OVERVIEW

You're at home watching your favorite tv show. The storyline is approaching its climax. Then -CRASH - nothing! Thanks, space junk. When satellites stop working, your cable goes out, Siri can't give you directions and you can't post that latest photo to Instagram. Now imagine those impacts at an interplanetary level.

So who's responsible for this complexity and apparent chaos in space? We all are.

Eyes on the Sky seeks to catalyze environmental protections in near-earth space and maintain balance across the lands, oceans, and atmosphere.

Eyes on the Sky kicks off with a six-part series consisting of twelve, 30-minute episodes that peak into the complexity and offer solutions on the geopolitics, environmental impact, and new points of commerce that are impacting the future of space exploration, services, and activities. This series will introduce the mainstream audience to the current chaos in space, showing that it is the textbook definition of a "complex system," and offer solutions on finding a balance to our life on earth and in the sky. This program will focus on reaching a mass audience (no matter race, gender, or age). Our goal is to build this as an intergenerational story for anyone interested in becoming a citizen scientist, who want to make connections to their everyday life and how it impacts our future exploration of space.

6-Part Documentary Series

Eyes on the Sky series will cover the three core themes of environmental issues and protection, geopolitics, and space commerce.

• Part 1: The Wild, Wild West – Near-earth space is finite and essential - at the same time, it is also without global governance. Kicking off the series, we pull back the curtain on current treaties and policies that ultimately hold governments responsible for their actions in space. We begin by showing what the world was like in 1957 when Sputnik launched and most of these treaties were developed and ratified. What needs to be underscored here is that even when a common document is agreed upon by many nation states, the implementation of these instruments is quite varied. Common document, individualized interpretation and implementation. This leads to problems.
• Part 2: An Arms Race in Space– Competing global interests threaten the current precarious balance and, consequently, our future way of life*.* There is a clear arms race in outer space, with high stakes, and potentially long-lasting dire consequences if left unchecked. Learn from experts to better understand the geopolitics of near-earth space and the race to maintain control and stake out power with proposed solutions of how to work together. Here we speak to those working for the US Space Force and defense organizations from other countries to get their perspective on wanting free and unhindered access and use of space and what they believe are threats to this freedom. We can also point to the United Nations Prevention of an Arms Race in Outer Space (PAROS) activity as well as what might give grounds for "self defense" in space. This can end with suggested practices to address Space Security needs.
• Part 3: Space Junk – An increase in new parties participating in space exploration and commerce has given rise to an accelerated increase of satellites launched into our near-earth orbit; Analogies will be drawn between oceans, atmospheres, and climates with near-earth space. The current pandemic will be shown as an example with similarities to the contamination of near-earth space by anthropogenic objects. Increased activity combined with a lack of compliance with debris mitigation guidelines means that earth’s space debris population is growing. We need to "flatten the curve" on this equivalent pandemic problem. We also have large dead objects that not if but when they explode or get hit by something else, will create tens of thousands more debris. These are guaranteed eventual "super spreader" events. What are the issues and how can we offer new solutions?
• Part 4: A Tradition of Conservation– For us to survive in space, we have to learn to live in balance with the environment. Many ancient and indigenous cultures demonstrate how to live sustainably and balanced lives. Their approaches and collective "traditional ecological knowledge" should inform our space strategies and guide our decisions about near-earth space, safeguarding our future. Here we narrow in on specific indigenous people: Inuit, Navajo, Aborigine, Maori, etc. and show how they have successfully implemented sustainable behavior with real examples.
• Part 5: The New Gold Rush – There are no space traffic cops and no space traffic rules. Space Commerce matters to build a sustainable marketplace in low-earth orbit. Each entity acts in mutual exclusivity and in their own myopic self-interest. This behavior in a finite resource is shown to end in a "tragedy of the commons." How can this common resource be jointly managed and protected?
• Part 6: Finding Balance -- Wrapping up the series, we prompt the audience to adopt the behaviors of a space environmentalist and agree to an intergenerational social contract.