Our Demands

• We support sustainable, solely civil projects with broad humanitarian and social benefits and projects intended to add to scientific knowledge about space.
  
• We oppose military and environmental damaging space systems, uses, and programmes, and projects which are intended to benefit elites.
  
• We critique dual use systems with potential civil and military uses.
  

Demand: Space for peace

• The UK should uphold the Outer Space Treaty in reserving the use of space for humanitarian purposes.
• At the international level the UK Government should support the negotiation of a treaty on Preventing An Arms Race In Outer Space and should support a ban on the development of anti-satellite weapons.
• Public agencies supporting the space sector should be aware of the reality that dual use space systems, particularly in the earth observation, communications, and positioning, navigation, and timing (PNT) sectors, have widespread military applications. There is a risk that the sector will be drawn into the broader military technology and military launch sectors, and public agencies should devise measures to prevent this.

Demand: Space Sustainability

• The introduction of nuclear materials into space for any purpose.
• The extraction of resources from space.
• The colonisation of space. Space exploration should not be conflated with or pave the way to space colonisation, or give credence to the idea that harms arising from human impacts on the environment on earth can be side-stepped by 'escaping' into space.
• Space tourism.
•  Launches which result in net carbon emissions and contribute to climate impacts, including the use of 'sustainable fuels' which are not truly sustainable.
• Launches which use disposable, non-recoverable launch vehicles.
• Systems which do not adequately address the issue of space debris, including those which have not addressed how to minimise satellite numbers within a constellation and / or which do not have end-of-life management plans to prevent the accumulation of debris or environmental impacts caused by debris burning up in the atmosphere.
• The government and space sector should undertake research to better understand the impacts of space programmes on the global and space environment, and on ensuring that space programmes are ethical and responsible.

Demand: Community Support

• Benefits from operations at launch sites should be shared with local communities, with programmes to allow the less privileged to access benefits and mechanisms to prevent profits being syphoned off by corporates and elites.
• Public agencies should implement world class arrangements to allow community participation and consultation on local development decisions and licensing relating to launch sites and space infrastructure.

Demand: Objective information on space issues

• The government and public agencies should be open and transparent about costs, risks, benefits and other details of space-related programmes.
• Education materials and media reporting on space should be realistic and honest and acknowledge military and commercial applications of space technology rather than just emphasising scientific and humanitarian angles.
• Reporting and educational materials should acknowledge uncertainties, environmental impacts and financial costs of space-related projects.

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