Gonzaga Debate Institute 2006 File NameBorden/Eastwood/Campbell
3
of_
57
_***Inherency/Harms***Space Now
Space investment growing now
Major
Willson
(B.A., C.W. Post College; J.D., Touro School of Law; LL.M., The Judge Advocate General School)is the International & Operational Law Attorney, Army Space Command, Colorado Springs, Co. 20
01
(An ArmyView of Neutrality in Space: Legal Options for Space Negation, lexis)
Space is rapidly becoming a very profitable and congested frontier. As of January 29, 1999, there were 2561 satellites orbitingEarth, and 2671 as of June 21, 2000.
18
The U.S. has 741 satellites registered and the Commonwealth of Independent States(Russia et al.) has 1335. The remaining 595 satellites belong to smaller countries and international organizations.
19
Thesefigures are deceiving. Satellites may be owned and operated by a private company, but must be listed on the registry
20
of the
[*180]
country from which they were launched.
21
Well over 250 of the 2671 satellites in orbit in June 2000 were operated byinternational organizations, non-governmental organizations, or private corporations. The number of satellites in orbit has morethan doubled in the last three years, and will probably be around 10,000 in ten years.
22
Today, fourteen years after thisparagraph was written, the commercial satellite market is booming, with no apparent end in sight.
US already committed to space exploration and militarization
Savit et al
, counsel, Blank Rome Comisky & McCauley LLP,
Summer 2002
(PUBLIC INTERNATIONAL LAW:Aviation and Aerospace: Law and Policy Developments The International Lawyer Summer, 2002, lexis)
Over the past several years the continuing trend of the world in general was to focus more and more on outer space and its usesas access to space became more available through both intergovernmental and private sector efforts. International treaty-basedorganizations--formed in an era where no one independent nation was fully capable of dominating space access or exploitation--gave way to a privatization overhaul as commercial space startups became more established and began successfullychallenging the state-sponsored monopolies that until recently dominated the markets they had been created to establish.Entities began seeking ways to exploit and market outer space, from selling pieces of the moon to taking advance payments forprivate citizen seating on space transports yet to be built (or, for that matter, found technologically feasible). The U.S.Government was no exception: the U.S. military had made known in 2000 its intention to put outer space and its use at theforefront of its focus in formulating its strategy for the future of the U.S. national security. n36 Moreover, in the early days of his administration, President George W. Bush announced his intentions to seek the establishment of a national missile defenseshield, leading U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan to expressly urge that space exploration be devoted solely to peacefulpursuits, such as environmental monitoring, not to the waging of war.