The Ethical Use of Outer Space - Ethical Engineering for International Development and Environmental Sustainability - page 113

range of radar reconnaissance and communications capabilities. France is also
developing a missile early-warning system, while the United Kingdom maintains
three military communications satellites in geosynchronous orbit. The European
Space Agency (ESA), set up to be an entirely independent organisation focussing on
commercial and scientifi c programmes, is slowly becoming politicised (with
increasing control from the European Commission as described by Hagen 2004 )
and militarised through the Galileo satellite navigation (Hasik and Rip 2003 ) and
other systems. Initiated in 1999, Galileo was originally intended to be for civil and
commercial use but will now have a joint dual-use capability.
In 2005 a European Commission report by a panel of EU experts concluded that
'Europe must establish a new balance between civil and military uses of space', and
in 2007 29 European countries adopted a resolution on the European Space Policy
that added a new dimension to European space activities, namely, that strategic
objectives of space for Europe should 'meet Europe's security and defence needs'
(ESA Briefi ng 2011 ). It is argued that 'peaceful purposes' can be interpreted in the
light of international space law as nonaggressive and that the ESA Convention does
not prevent it from being active in the security and defence fi elds. However, to many
this represents a signifi cant change in attitude which attempts to exploit the fact that
some tasks performed by satellites can be used by for military and civil purposes
(e.g. imaging, communications, positioning systems, etc.) - so why not share costs?
The problem being that the intended use of the end product is not specifi ed in detail.
While some military applications might be considered to be ethical (e.g. global
environment/weather monitoring, imaging for treaty verifi cation, etc.), the same
information could also be used to plan attack scenarios. In addition some civil appli-
cations might be considered as unethical (e.g. signal interception for the purposes of
commercial espionage), although the same techniques might be used to help track
down criminals or terrorists. As the different functions of space activity are increas-
ingly becoming the domain of specialist companies, the systems that deal with the
collection and distribution of satellite data are not aware (or even interested) in its
ultimate use - see Sect. 4.3.4 for further discussion.
Israel has military satellites and is planning new communications, imaging and
radar satellites. It is also considering a system that would allow launch on demand
of small satellites from fi ghter aircraft (Rome 2003 ). Other countries such as Brazil,
Pakistan and Ukraine have military space capability or potential, and Australia has
a dual-use military-commercial communications satellite (Spacedaily 2003 ). Japan
operates satellites for military communications and has four 'information gather-
ing' remote sensing satellites - two optical and two radar.
As more countries develop their own military space capabilities, the United
States becomes increasingly concerned that its technological advantage in space is
diminishing. New commercial technologies that could be put to military use (such
as high-resolution commercial imagery and satellite navigation/positioning equip-
ment) are becoming more readily available in the open marketplace, and an increas-
ing number of space programmes have a dual (commercial and military) purpose.
Therefore, the rapid expansion in space use and the diffi culty of determining the
true intent of some satellite systems are leading many analysts to the conclusion that