UN Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space: A Conversation with Dumitru-Dorin Prunariu, Russian Cosmonaut

Dumitru-Dorin Prunariu

UN Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space: A Conversation with Dumitru-Dorin Prunariu, Russian Cosmonaut

For Clean Up the World Weekend (Sept. 16 and 17, 2017), we were lucky to have an educational conversation about space debris, asteroids, and how to keep outer space peaceful with Dumitru-Dorin Prunariu, a Russian cosmonaut, Founding Member of the Association of Space Explorers, and representative for the UN Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space. Enjoy! 

Listen to the Full Audio here:

 

2001 Moldovan Stamp featuring Dorin

What is the UN Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space? 

This committee is the only professional specialized committee of the UN dealing with the peaceful uses of outer space. For instance, using space exploration to find resources in different countries on Earth, remote sensing and sending the information to developing countries that don’t have the possibility otherwise to use space images for their own development, regulating private companies space exploration, and monitoring the overall exploitation of the outer space.

It was set up to manage the global implications of the outer space interest. The most important one is the Outer Space Treaty which was approved in 1967. It’s a Bible of the outer space, which states the rules of the exploitation and exploration of the outer space. This treaty is the reason that the outer space doesn’t belongs to anyone, it’s an international space.

Dumitru-Dorin Prunariu

Dumitru-Dorin Prunariu

What are the challenges that you face with this committee?

You can’t stop the development of technology, but our regulations do need to catch up.There’s an American company, Planetary Resources, that wants to mine on asteroids. The asteroids belong to outer space; the asteroids are international bodies.

Regulators met and analyzed the legal implications of mining. Planetary Resources came back and said, “Let’s compare the outer space with the international sea. May we fish in the international sea? Yes. May we have the property of the fish fished there? Yes. It’s the same thing here with the asteroids. We go and dig and mine and bring the resources to the Earth. And the resources belong to us.”

We need to solve these types of problems in the coming years, but until then, the technology will continue to go on and more private companies will force the international community to agree.

Outer space is like the ocean, like the high seas in the sense that it doesn’t belong to any one country or body of government. How can we ensure that there is peace in outer space?

We have to fight to accomplish this here on the Earth. This is our home planet. We may go to the moon or to Mars, and live months or years there. But we don’t belong to that place. We belong to the Earth. With the help of space technologies, we really do consider Earth as one world. Look at telecommunications, the globalization of all economical things, businesses, it’s one world. Through space education, you can learn about India, China, the US. A few decades ago, we only knew about our own city and country. When we learned about other continents, everything was represented theoretically. But now, we can reach, touch, see, anything in the world, even the universe. So, we fight, or to act, to help people to understand our Earth as one world.

We hear that there is trash in outer space. Can you tell us more about that?

As an historical fact, man started to send satellites to the space in 1957, followed by people in 1961. After that, a lot of satellites were launched into space with many different purposes, with no cause for concern. Years later, we learned that the outer space environment is not as unlimited as we thought. Sending out satellites on Earth’s orbit caused a lot of garbage, because some of them no longer function, and they are uncontrolled. With so many different orbits, they could hit other active satellites, and cause catastrophic problems for humanity and for the space-vetting nations.

This problem was analyzed by space agencies. We organized the specialized committee at the level of the UN Committee for the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space. In the end, we issued regulations and recommendations to be respected by the big space agency. But it’s still one of the challenges we pose in front of the space agencies or any entity that launches satellites.

Each country is responsible for its own hardware sent to the outer space. But sometimes, it’s not that clear. A satellite could be built in Switzerland, bought by Russia, then sent by another country. Who is responsible for the satellite? The producer, the buyer, or the sender into space? This is the problem with space debris. That and it’s expensive.

We have to clean-up space, and we have to keep it clean for the future space activities.

Tell us about the Association’s progress with helping protect our planet from asteroid impacts.

In 2005, Rusty Schweickart, the Apollo 9 astronaut, proposed to organize an Association of Space Explorers Committee on direct objects. We started the work to make a study on asteroids by inviting scholars, economists, international hazard specialists, insurance specialists and global economists to work with us.

Ultimately, we organized four international workshops every year in different countries. We issued a very well-documented study, and submitted the study to the UN Committee of the Peaceful Use of Outer Space. The committee already approached the problem of the direct objects, but was at the low level. Our study just improved the work of this committee, took it to a much higher level.

Can you illuminate some of the dangers of asteroid impact?

65 million years ago, a big asteroid with the diameter of about 10 kilometers fell down in the Yucatan Peninsula, which is now Mexico. The effect of the impact was so high that made the dinosaurs disappear and changed the climate at the global level.

On June 30, 1908, an asteroid fell down in Siberia, in the Tunguska region. The diameter was 45 meters. Only 45 meters, not 100, not 1 kilometer. And it just just disintegrated in the atmosphere. But the shock wave was so high, that it put down about 2,000 square km of forest and destructed everything within sight; houses, animals, anything. And the light effects, the unionization of the atmosphere, was seen in the northern countries, and even in England.

What this means is that an asteroid coming down to the earth (consider the asteroids could be 45 m – 700 km in size), and falls down in Europe by instance, it could destroy many countries. It puts down the social life, economy, communications. This is, this is the effect of an asteroid falling down to Earth. And this is the reason we analyze and organize all of these institutions at the level of the UN.

Asteroid Day

asteroidday.org/

And tell us about the Asteroid Day on June 30 and the Asteroid Foundation.

A group of astrophysicists, astronauts, filmmakers, even musicians, came together and wanted to inform the public about asteroids. thought why to not inform the people not only by films, by movies, but by an international event on the asteroids. They came up with Asteroid Day on June 30. Media all over the world helped inform the public about the asteroid problem. We consider that this asteroid event could be the part which was missing from the UN to promote the idea and the study of some of the asteroids to all the people.

They approached me because I was very familiar with the UN problems as a member of the Association of Space Explorers. And in February last year, I proposed to the UN to adopt the resolution of the General Assembly, to recognize the Asteroid Day as an international event very necessary to be promoted by all countries.

Last year, we organized the event not having yet the resolution. But this year, we succeeded to organize an Asteroid Foundation registered in Luxembourg. Our next mission is to promote the Asteroid Day, and to help it get international attention.

Read more about Dorin Prunariu, and learn how you can get involved with Asteroid Day on June 30, 2018.

No Comments

Post A Comment