orbit means that a full orbit takes between ninety minutes and two hours, depending how high in orbit a satellite is, spending only a few minutes over a target area on each pass. Satellites usually work in constellations that communicate with each other and with ground stations, creating permanent coverage. 

Low Earth Orbit (LEO) is the area for satellite imaging for the obvious reason that it is relatively close to Earth’s surface. This area encompasses the range from around 525,000 to 6.5 million feet above the surface. To give an idea of how far out this is, the maximum cruising altitude for commercial flights is about 42,000 feet. It takes another 197,000 feet to approach outer space as defined by NASA—beginning 50 miles above sea level. The more recognized Kerman line defines the beginning of space as 62 miles above sea-level, the point at which spacecraft start to break free of Earth’s gravity. 

From 6.5 million feet to about 117.5 million feet (2000 km to 35,786 km) lies Medium Earth Orbit. Satellites at this height take around 12 hours to orbit and tend to provide navigation and positional services to Earth. They carry super accurate atomic clocks, which measure time by the vibrations of atoms, and send radio signals to receivers on Earth, including those in smartphones. 

Above this is High Earth orbit. Here the speed of satellites matches the speed of the Earth’s rotation, so satellites can be above the same piece of Earth all of the time, making them ideal for communication. TV and radio satellites live here, along with military communication and long-range weather satellites. 

Satellites have become an indispensable part of daily life. GPS has its origin in the military, but it wasn’t long before it expanded into civilian life. In 1983, Ronald Reagan authorized its use by commercial airlines to improve navigation and the safety of air travel. Now it is on the navigation apps on our smartphones that we use for driving, bicycling, and even walking. Satellites play a crucial role in weather forecasting, communication (including text messages and internet service), TV and radio broadcasting, and banking and financial transactions. Financial institutions rely on satellite-based communication systems to transmit data securely and efficiently, and satellite data helps track movements of goods and raw materials, also identifying potential bottlenecks in supply chains. As Tim Marshall puts it in The Future of Geography: How the Competition in Space Will Change Our World: 

Without satellites, international communication networks and global positioning systems would not exist. Jam, spoof, or destroy these satellites and your grocery delivery van can’t find you, emergency services are lost, ships drift off course, and a major industrial economy such as the UK loses an estimated $1.2 billion a day. 

Unsurprisingly, we’re sending more and more satellites into space. Once the domain of government agencies, now private companies are the driving force. Outer space may be idealized as a global commons, but Earth’s orbit is at this moment increasingly the provenance of one company: SpaceX. In 2023, SpaceX notched 98 total orbital launch attempts, delivering more than 100 metric tons of equipment. That was roughly 80% of all material launched into orbit. The company is aiming for 90% this year. As of July, SpaceX has 6281 operational Starlink satellites in orbit. On February 20th, the Wall Street Journal reported that SpaceX signed a $1.8 billion classified contract with the US government in 2021—likely with Space X’s Starshield unit, which is tailored for government contracts and whose leadership includes a former US Air Force general. 

SpaceX’s dominance is not going unchallenged, however. Although Blue Origin, founded and owned by Jeff Bezos, has yet to launch a single thing into orbit, it had a coming out party of sorts in February for its 32-story New Glenn rocket, which has an intended launch later this year. New Glenn will have the capacity of lugging 100,000 pounds into LEO (greater than SpaceX’s Falcon 9 but less than the Falcon Heavy). Word has it that Blue Origin also has emerged as the likely buyer of United Launch Alliance (ULA), a joint venture between Lockheed Martin and Boeing that was the dominant player in the days before SpaceX. ULA successfully launched its new heavy-lift rocket in January. 

Meanwhile, the other company Bezos founded, Amazon, is working on its Project Kuiper, an initiative the company describes as a constellation of 3236 satellites in LEO whose purpose is to bring fast, reliable broadband to the planet’s unserved and unvalued communities (Amazon ironically contracted with SpaceX for three launches). Rocket Lab, founded in New Zealand by Peter Beck, has, as of this writing, 45 successful launches under its belt, focusing on small satellite missions. Relativity Space Inc. attempted its first launch last year. It was unsuccessful, but the company is already planning to launch a larger rocket.    

Predictably, satellites have also become indispensable in war. For most people, hearing the words “Space War” brings to mind science-fiction films of various quality (Star Wars, Star Trek, Independence Day)—in other words, something that is either in the realm of fantasy or a somewhat distant future. But in fact, what is generally considered the first “space war” wasn’t fought in a galaxy far, far away (as far as we know), but just over 30 years ago in the Persian Gulf. None of the fighting in the Gulf War took place in Earth’s orbit, but it was the first war that saw satellite-based GPS play a key role. Thanks to orbiting eyes in the sky, coalition soldiers had an easier time navigating, communicating, and guiding their weapons along hundreds of kilometers of windswept, inhospitable desert battlefields of Kuwait and Iraq.

