Ethics in Orbit: Keeping Space Sustainable

As space becomes busier, faster, and more commercial, ethical questions can no longer be postponed. Ethics in Orbit: Keeping Space Sustainable examines how today’s decisions shape the long-term health of Earth’s orbital environment.
This book takes a stewardship and systems-responsibility approach. It explores orbital debris, satellite congestion, spectrum competition, and unequal access—not as isolated problems, but as outcomes of design choices, incentives, and governance gaps. Ethics is framed as foresight: thinking beyond individual missions to cumulative impact.
Rather than moralizing, the book analyzes tradeoffs. Readers learn why short-term optimization can create long-term instability, how coordination failures amplify risk, and why sustainability in orbit depends as much on behavior and policy as on engineering solutions.
This book confronts essential questions:
• Who is responsible for shared orbital space?
• When does innovation create irreversible harm?
• How do we balance access, profit, and preservation?
This book is for policymakers, operators, engineers, investors, and informed citizens. If space is becoming a permanent domain of activity, this book explains how ethical design keeps orbit usable—for everyone, and for generations.