Into the Future

Time cycles stretch only to break and dissolve into a collection of faint memories that sink into oblivion as time goes by. Short-term goals and long-term prospects collide. The difference lies in human perception of complex, multilayered dimensions of time. Cautionary tales left by those who preceded us might shed light on the future. Human history is written in a transactional language. 

The question for this post isn’t “Who owns the Earth?” but “Who owns what, going forward?” The King and Queen of Spain empowered Christopher Columbus to reach faraway lands. After negotiating (1) what would be his and what would belong to the crowns from the riches he would encounter, they had agreed to make him the governor and viceroy of any new territories, and to award him ten percent of any new assets. 

Five hundred years later, The SPACE Act states, in Section 51303 regarding asteroid resource and space resource rights, that a United States citizen engaged in commercial recovery of an asteroid resource or a space resource shall be entitled to any asteroid resource or space resource obtained, including to possess, own, transport, use, and sell the asteroid resource or space resource obtained. As of July 2024, only national space agencies have transported small samples intended for research purposes from celestial bodies to Earth (2). With 2026 coming to a close, the issue of space ownership becomes more pressing.

Cautionary tales remind us of our role, place and duties within the force of history. The power of knowledge is to rely on its origins and on the truth. For economic freedom to uphold respect for the rights of each person in the future, without them being dismissed nor formatted to the pleasure of a few, is inextricably linked to the perfection of wisdom towards which human knowledge needs to be nudged. 

What is pursued for one’s own convenience is being compelled upon others “partly by force, partly by means of transaction” (3).The Artemis Accords provide a framework for the exploitation of the Moon’s resources with the planned construction of a permanent outpost on the Moon and so giving to any commercial entity such as Lunar Outpost the right to boast that they will be first to ‘sale space resources in human history’ when their rover reaches the lunar south pole. 

Be that as it may, space is the Earth surface upon which individuals live and grow. It is the expanse of the sky and the oceans and seas’ waters, and the region beyond the atmosphere to the outbounds of the Universe. Space is filled with what we are blind to — that which connects us to the Universe. On which authority do we give permission in the near or far future to colonize these global commons? How can nations cede a right they do not have to any private citizen or entity?

Out of sight, out of mind, but mostly out of reach, space is a matter of perspective. Even before the legal framework was agreed upon regarding the use of space and its equitable sharing, privatization, by means of space technologies and their commercial and military applications, began. On the same grounds, China and Russia announced in June 2021 their own lunar initiative — the International Lunar Research Station — that also consists of both a lunar exploration program and a set of principles for activities undertaken as part of that program.

Space is not only about how we occupy it but how we make space for others. Article 1 of the Outer space treaty, ratified by the United States in 1967, stipulates that the exploration and use of outer space, including the Moon and other celestial bodies, shall be carried out for the benefit and in the interests of all countries, irrespective of their degree of economic or scientific development, and shall be province of all humankind. Article 2 stipulates that outer space, including the Moon and other celestial bodies, is not subject to national appropriation by claim of sovereignty, by means of use or occupation, or by any other means. 

In all Her dreams of the Earth and the Sky, had the Moon ever imagined, after watching from above human settlements expanding across continents, that she would be next? It is among trees’ foliage, blue waters and pristine ice poles that She thought Artemis had poured her colors. 

To those searching for a pot of gold, space is an open field for their proprietary goals. They would argue that the sky has no limit. Neither the Outer Space Treaty nor any other international legal instrument specifies a beginning or bottom point above which outer space begins. How high an aircraft can go, how low a spacecraft can orbit and the elusive boundary between the Earth’s atmosphere and outer space is how their reasoning works. 

 Whether to draw the line between airspace and outer space at 80, 100 or 110 kilometers above sea level or to designate the mesopause as the natural boundary, the lack of consensus makes it easier to go around the 1967 Outer Space Treaty. And so licenses are granted to occupy space. The FCC space bureau handles the licensing process. It claims to accelerate space and earth station licensing and to create a faster, more predictable “licensing assembly line.” The cis-lunar space (4) has  effectively become an extension of terrestrial domains.

With regard to how many human-made objects are orbiting, floating or lurking in space, Slingshot Aerospace, whose mission is reportedly to help advance AI-powered mission readiness for Space Defense, states that more than 16,600 spacecraft are now active in orbit, with more than 90% entering service since 2020. Annual spacecraft deployments have also grown nearly eightfold since 2018. 

Below is the total number of satellites launched per year by the United States, China, and the rest of the world including Starlink. Space Data Navigator has made more recent data available here.

