We acknowledge that there remain many constituencies and perspectives not included in the Community Engagement Working Group that may prove important players in future negotiation and policy-making, such as telecommunication companies, space contractors, economic development groups, ground-based internet equipment suppliers, and Internet service providers.
The largest group not included explicitly in the Community Engagement Working Group is the population of humans world-wide who admire, cherish, view, connect with, seek solace from, practice traditional religion and culture with, navigate by, are inspired by, and need the stars, the Milky Way, and unpolluted night skies. Our principles and recommendations include them implicitly, and we call for explicit consideration of the rights of humanity to see the stars in all future space activities including satellite constellations.
We emphasize that these reports represent the needs and perspectives of individuals, specific communities, and those who were able to offer feedback and participate. Our compiled report does not speak for all members of any constituency, or all examples of a group, e.g., all Native American tribal communities or all environmental groups.
Last, we honor all the voices and communities who offered their time and feedback for the months leading up to the SATCON2 workshop and this report. This included many who have been historically marginalized and are overloaded by disproportionate fallout from climate change and the pandemic. We are grateful for their uncompensated labor in a time of loss, crisis fatigue, and global pain, in which we are quickly approaching our and our planet’s ability to cope — much like overcrowded low-Earth orbits.
1.3. Background and Context
In early 2020 much of work and life as we knew it ground to a halt with the arrival of the COVID-19 pandemic on the global stage. But one activity continued unceasingly at pre-pandemic levels: the relentless launch of satellite constellations by private operators, while the world was roiled by climate change, economic collapse, racial injustice and of course, the still ongoing pandemic.
The 18 months leading up to SATCON2 revealed widening inequalities among all these factors, including the dire need for affordable accessible broadband for all as education, work and much of daily life went online. Globally available cheap broadband is the main promise and potential from companies such as Starlink, OneWeb and others. It remains to be seen whether this promise is fulfilled, but in the process we stand to clutter LEO orbits with hazardous space debris, blind our ground-based telescopes to the cosmos, imperil life and well-being with falling rocket bodies and increasing greenhouse gas emissions — and lose dark skies for all of humanity and all flora and fauna over the next few years. The impacts will likely affect a broad swath of constituencies across humanity, beyond professional astronomy alone. By invoking the democratization of space, the commons of space itself — as enshrined in the Outer Space Treaty of 1967 (OST) — continues to be claimed piecemeal by corporations in a longstanding pattern of unchallenged, unregulated “progress” on our collective behalf. We are reminded of this through regular headlines on space billboards and space tourism; the SATCON2 workshop week in mid-July was itself bracketed by the brief space adventures of Richard Branson, Jeff Bezos and their crews. Some working
