Space Focus Shifts to Environment, Development

NEW YORK, New York, October 19, 2004 (ENS) - Now is the right time for the space and development agendas to be fully integrated, the UN Office for Outer Space Affairs said Monday as an introduction to UN General Assembly discussions this week on how space technology can be used to improve environmental monitoring and protection, reduce global poverty and hunger, and improve public health.

Ambassador Walter Lichem, head of Austria’s delegation to the UN Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space, told reporters that "space is moving to development."

A river of smoke more than 100 kilometers wide streams hundreds of kilometers south from fires in northern China (top left) in this image from an instrumet aboard NASA’s Aqua satellite on October 15. Another large cluster of fires is burning in southeastern Russia (right). (Photo courtesy Jacques Descloitres, MODIS Rapid Response Team, NASA-Goddard Space Flight Center)

As part of the Assembly’s debate, the UN Office for Outer Space Affairs has organized a panel discussion today on "Outer Space and the Global Agenda."

One panelist is space scientist Dr. Adigun Ade Abiodun of Nigeria, chairman of the Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space. He released a report to a committee of the General Assembly last week highlighting the "The Space Millennium: Vienna Declaration on Space and Human Development," which was adopted by an international conference he organized in 1999, on the eve of the new millenium.

It details actions on uses of space technology for environmental protection; support for disaster management; promotion of global health and education; protection of the space environment; and the strengthening of space activities in the United Nations system. "Implementing those actions would contribute greatly to human development and welfare," Abiodun said.

"It was high time to make sure that outer space was free of an arms race," said committee member Hossein Maleki of Iran in the committee's debate on "The Space Millenium."

A U.S. tactical action officer monitors the RIMPAC 2000 battle arena from the Combat Direction Center aboard USS Abraham Lincoln. (Photo by PH2 Gabriel Wilson courtesy U.S. Navy)

Qi Dahai of China agreed that the militarization of outer space is a danger that has "loomed larger" with the rapid development of space technology. China supports all endeavors in the peaceful uses of outer space, he said, but opposes militarization. Qi called on the international community to intensify efforts to prevent military uses of space, including through the establishment of a comprehensive legal mechanism.

The panel today will highlight space technology’s contribution towards achieving the Millennium Development Goals, a set of eight targets that seek to slash extreme poverty and hunger, curb infant mortality rates and major diseases, and improve access to education and health care for everyone – all by 2015.

In another meeting on environmental monitoring from the skies, in Vienna on Friday delegates from 31 countries that are Parties to the Open Skies Treaty considered the use of the Treaty's aircraft for ecological purposes. The meeting was held under the Polish Chairmanship of the Open Skies Consultative Commission.

Some 80 participants focused on aerial surveillance activities and the need to use them in the environmental field. They said the aircraft might gather information on floods, tornadoes, air and soil pollution, as well as urbanization.

Participants in the two day seminar on the Environmental and Ecological Use of the Open Skies Regime compared different ways of environmental surveillance, especially between the ones made via satellite and Open Skies aircraft.

An American aircraft used in the Open Skies program (Photo courtesy Sandia National Lab)

The Treaty on Open Skies entered into force on January 1, 2002. The Treaty establishes a regime of unarmed aerial observation flights over the entire territory of its participants, which include the United States, Russia, and most European countries, but no Asian or Arab countries.

One of the broadest international efforts to date to promote openness and transparency of military forces and activities, the Treaty is designed to enhance mutual understanding and confidence by giving all participants, regardless of size, a direct role in gathering information about military forces and activities of concern to them.

During the week of June 7, 2004, the Russian Federation and Republic of Belarus conducted their first Open Skies Treaty observation mission over the territory of the United States. A U.S. escort team from the Defense Threat Reduction Agency was on-board the aircraft, equipped with optical cameras, during the observation flight.

The United States will receive a copy of the imagery collected during the mission. Other Open Skies States Parties may also purchase copies of the imagery from Russia.

Open Skies aircraft have already been successfully used in ecological disaster situations such as the Prestige oil spill two years ago. Spanish Open Skies aircraft detected the oil track after the tanker Prestige sank 130 miles off Spain's northwest coast on November 20, 2002 and spilled almost 20 million gallons of heavy fuel oil.

During the trial implementation phase between 1992 and the Treaty's entry into force, almost 400 bilateral and multilateral test flights were performed. In 2000, for instance, a U.S. Open Skies aircraft was used in cooperation with Germany to assess the forest areas damaged by Hurricane Lothar, which caused severe destruction in France and Germany.