The passing of the SPACE Act has led to a fierce (5) competition between a growing number of space startups awarded with governmental contracts. What started with SpaceX ferrying back and forth crews and equipment to the International Space Station comes to its natural conclusion. Even it has its days numbered and will eventually be replaced by a commercial space station.

Likewise, the 2024 CSIS investigation inside China’s Commercial Space Expansion reports that since China opened portions of its space industry to private investment in 2014, its commercial space ecosystem has expanded from fewer than a dozen firms to some 600 today. Guowang, Thousand Sails, Starlink and newcomers, emboldened by their respective financial and political backing, deploy at a faster rate broadband constellations. Urgency appears to dictate the rules of the game to which space conquest abides.

Appropriation, though, by means of space occupation creates conditions for monopoly.  By August, SpaceX had already reached 100 launches in 2026, with Starlink already having 11,000 satellites in low Earth orbit and plans to build dual-use Earth observation systems, orbital data centers and  a complete and independent energy system for satellite constellations. 

Today, some voice their concern over the shrinking of space, in particular the geostationary orbit becoming in clear danger of saturation. It raises the question of whether radio frequencies and orbital slots are reaching an unsustainable level. In the name of ‘progress’ some claim dominion upon space, making it a self-appropriated public domain. 

To broken-winged butterflies and damned poets peeking through the bars of their minds, space news is breaking at such a rapid space it seems outdated as soon as words are typed in. The space economy is fast-growing. It is a quiet monster lurking behind the AI veil. While the global space arena is more diverse, geographically speaking (6), with new reusable launching services around the world (7), 'globality' is all too relative. 

Since all nations have the right to explore and use space and to dream of a sustainable path, the goal is to redefine access to space to prevent the dream from collapsing. Humankind, in an apparent state of fragmentation, is nevertheless a collective entity. Below and above ground and in all directions, the space it occupies is subject to a commodification process. 

In this setting, on the global stage of human relations, in the theater of the Universe, space has a market value. It is the extent of a place from A to B, like the distance monarchs travel across human borders, the width of express lanes on highways, the narrowness of basic economy on a plane, the 380 000 kilometers from Earth to the Moon. Even under the gravitational influence of the Earth-Moon system, there’s a risk of repeating and transposing the same scenarios. 

Outer space however cannot be our reflection in the mirror. Within loops of time — past, present and future — hanging from a single flow, while we may absolve ourselves from the past, we choose what happens now. From the newly founded Texan city, Starbase (8), Starship flight 14 deployed in orbit 26 Starlink V3 satellites. The ‘space' component is nowadays critically intertwined with investments into AI. Will SpaceX newly acquired land on the Coast of Louisiana contribute to alleviate the conditions of poverty in which 19% of Louisianians live? Starbase Louisiana plans to have 10 more launchpads ready to launch thousands of rockets a year.

More broadly, will the space economy positively impact how the other half still lives in the twenty-first century? Can the prospect of millions of satellites in orbit be for the benefit of the global community? Will that help upgrade the energy grids and the sewer and sanitation systems across the planet? Like fall leaves, world poverty displays shades of colors from Bihar, India to Richford, Vermont. Poverty describes the plight of those who live among the ruins and standing walls of history.

Article 9 of the Outer Space Treaty urges States Parties to avoid the harmful contamination of outer space, including the Moon and other celestial bodies. The word ‘contamination’ needs to be revisited.  It implies ‘harmful biological contamination’ and not, per se, space debris including those hidden in geosynchronous orbit and those of spacecraft and rocket stages (9) crashing on the surface of the Moon over time. 

In all directions around the Earth, satellites, spacecraft and countless debris keep each other company. According to the European Space Agency, as of July 2026, the number of rocket launches since the start of the space age in 1957 is about 7320 (excluding failures). The number of satellites these rocket launches have placed into Earth orbit is about 27490. The number of these still in space is about 18850. The number of these still functioning is about 15900. The number of space objects regularly tracked is about 47140. The estimated number of break-ups, explosions, collisions, or anomalous events resulting in fragmentation is more than 660. The number of objects estimated to be in orbit is 68450 greater than 10 cm (including approx. 11300 active payloads), 1.5 million space debris objects from greater than 1 cm to 10 cm and 230 million from greater than 1 mm to 1 cm. Therefore there are hundreds of thousands which are largely untracked. Especially those between 1 cm to 10 cm could potentially collide with active satellites in orbit.

