Hi! I’m an aerospace engineer at the bay-area startup Xona Space Systems & a big fan of Effective Altruism. Xona basically works on creating a next-generation, commercial version of GPS. Before that I helped build, launch, and operate a pair of cubesats at a small company called SpaceQuest, and before that I got a masters’ degree at CU Boulder. I’ve also been a longtime fan of SpaceX, kerbal space program, and hard sci-fi.
I think this is a good writeup that does a pretty good job of disentangling many of the different EA-adjacent ideas that touch on aerospace topics. In this comment I will talk about different US government agencies and why I think US policy is probably the more actionable space-governance area than broad international agreements; hopefully I’ll get around to writing future comments on other space topics (about the Long Reflection, the differences between trying to influence prosaic space exploration vs Von Neumann stuff, about GPS and Xona Space Systems, about the governance of space resources, about other areas of overlap between EA and space), but we’ll see if I can find the time for that...
Anyways, I’m surprised that you put so much emphasis on international space agreements through the UN[1], and relatively little on US space policy. Considering that the USA has huge and growing dominance in many space areas, it’s pretty plausible that US laws will be comparably influential to UN agreements even in the long-term future, and certainly they are quite important today. Furthermore, US regulations will likely be much more detailed / forceful than broad international agreements, and US space policy might be more tractable for at least American EAs to influence. For example, I think that Artemis Accords (signed by 19 countries so far, which represent 1601 of the 1807 objects launched into space in 2021) will probably be more influential at least in the near-term than any limited terms that the upcoming UN meeting could get universal agreement on — the UN is not about to let countries start claiming exclusive-economic-zone-esque territory on other planets, but the Artemis Accords arguably does this![2]
With that in mind, here is an incomplete list of important space-related US agencies and what they do. Some of these probably merit inclusion in your list of “key organizations you could work for”:
Naturally, NASA makes many decisions about the overall direction of space exploration. There are big debates about long-term strategic goals: Should we target the Moon or Mars (or learn how to construct increasingly large space stations) for human exploration and settlement? Should space exploration be driven mostly by government itself, or should the government just be one of many customers trying to encourage the development of a private space economy? Which early R&D technologies (like in-space nuclear power, advanced ion propulsion, ISRU techniques, life support equipment) should we fund now in order to help us settle space later? How should we balance and prioritize among goals like human space settlement, robotic planetary exploration, space-telescope astronomy, etc? NASA’s decisions are very influential because they fund & provide direction for private companies like SpaceX and Blue Origin, and their international partnerships mean that smaller space agencies of other Western countries often join NASA initiatives. Of course NASA has to follow the direction of Congress on some of the big-picture decisions, but NASA has lots of leeway to make their own lower-level decisions and to influence Congress’s thinking by making recommendations and essentially lobbying for what NASA thinks is the best approach to a given issue. NASA is not a regulatory agency, but besides directing much actual space activity, they also often create influential international partnerships (like the International Space Station) and agreements (like the Artemis Accords) which might be influential on the far-future.
Similarly, DARPA and the US Air Force + Space Force clearly make many important decisions relevant to anti-satellite / arms-race / international-norm-setting considerations. Like NASA, they also invest in important R&D projects, like the current DARPA project to demonstrate nuclear propulsion.
The FCC is the USA’s main space regulatory agency. They are in charge of allocating licenses allowing satellite operators to use radio frequencies.[3] They are also responsible for licensing the launch of satellite constellations (including the funny rules where you have to launch half of what you apply for within 3 years or risk losing your right to launch anything more). Finally, the FCC is the main regulator who is working to create a proper regulatory environment for mitigating space debris, a system that will probably involve posting large bonds or taking out liability insurance against the risk of debris. (Bonds / insurance could also provide a prize-like funding mechanism for third parties to capture and deorbit hazardous, defunct satellites.)
The FAA, who mostly regulate airplane safety, are also in charge of licensing the launch and reentry of rockets, capsules, etc. This seems less relevant to the long-term-future than the FCC’s regulation of satellite operations, but who knows — since the FAA today regulates air traffic management and commercial space tourism, they might someday end up in charge of human flights to Mars or all around the solar system, and the norms they establish might go on to influence human space settlement even further afield.
Although the FCC is in charge of regulating space debris, it is STRATCOM (the nuclear-ICBM-command people) which currently provides satellite operators with timely collision-risk alerts. This responsibility is slowly being migrated to the Office of Space Commerce under NOAA, and also increasingly handled by commercial space-situational-awareness providers like LeoLabs.
In a similar spirit of “paying attention to the concrete inside-view” and recognizing that the USA is by far the leader in space exploration, I think it’s further worth paying attention to the fact that SpaceX is very well-positioned to be the dominant force in any near-term Mars or Moon settlement programs. Thus, influencing SpaceX (or a handful of related companies like Blue Origin) could be quite impactful even if this strategy doesn’t feel as EA-ish as doing something warm and multilateral like helping shape a bunch of EU rules about space resources:
SpaceX is pretty set on their Mars plan, so it would likely be futile to try to convince them to totally change their core objective, but influencing SpaceX’s thoughts about how a Mars settlement should be established and scaled up (from a small scientific base to an economically self-sufficient city), how it should be governed, etc, could be very important.
