Space, sustainability and the quiet work of governance

At SXSW London, we hosted Debunking the Myths of Space Waste, a conversation with Libby Jackson (Science Museum), Josef Koller (Amazon Leo), and Chris Blackerby (Astroscale). The aim was to move past the familiar headlines about “space junk” and orbital overcrowding, and to look instead at the engineering, policy, and governance choices that will actually decide whether space stays safe and accessible.

A few themes have stayed with me since.

Is orbit actually full?

The first myth worth setting aside is that low Earth orbit is already packed. Some orbital regions still have real physical room, and better satellite design, propulsion, and end-of-life planning are helping responsible operators manage constellations more sensibly.

What this tells us is that physical space was never really the issue. The thing that decides whether orbit stays usable is the quality of coordination, data-sharing, and debris mitigation between the actors operating there. This is less of a real-estate problem and more a traffic-management problem. And traffic management is, essentially, a governance question.

Who is responsible for the mess?

It is tempting to assume today’s commercial operators are the main source of debris, but the picture is more nuanced. Much of the most dangerous debris traces back to anti-satellite testing and legacy government systems rather than recent commercial growth. At the same time, commercial operators now account for a large share of activity in orbit, and their incentives to behave responsibly are clear: debris threatens their own assets, customers, and business models.

What this really amounts to is a collective-action problem. No single actor owns the risk, and voluntary effort alone is unlikely to resolve it. That is the kind of challenge that tends to need institutions, not just goodwill.

Why the ITU matters

This is the point that often gets lost in the “Wild West” narrative about space.

Space is not ungoverned. The harder truth is that governance is fragmented, with national rules varying and geopolitical tensions complicating coordination. International forums are, in effect, critical infrastructure for the sector’s future, and the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) deserves particular attention.

The ITU is valuable for two reasons. First, its outcomes are substantive. Rather than declarations that sit on a shelf, they tend to be translated into national policy and binding regulation, which arguably makes it the real deal compared with forums that produce warm words and little else.

Second, the ITU brings governments and industry into the same room to shape policy together. Industry participates directly: companies join as associate members, industry leaders chair sessions, and businesses contribute to the drafting of the rules that will govern them. That degree of government-industry integration is rare in international policymaking, and it is a big part of why the ITU works.

This feels more important now than ever. As private companies increasingly drive space activity, leaving industry out of the conversation doesn’t make policy purer; it tends to make it less practical and produces worse outcomes for everyone. The future of space governance is better built with industry than around it.

A promising future, just not as fast as the hype

There was real optimism on the panel about satellite broadband, orbital servicing, in-orbit manufacturing, and commercial space stations, balanced by a healthy dose of realism. The grander visions of Moon bases, Mars settlement, and ordinary people living in space are likely much further off than headlines suggest.

The near-term value of space probably lies less in mass migration away from Earth and more in deepening our dependence on space-based systems to support life on Earth: connectivity, navigation, climate monitoring, emergency response, and resilience.

That is why getting governance right now matters so much. Space has quietly become critical infrastructure, and the task ahead is to align its growth with resilience, by building the forums, incentives, and data-sharing mechanisms that let the space economy scale safely.

That is the work we do at Access Partnership every day, helping industry, policymakers and regulators navigate these questions and keep space safe, accessible and economically valuable for generations to come.