Per the Convention on Registration of Objects Launched into Outer Space, ratified by the US in 1976, the United Nations holds a register, although incomplete, of objects launched into outer space. Based on its latest report, the Office was no longer able to meet its obligations under the Convention on Registration of Objects Launched into Outer Space, as it had an existing backlog of around four months in the registration of objects launched into outer space, a backlog that would continue to increase without the allocation of adequate resources. 

Between the uncertainties around the operational life of satellites and the ghost and undeclared entities in orbit as well as the global race to launch ever more spacecrafts and satellites, the need for collision warning measures is widely seen as a paramount priority. As orbital traffic continues to increase, it means more activity to monitor, more potential risks to assess and more avoidance maneuvers.

The Space Force (10), created under the US Department of the Air Force, runs a global network of space surveillance sensors on the location of satellites and space debris for the US and the world. In 2023, the European Union’s Space Surveillance and Tracking programme started providing a similar capability. Many commercial satellite operators work with a third-party service, such as the Space Data Association or their own national space agency, to augment the basic warnings and data from governments. 

Space is seen through the lens of national interests to maintain or gain a technological advantage over those who have been advancing their own space capabilities. It has thrown us into the predicament we face — space activities peculiar to or primarily associated with the development of weapons systems and military operations. Today, space operations and capabilities are capable of disrupting or enabling communication, guidance and navigation, notably in the context of the strikes against Iran and the war in Ukraine. 

In November 2019, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization had declared outer space to be its fifth operational domain, next to those of land, sea, airspace, and cyberspace. Long range ballistic missiles can travel outside the atmosphere and reach thousands of kilometers in altitude. On September 14th, the Department of the US Air Force acknowledged for the first time that the Space Force had deployed weapons in space, with on-orbit space control weapons. 

Like the chicken and the egg, what comes first between what we consider to be a critical threat posed by a rival and our own thirst for domination? What is it with us careening into each other and getting drawn into rivalries that may not even be on equal footing? Saint Augustine had described how places, countries or cities could at times be consumed by a lust of domination (libido dominandi) and that such a desire to dominate becomes an adequate cause for war, for they think that “the highest glory lay in the widest empire.” This thirst for domination hidden in the form of thirst for material things “brings great evils to vex and exhaust the whole human race.” 

Nietzsche(11) saw in such a course of action the Will to Power. He described the power play between the mightier and the weaker and asserted that any living being seeks to dominate another (12). Sensitive souls, heads in the clouds, go on asking fluttering butterflies, with the highest spatial awareness, for their insight in the matter. 

Flying south on its migratory route, a spirited monarch lands on a blue mist flower and says: “Space, in reality, loses its fluidity when butterflies’ wings get caught in the silky fiber spiders weave, like the web of connections intricately woven between satellite manufacturers, launch service providers, and ground segment companies, across supply chains… upstream, downstream, under the ground into the sunlight, and into outer space. Does the tiny microchip, smaller than a hummingbird, know that it rules the pace at which AI expands?” 

The lust for domination stands counter to the concept of fratelli tutti, the primacy of the person over things and the common good. With virtue itself, “one renounces power, one loses the Will to Power,”conceded Nietzsche (13). Virtue is the influence that radiates along the infinite chain. Some might call it spiritual force (14). 

Space and time provide the setting for the will to act and the virtue to adapt and quench the thirst for meaning, for truth and fulfillment. In the stream of time, how can a self, a person, a being, a living soul flow to be better toward themselves and others? In all circumstances and regardless of the state or situation in which they find themselves, there is within them a value that transcends matter. The inner virtue is to cultivate one’s mind; the outer virtue is to give concrete form in the right way. 

The Universe is partly an object whose form is space and time and partly a subject that does not lie in space and time for it is whole and undivided in every person, every planet and every star. There subsists the will of the timeless flow that nurtures the enduring relationship with each thing-in-itself and all of them together. Every living thing embodies in their innermost essence the will of the timeless flow to which they are subordinated.

From above, the Moon barely pours its pale enchantment through the haunting fog. From below, satellites play hide-and-seek with twinkling stars. On the ground, those struggling within the imposed margins of an informal market and on their migratory journey stare at the night sky hoping to find meaning in the calligraphy of scattered stars. A moon-shaped lonely cloud drifts and disappears in the sunrise above the fall-colored tapestry of hills capped with white brume. 

Early hunters followed their own migratory trails and observed from the ground the Moon’s motion, the stars and the Milky Way. Like a deep, surging tide, time has found expression in every self, person, being, and living soul. What distinguishes them from each other is their inherent ability to sustain time. To all, the Time Mind whispers, beauty does not need to be enhanced for its truth to be revealed. Beauty did not lose its truth for it to need mending.