If SpaceX had some general reforms it wanted to advocate for — such as about space debris mitigation policy — their recommendations might have a lot of sway with the various US agencies with which they have a close relationship.
SpaceX might be more interested in listening to occasionally sci-fi-sounding rationalist/EA advice than most governing bodies would. Blue Origin is also interesting in this sense; they are sometimes reputed to have rigid management and might be less overall EA-sympathetic than an organization led by Elon Musk, but they seem very interested in think-tank-style exploration of futurist concepts like O’Neill Cylinders and using space resources for maintaining long-run economic growth, so they might be eager to advocate for wise far-future space governance.
Universal UN treaties, like those on nuclear nonproliferation and bioweapons, seem best for when you are trying to eliminate an x-risk by getting universal compliance. Some aspects of space governance are like this (like stopping someone from launching a crazy von neumann probe or ruining space with ASAT attacks), but I see a many space governance issues which are more about influencing the trajectory taken by the leader in space colonization (ie, SpaceX and the USA). Furthermore, many agreements on things like ASAT could probably be best addressed in the beginning with bilateral START-style treaties, hoping to build up to universal worldwide treaties later.
The Accords have deliberately been pitched as low-key thing, like “hey, this is just about setting some common-sense norms of cooperation and interoperability, no worries”, but the provisions about in-space resource use and especially the establishment of “safety zone” perimeters around nation’s launch/landing sites, is in the eyes of many people basically opening the door towards claiming national territory on celestial bodies.
The process of getting spectrum is currently the riskiest and most onerous part of most satellite companies’ regulatory-approval journeys. Personally, I think that this process could probably be much improved by switching out the current paperwork-and-stakeholder-consultation-based system for some fancy mechanism that might involve auctioning self-assessed licenses or something. But fixing the FCC’s spectrum-licensing process is probably not super-influential on the far-future, so whatever.
This (and your other comments) is incredibly useful, thanks so much. Not going to respond to particular points right now, other than to say many of them stick out as well worth pursuing.
Hi! I’m an aerospace engineer at the bay-area startup Xona Space Systems & a big fan of Effective Altruism. Xona basically works on creating a next-generation, commercial version of GPS. Before that I helped build, launch, and operate a pair of cubesats at a small company called SpaceQuest, and before that I got a masters’ degree at CU Boulder. I’ve also been a longtime fan of SpaceX, kerbal space program, and hard sci-fi.
I think this is a good writeup that does a pretty good job of disentangling many of the different EA-adjacent ideas that touch on aerospace topics. In this comment I will talk about different US government agencies and why I think US policy is probably the more actionable space-governance area than broad international agreements; hopefully I’ll get around to writing future comments on other space topics (about the Long Reflection, the differences between trying to influence prosaic space exploration vs Von Neumann stuff, about GPS and Xona Space Systems, about the governance of space resources, about other areas of overlap between EA and space), but we’ll see if I can find the time for that...
Anyways, I’m surprised that you put so much emphasis on international space agreements through the UN[1], and relatively little on US space policy. Considering that the USA has huge and growing dominance in many space areas, it’s pretty plausible that US laws will be comparably influential to UN agreements even in the long-term future, and certainly they are quite important today. Furthermore, US regulations will likely be much more detailed / forceful than broad international agreements, and US space policy might be more tractable for at least American EAs to influence. For example, I think that Artemis Accords (signed by 19 countries so far, which represent 1601 of the 1807 objects launched into space in 2021) will probably be more influential at least in the near-term than any limited terms that the upcoming UN meeting could get universal agreement on — the UN is not about to let countries start claiming exclusive-economic-zone-esque territory on other planets, but the Artemis Accords arguably does this![2]
With that in mind, here is an incomplete list of important space-related US agencies and what they do. Some of these probably merit inclusion in your list of “key organizations you could work for”:
Naturally, NASA makes many decisions about the overall direction of space exploration. There are big debates about long-term strategic goals: Should we target the Moon or Mars (or learn how to construct increasingly large space stations) for human exploration and settlement? Should space exploration be driven mostly by government itself, or should the government just be one of many customers trying to encourage the development of a private space economy? Which early R&D technologies (like in-space nuclear power, advanced ion propulsion, ISRU techniques, life support equipment) should we fund now in order to help us settle space later? How should we balance and prioritize among goals like human space settlement, robotic planetary exploration, space-telescope astronomy, etc? NASA’s decisions are very influential because they fund & provide direction for private companies like SpaceX and Blue Origin, and their international partnerships mean that smaller space agencies of other Western countries often join NASA initiatives. Of course NASA has to follow the direction of Congress on some of the big-picture decisions, but NASA has lots of leeway to make their own lower-level decisions and to influence Congress’s thinking by making recommendations and essentially lobbying for what NASA thinks is the best approach to a given issue. NASA is not a regulatory agency, but besides directing much actual space activity, they also often create influential international partnerships (like the International Space Station) and agreements (like the Artemis Accords) which might be influential on the far-future.
