Description
With the escalation of great power politics and competition in the space domain, and the concomitant growth of corporate space industries, the potential risks of human expansion into space receive ever-greater attention within existential risk and future war analysis. By far the greatest concern is the potential for great power conflict in or over space, as plans for new space stations, lunar bases and commercial mining evoke historical analogies to colonial and geopolitical competition. At first glance this state-centric threat array seems logical, as access to space is limited to this handful of states and associated corporate partners. Yet this focus neglects the reality that all of humanity is potentially at risk from a range of space-based threats. This paper applies a new methodology, human-centric future threat analysis, to the space domain. The result is a radically different interpretation and prioritisation of space-based threats, focused on political and economic destabilisation in the Global South as a result of space-power activities (e.g., new equatorial infrastructure, space solar, asteroid mining, geo-engineering); new paradigms of coercion and repression thanks to space-based assets; and black sky events due to natural or human causes. The aim is not to replace state-centric analysis but to assist a more comprehensive understanding of the full range of future threats and existential risks in the space domain.