As life seeps through the human body, we go on telling stories about how we believe in a future where humanity is out exploring the stars, and how we will break barriers and broaden horizons for the benefit of humankind (15). For humans to transcend, how important it is to include others to our dreams. Let’s heed the call of the ethereal soul and seize the disappearing hours to never dream against others!

Notes:

(1) Library Of Congress, and Sponsoring Body Library Of Congress. Center For The Book. Christopher Columbus Book of Privileges: The Claiming of a New World.

(2) According to the US Congressional Research Service

(3) The term ‘commodification’ derives from the word commodity, which is partly a borrowing from French, partly a borrowing from Latin. The French, however, assign to commodité the meaning of ‘convenience’ and the process of commodification is more straightforwardly translated in French by marchandisation from the word marchandise. The 1694 edition of the Dictionnaire de l’Académie française mentions the expression “moitié guerre, moitié marchandise” (half war, half merchandise).

(4) the region of space from the Earth out to and including the region around the surface of the Moon

(5) Since 2019, Voyager technologies has acquired twelve companies in the field, its latest acquisition being Astrobotic in July 2026. Progress enabled the development of the SpaceX Crew Dragon ferry ship and Boeing's Starliner capsule and now CLPS (Commercial Lunar Payload Services) providing transportation and landing infrastructure to the Moon. Griffin Mission One announced as NASA’s Moon Base II will carry 10 payloads, including those from NASA, the European Space Agency and commercial customers to the lunar South Pole, no earlier than November 2026.

(6) The UAE became in February 2021 the first Arab country and the fifth country to reach Mars with the Hope probe. India launches its first privately made rocket in February 2021. A wider competitive market provides a chance to newcomers in Europe and India to step up. The German Aerospace Center and Airbus Defence and Space have built together the satellite TerraSAR-X. The European Thales Alenia Space, a joint venture between Thales (67%) and Leonardo (33%), won contracts this year awarded by Es’hailSat, the Qatar Satellite Company, and by Nigeria’s government-owned NIGCOMSAT Ltd to build telecommunications satellites in geostationary orbit.

(7) Among them, the German Isar Aerospace and the Indian Skyroot.

(8) SpaceX privately owns Boca Chica Launch Site in Cameron County, Texas, which was upgraded to the status of the city of Starbase, after 283 eligible voters, mostly employees, living within the boundaries cast their ballots. Starbase city dwellers will now vote on a proposal to annex around 7,100 acres of surrounding land, including state and private property. Launch facilities tend to be separated from urban development by inhabited areas, wildlife refuge sites and public parks. Enlarging them implies encroaching on those natural sites.

(9) On July 10th, China achieved first controlled recovery of a carrier rocket first stage, making China the second country, after the United States, to achieve controlled recovery of an orbital-class rocket first stage.

(10) Its budget for fiscal Year 2027 has increased 120% to $71.3 billions

(11) There are infinite ways to translate and interpret a text, such as a 8th century commentary by Zongmi 宗蜜 of Kumarajiva’s Chinese translation of the Sanskrit text Vajracchedikā Prajñāpāramitā Sūtra (Diamond Sutra), or, closer to us, an early 20th century French translation of Also sprach Zarathustra. Every work, every translation and every commentary adds its perspective into our kaleidoscopic knowledge.

(12) Arthur Schopenhauer wrote: if a person is consistently inclined to commit a wrong whenever the occasion arises and no external force restrains them, we call them wicked. According to our definition of wrong, this means that such a person not only affirms the will-to-live as it manifests in their own body, but goes so far in this affirmation as to deny the will manifesting in other individuals; this manifests in them demanding their powers for the service of their own will and seeking to destroy their existence if they stand in the way of their will's pursuits. The ultimate source of this is a high degree of egoism.

(13) For a more in-depth approach to Nietzsche, please refer to stanford.edu

(14) From a purely vitalist virtue, entirely amoral, the meaning of the word shifted into the moral sphere. Gradually, "proper conduct" in the naturalistic sense became "proper conduct" in the ethical sense. See introduction in L., Duyvendak, J. J. L. (1953). Le livre de la voie et de la vertu: Tao Tö King. France: Librairie d'Amérique & d’Orient.

(15) The Global Exploration Strategy (GES) claimed just that. It includes fourteen space agencies that have voluntarily agreed to work together and explore space as one global community. It must represent a bond of mutual understanding between people who share the same disposition of heart and mind and live in harmony.