Rand Scholars: Space Traffic Management Needs Are Still Unaddressed
Despite calls for an international system of space traffic management, there continues to be no actual movement in that direction, Rand Corp. researcher Doug Ligor said Thursday on the group's Policy Minded podcast. "We continue to rely on the idea that we're going to develop voluntary norms of behavior and rules from a bottom-up approach," said Ligor, director of the management, technology and capabilities program for Rand's Homeland Security Research Division. However, Ligor added, "it's not working. We don't have positive norms of behavior." The U.N. Committee on Peaceful Uses of Outer Space has failed to come to consensus on multiple issues, he noted.
Sign up for a free preview to unlock the rest of this article
Communications Daily is required reading for senior executives at top telecom corporations, law firms, lobbying organizations, associations and government agencies (including the FCC). Join them today!
Bruce McClintock, head of Rand's space enterprise initiative, said the lack of a governance structure for space traffic is starting to undermine the ability to operate safely in at least some orbital shells. The issue has been overstudied, he said, and is due for an international convention bringing together both governments and private-sector space operators. "They need to get together and talk." The world needs to move toward a system of "rules of the road" for operating in space, as well as an enforcement mechanism, he said.