Similarly, DARPA and the US Air Force + Space Force clearly make many important decisions relevant to anti-satellite / arms-race / international-norm-setting considerations. Like NASA, they also invest in important R&D projects, like the current DARPA project to demonstrate nuclear propulsion.
The FCC is the USA’s main space regulatory agency. They are in charge of allocating licenses allowing satellite operators to use radio frequencies.[3] They are also responsible for licensing the launch of satellite constellations (including the funny rules where you have to launch half of what you apply for within 3 years or risk losing your right to launch anything more). Finally, the FCC is the main regulator who is working to create a proper regulatory environment for mitigating space debris, a system that will probably involve posting large bonds or taking out liability insurance against the risk of debris. (Bonds / insurance could also provide a prize-like funding mechanism for third parties to capture and deorbit hazardous, defunct satellites.)
The FAA, who mostly regulate airplane safety, are also in charge of licensing the launch and reentry of rockets, capsules, etc. This seems less relevant to the long-term-future than the FCC’s regulation of satellite operations, but who knows — since the FAA today regulates air traffic management and commercial space tourism, they might someday end up in charge of human flights to Mars or all around the solar system, and the norms they establish might go on to influence human space settlement even further afield.
Although the FCC is in charge of regulating space debris, it is STRATCOM (the nuclear-ICBM-command people) which currently provides satellite operators with timely collision-risk alerts. This responsibility is slowly being migrated to the Office of Space Commerce under NOAA, and also increasingly handled by commercial space-situational-awareness providers like LeoLabs.
I’m not sure who exactly makes the big-picture norm-setting diplomacy decisions about US space policy, like Kamala Harris’s recent speech pledging that the USA will eschew testing antisatellite weapons. I presume these decisions just come from White House staff in consultation with relevant experts.
In a similar spirit of “paying attention to the concrete inside-view” and recognizing that the USA is by far the leader in space exploration, I think it’s further worth paying attention to the fact that SpaceX is very well-positioned to be the dominant force in any near-term Mars or Moon settlement programs. Thus, influencing SpaceX (or a handful of related companies like Blue Origin) could be quite impactful even if this strategy doesn’t feel as EA-ish as doing something warm and multilateral like helping shape a bunch of EU rules about space resources:
SpaceX is pretty set on their Mars plan, so it would likely be futile to try to convince them to totally change their core objective, but influencing SpaceX’s thoughts about how a Mars settlement should be established and scaled up (from a small scientific base to an economically self-sufficient city), how it should be governed, etc, could be very important.
If SpaceX had some general reforms it wanted to advocate for — such as about space debris mitigation policy — their recommendations might have a lot of sway with the various US agencies with which they have a close relationship.
SpaceX might be more interested in listening to occasionally sci-fi-sounding rationalist/EA advice than most governing bodies would. Blue Origin is also interesting in this sense; they are sometimes reputed to have rigid management and might be less overall EA-sympathetic than an organization led by Elon Musk, but they seem very interested in think-tank-style exploration of futurist concepts like O’Neill Cylinders and using space resources for maintaining long-run economic growth, so they might be eager to advocate for wise far-future space governance.
Universal UN treaties, like those on nuclear nonproliferation and bioweapons, seem best for when you are trying to eliminate an x-risk by getting universal compliance. Some aspects of space governance are like this (like stopping someone from launching a crazy von neumann probe or ruining space with ASAT attacks), but I see a many space governance issues which are more about influencing the trajectory taken by the leader in space colonization (ie, SpaceX and the USA). Furthermore, many agreements on things like ASAT could probably be best addressed in the beginning with bilateral START-style treaties, hoping to build up to universal worldwide treaties later.
The Accords have deliberately been pitched as low-key thing, like “hey, this is just about setting some common-sense norms of cooperation and interoperability, no worries”, but the provisions about in-space resource use and especially the establishment of “safety zone” perimeters around nation’s launch/landing sites, is in the eyes of many people basically opening the door towards claiming national territory on celestial bodies.
The process of getting spectrum is currently the riskiest and most onerous part of most satellite companies’ regulatory-approval journeys. Personally, I think that this process could probably be much improved by switching out the current paperwork-and-stakeholder-consultation-based system for some fancy mechanism that might involve auctioning self-assessed licenses or something. But fixing the FCC’s spectrum-licensing process is probably not super-influential on the far-future, so whatever.
This (and your other comments) is incredibly useful, thanks so much. Not going to respond to particular points right now, other than to say many of them stick out as well worth pursuing.