- [Dr. Ruth] Thank you for the opportunity to
present our findings.
The growing demand for access to space
and for services on earth provided by space activity
is increasing congestion
and leading towards models,
a greater autonomy by space actors.
In other domains,
where space activity is subject to a sovereign authority,
this increase in activity is managed through
Centralized Regulation or Operational Restriction,
but as we all know,
there is no sovereign authority over space,
each space-bearing nation bears responsibility
for continuing supervision, but at the same time,
individual space actors bear the tactical responsibility
for collision avoidance.
But do they have enough information about each other
to successfully meet this obligation?
When the risk was debris,
the answer was sensors,
when the risk is congestion,
detection is not enough,
the answer is shared information.
Information sharing, even between Space actors that don't
particularly like each other is not new,
but if it is goal-driven, we can overcome obstacles.
In 1975, the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project successfully joined
two distinct space vehicles, but different designs,
technologies, life support systems and engineering
from two countries who are not only in competition,
but critical of the other's engineering, governing
and political philosophy, how?
They were willing to identify and share just that
information that was necessary to achieve their common goal,
safely joining the Apollo and Soyuz Capsules to enable the
handshake in space,
from that, we get Shuttle Mirror,
and later, ISS,
because we demonstrated that cooperation is possible.
Space Information Sharing is not new, but like Apollo-Soyuz,
it remains predominantly bilateral.
There are a lot of bilateral agreements,
Space information is exchanged between many Space Actors,
Space Data Providers,
Space Data Consumers ,
and some actors are both.
Trust is based on the relationship between the parties
at either end of the agreement,
But this is fundamentally, an Asymmetric Approach to
Information Sharing.
The problem is not unique to Space.
The problem of Asymmetric Access to Information is well
established in Economics and International Relations.
Market failures are often
attributed to Asymmetric Access to information.
However,
achieving Symmetric Access to relevant information
across a Global Domain requires a mechanism
to establish trust between those providing the data,
and those consuming the data,
whether or not a bilateral relationship exists.
Industry consortia,
like the Space Data Association,
and the EUSST
recognize the need to share information on
Space operations that goes beyond Sensor Drive Data.
These voluntary consortia demonstrate the value of
increased information sharing.
Well, this mechanism creates trust among participants
within each consortia, there remains a need
for entities that are not within a specific consortia,
and between independent consortia to
share information with each other.
An ongoing study at Laval University is examining
polycentricity and space governance,
through bilateral agreements.
To date, they have identified,
and examined more than 931 data sharing arrangements,
and the majority of the agreements found by this team,
do not include a U.S party, either public or private.
Its clearly illustrates the community
desire for information sharing,
outside the dominant U.S structures.
Trust is a challenge.
While Space Data Sharing Consortia can reach
high levels of participation,
there will always be a barrier to universal participation,
because there is an inherent distrust
of a structure where one entity
has control over the information.
It raises questions of resilience, vulnerability,
and we cannot ignore Geopolitical rivalries.
A decentralized model is necessary
to overcome these barriers.
The emergence of a de facto model of governance through
bilateral agreements has significant limitations,
and reinforces the premise, it is stakeholder-driven,
decentralized model is necessary.
Moving to a Technology Enabled Information,
Sharing model delivers tangible value,
it is not unique to the Space community.
We are seeing this value in other domains,
self-driving cars, smart cities, aviation,
and supply chains.
We found some very clear examples in this research
that illustrates both safety and capacity enhancements.
In this study of self-driving cars, we see that while
vehicles are equipped with collision avoidance sensors,
it provides some capacity benefit,
but when the vehicles are communicating with the surrounding
vehicles, we more than triple highway capacity.
In aviation,
the use of ADS-B In,
a system that allows general aviation aircraft
to receive a data feed,
sharing ATC weather and traffic information from the FAA,
there's an estimated 58% reduction in collision risk,
and an 89% reduction in fatal accident risk.
The applications and benefits go beyond safety
and capacity, reaching into diplomacy and norms development.
I will hand this over to my colleague,
Dr. Nate Dailey to elaborate.
- [Dr. Nate] Thank you, Ruth.
So building on the previous slide,
Technology Enabled Information Sharing
also has an affinity for building diplomatic capacity
in the Space debate,
especially among those working towards establishing norms
for the use of Space, that are designed to enhance trust
and confidence building measures.
This is where transparency comes into play in international
relations among the space-faring community,
but succinctly, this connection, Technology Enabled
Information Sharing and building space,
diplomatic capacity
is a Socio-technological Transformative Mechanism.
This connection establishes as a platform agnostic framework
to serve space-related conversations across national
boundaries,
and allows the reconciliation of differences
from across cultural divides.
This framework's neutrality is with regard to the nature of
the conversation, but directly towards functionality,
for example,
interoperability, access to Space for all,
rights to Space resources,
preservation of the Space environment, space power,
and so on.
The platform allows stakeholders of the space domain
to engage in such broad and impartial discussions.
This agnostic framework can be put to many uses,
but the fact that it is a tool
and independent of those uses is its most significant value
to constructive engagement in the global
Space-faring community.
Like those other times in history,
establishment of The Law of The Seas,
and the Fall of the Berlin Wall,
we are now at a new inflection point,
but this time in the use of outer Space,
next slide please.
And so, these are some of the conditions
that come about as an outcome
and impact of having established norms for space use,
but rhetoric alone won't yield results necessary now,
or the future of the space domain,
clarity of understanding is fundamental condition,
and then, little by little, Information Sharing Systems
can begin to automate Micro-processes,
allowing human interaction to focus on the important things,
this builds Space Traffic Management Capacity,
but also in turn, diplomatic capacity.
The final impact, are conditions of peace and stability,
and so, like those enumerated on this slide.
For more in-depth discussion on affinity ecosystems,
I'll hand it over to you, Harvey.
- [Harvey] Thank you, Nate.
In here we see some of the
different aspects of what we mean by an affinity ecosystem.
Number one, the most important part
is the stakeholders who participate,
that would be everyone in Space,
especially when we want to share Space Safety Information.
Each of the stakeholders can publish,
and everyone else can read all the information,
so there's no sub-setting of information, as in the,
as in the present mode of operation,
people that publish, they can publish to any node,
and all the nodes share the information.
The nodes capture
and protect the information so that if
somebody scribbles on the data, then that's detected,
so corruption is cryptographically assured.
And if some of the nodes get impacted by accident or attack,
the other nodes still have all the data,
so the data cannot be destroyed.
So this leads to a capability which has the potential to be
both trusted, You know,
the data is secure and symmetric.
Everybody gets to see all the different information.
Next slide,
So what we want to do here with this presentation is give
everybody a call to action,
and the call to action is to join us in, in research,
and the research seeks to,
next, start on prototypes of this concept,
now that this concept has been
fleshed out with the number of Space Mays.
You can,
you can please contact me or even better,
Next slide,
You can contact any of these authors
and all the,
all the other SMEs who are collaborating with us,
and we look forward to seeing you at a future Space event.
Thank you.