By the time the US invaded Iraq again these weapons systems were routine. In 2004, satellites guided 68% of US munitions. In the early days of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the city of Irpin lost its internet connection. The Russians knew their targets and hit all twenty-four of Irpin’s base stations, knocking the city offline. Two days later the connection was restored. As the Kremlin was conducting cyber and physical attacks against Ukraine’s digital infrastructure, a loose coalition of expatriates in the tech sector along with Ukrainian officials found a solution in SpaceX’s Starlink satellites. More than ten thousand tripod-mounted dishes were distributed around the country. Though the range of the units is limited, this actually makes the network more difficult for the invading Russian military to dismantle. The Russians tried to jam the signal between the satellites and dishes, but SpaceX quickly worked out how to evade that jamming using a software update. Starlink has, in effect, become a vital tool for the Ukrainian resistance.

In 2019 NATO added “space” to land, sea, air, and cyberspace as an operational domain, and in 2021 established a space center at its Air Command in Ramstein, Germany. US policymakers fear China’s space capabilities could surpass the US by 2045. Certainly, Russia wasn’t going to passively watch all this happen. Just recently, the US media was ablaze with intelligence reports of a new type of space-based weapon that could threaten thousands of satellites—even speculating about a Russian nuclear weapon in space. Recent reports from Ukraine reveal that the Russian military has been successful in jamming GPS satellite signals of weapons given to the Ukrainians. No doubt this will lead to developing even more creative means of destruction. 

Obvious questions emerge: How long before commercial satellites are recognized as legitimate military targets? And if satellites are targeted, what kind of damage will result? In November 2021, Russia launched a missile from Earth’s surface that destroyed a defunct Soviet-era satellite (the satellite had been in orbit since 1982), creating 1500 pieces of orbital debris. While that was the first test strike using a ground-based missile at that height, both China, in 2007 using a kinetic kill weapon, and the US, with a missile against a malfunctioning spy satellite at a lower orbit, have also destroyed satellites. India too conducted a kinetic anti-satellite test in 2019. The New York Times recently reported that the Pentagon is rushing to expand its capacity to fight wars in space, including furthering its ability to disrupt and disable enemy spacecraft in orbit. Earlier this year at a Mitchell Institute event, Lt. Gen. Deanna M. Burt, deputy chief of staff of space operations said, “By no means do we want to see war extended into space, but if it does, we have to be prepared to fight and win.” 

Overall, there is plenty of space for more satellites, but as more get launched into orbit, the chance for collisions and conflict increases. Basically, the rules pertaining to outer space are still based on the 1967 Outer Space Treaty. The treaty states, “outer space, including the moon and other celestial bodies, is not subject to national appropriation by claim of sovereignty, by means of use and occupation, or by any other means.” Exploration “shall be carried out for the benefit and in the interests of all countries...and shall be the province of all mankind.” Sounds good—but how to define the interests of mankind? If one country mines a celestial body and sells the materials back on Earth, whose interest does that serve? If one country’s satellites are jamming another’s, who decides which is in the “interests of mankind”? The treaty bans weapons of mass destruction in outer space but appears to leave the door open for conventional weapons. It is easy to see the loopholes. 

If there are indeed more collisions and satellite destruction, there will also be more space junk—known formally as orbital debris, including pieces of inactive satellites, rockets, jet engines, and other mission-related detritus including some items left behind by astronauts. A short report by McKinsey & Company lists the potential damage space debris can do:

• A 10-centimeter object—the size of a bagel—could break an average satellite into pieces upon impact
• A one-centimeter object—the size of a Cheerio-could puncture the protective shields of the International Space Station (ISS)
• A one-millimeter object—the size of a pencil point—could destroy a spacecraft’s ability to power up or reach a certain orbit

This is hardly hyperbole. Since 2000, the ISS has moved 32 times to avoid being too close to an object. In 2015, astronauts at ISS evacuated to a space capsule after being warned of incoming debris. In 2000, there were around 8000 trackable pieces of space debris. By 2019: 20,000. Now: about 30,000. In addition, there are plenty of pieces of debris that are smaller- about 100 million of them.

In 1978, NASA scientist David Kessler described a scenario where collisions between orbiting pieces of debris create yet more debris causing the amount of debris to grow exponentially, potentially rendering certain orbits unusable. This became known as the “Kessler syndrome.” The Kessler syndrome does not have to play out quickly and there is plenty of debate about its likelihood, but the chances of it happening will not decrease in the coming years. 

Satellites already are a part of what is happening on Earth and this only figures to expand in the future. Clearly there is no going back. Given the possibility of the Kessler syndrome, not to mention the potential for destructive conflict expanding to space, it would seem that cut-throat competition, between both nations and corporations, in building out space infrastructure is an irrational path forward for the creation of crucial communications and navigational infrastructure. Trotta thought of the night sky as a global commons in a more romantic sense, but we should also think of it as one in a political sense. That means both more strictly regulating the private development of space and also rejuvenating the idea that space exploration ought to be done by public agencies for the public good.

In addition, as we journey further into our expanding Space Age, facing increased risk of space conflict and space junk, solutions for developing our true global commons for science and exploration will have to be global—meaning further levels of international cooperation rather than competition. At the present time obviously this appears a utopian hope. 

Joseph Grosso is a writer and librarian in NYC. He is the author of Emerald City: How Capital Transformed New York (Zer0 Books). His writings have appeared in various publications including Counterpunch, Quillette, The Humanist, Science for the People, and Compact.