For the 71st 

IAC-20-E9-1-A6.8

Finding a Viable Economic Solution to Space Debris Removal

Kevin Barrya
a
Department of Real Estate Development, George Mason University, Rockville, Maryland, 20851, United States of
America, kbarry362@gmail.com

Abstract
Space debris is an increasing problem. Unlike terrestrial debris, there are no natural systems, other than
exponentially diminishing atmospheric drag, to self-correct. This creates a self-perpetuating problem that worsens
over time as debris collisions create more debris. This danger is exacerbated by the exponential rise in space assets
from small satellites and mega-constellations, projected to increase more than 30-fold this decade. Detection and
mitigation strategies to monitor and reduce the level of space debris carried out by NASA, UNCOPUOUS, and
others are admirable. They are likely a key component of any long-term strategy for space debris management.
However, due to the physical nature of space debris propagation they cannot address current problems alone. Space
debris removal and remediation must be implemented in parallel to these systems.
Currently, space debris removal is economically, legally, and technically infeasible. Fundamentally, this is a
textbook example of a tragedy of the commons created by the self-serving actions of individuals in a shared space
creating detrimental conditions for others sharing the same common resources. The purpose of this paper is to find
viable economic strategies that create a greater marginal benefit than marginal cost for space debris remediation.
Drawing from that economic pathway to explore what legal changes, modifications, or provisions would be needed
in national and international sectors. Only after the necessary economic and legal steps have been taken can space
actors move to technically address this problem – something beyond the scope of this paper.
To find possible paths forward, this paper will use case studies to analyse the economic and legal strategies
employed to address different terrestrial tragedy of the commons scenarios, particularly those in maritime settings,
comparing the applications of these outcomes to current conditions in space. Case studies will focus on examples in
which government and private actors have worked to successfully address large, public negative externalities
profitably without major disruption to business practices.
Finally, this paper will review some of the unique challenges of space law, weakly defined property rights, and
intellectual property concerns, and their parallels and differences to the foundational Law of the Sea precedent.
Nations and private actors are moving forward despite the above concerns, pushing and testing the boundaries of
what is acceptable whether the laws support them or not. A viable economic solution must be found in order to
support the legal, institutional and economic aspects of space debris detection, mitigation, and removal.

Keywords: Space, Infrastructure, Finance, Institutions, Venture Capital, Development

Acronyms/Abbreviations The accumulation of debris in orbit around Earth is

LEO Low Earth Orbit an exponentially increasing problem. Any mass placed
GEO Geosynchronous Earth Orbit in Low Earth Orbit (LEO) has an orbital speed of
ORDEM Orbital Debris Engineering Model approximately 7.5 kilometers per second, or 17,000
LC Large Constellations miles per hour. When two objects approach a
LEGEND LEO to GEO Environmental Debris conjunction point, they have relative average velocities
3D Simulation Model of 10 kilometers per second, or about ten times the
PMD Post Mission Disposal speed of a rifle bullet [1]. At these speeds even a 1 cm,
ADR Active Debris Removal marble-sized object has kinetic energy equivalent to a
OST 1967 Outer Space Treaty falling anvil and can cause serious localized damage to
P&I Protection and Indemnity Insurance a satellite, potentially ending its operation. A 5 cm
C2 Command and Control object, about the size of a D battery, has one hundred
CFC Chlorofluorocarbons times the energy or about the equivalent to a bus at
ASAT Anti-satellite Weapon freeway speed. Objects 10 cm in size have another ten
times as much energy. Collisions at this scale are like
1. Introduction being hit with a large bomb, causing catastrophic
2. Space debris is a problem damage and fragmenting objects into many new pieces
 71st International Astronautical Congress (IAC) – The CyberSpace Edition, 12-14 October 2020.
Copyright ©2020 by the International Astronautical Federation (IAF). All rights reserved.
of debris [1]. There are an estimated 900,000 objects
between 1 cm and 10 cm in size in orbit and more than
128 million between 1 mm and 1 cm [2]. These figures
are largely estimated because it is difficult to track
objects smaller than 10 cm in LEO and objects smaller
than about 1 meter in geostationary orbit (GEO). As a
result, 95% of potentially mission-ending debris is
untrackable [3].There are estimated to be 34,000 objects
larger than 10 cm in orbit but only 27,230 objects were
tracked as of September 2020 [4].
Due to the potential catastrophic risk from collisions
in orbit, tracking data is used to project potential future
collisions. But this data is only useful to operators if
maneuverability is possible. Of the ~1900 rocket
bodies and ~5800 satellites in orbit, only about 800
space objects have maneuverability and more than half
of those are in GEO [2,5] Even with this data, exact
orbital conjunction is difficult to project, especially for
smaller objects.
Since 2005, the amount of space debris has
increased dramatically due to two important events. The
most well-known and documented collision in orbit was
in 2009 between the active Iridium 33 and Cosmos
2251, which was decommissioned in 1995. The two
satellites were projected to miss by 584 meters and had
a collision probability of one in five hundred thousand,
which was not even the highest collision risk that day
for the Iridium Constellation [6]. This single event
created more than 200,000 fragments greater than 1 cm
in size and 3,273 trackable fragments over 10 cm in size
[7,8]. The anti-satellite test by China to destroy their
own Fengyun-1C weather satellite in 2007 similarly
created more than 3,400 trackable fragments greater
than 10 cm. These two events alone increased the
number of objects tracked in orbit by more than 65% as
shown in Fig. 1 [9,10].
Fig. 1. Number of Tracked Objects in Orbit
The real concern about these collisions is an
increase in the number of ‘lethal’ fragments, those
larger than 10 cm, which could in turn could cause more
collisions, creating 100-1000s more lethal fragments.
Collisions between trackable objects are already
occurring frequently enough to be the main driver for
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debris growth, even without further space launches
[5,11]. The cascade effect from these collisions creating
more collisions is the basis of the Kessler Syndrome.
While the fundamental threat is real, the timescale for
this effect is on the order of decades and centuries.
Despite the potential catastrophic damage in orbit, the
likelihood of collision is very small and there is
currently no clear and present danger of either short-
term debris cascades or destruction for satellites in orbit
[5,12].
The 650-1000 km altitude region of LEO has the
highest orbital densities and relative collision velocities.
Based on the NASA ORDEM (Orbital Debris
Engineering Model), the likelihood of a collision with a
1 cm or greater object for a satellite with a cross-
sectional area of 10m2 is about 0.8% on an annual basis
[5]. This rate of failure is low enough that it is an
insurable, if not ignorable risk. According to this model,
the time it will take to double this risk rate in LEO is
estimated to be 50-100 years. In the most dense areas at
850 km it may only take 12-25 years [5]. While the
danger is not imminent, this doubling effect creates an
exponential increase of the residual risk and each
collision increases the difficulty of controlling the
environment and accelerates fragmentation.
In recent years, this exponential growth in natural
debris generation has been intensified with the similarly
exponential rise in launches. The growth rate will only
increase, particularly with the large constellations (LC)
planned. NASA uses the LEO-to-GEO Environmental
Debris 3D simulation model (LEGEND) to predict the
development of space debris generation to guide
mitigation and remediation plans. Assuming 90%
compliance with post-mission disposal (PMD)
guidelines over the next 25 years, this model projects a
110% increase in space debris over current levels in the
next 200 years, producing 27 catastrophic collision
events like Iridium during that time. Using the same
model, introducing a LC of 6,700 satellites with five-
year operational lives, 90% PDM within five years, and
50 years of replenishment increases the collision rate
from 27 to 582 in same period. Accounting for a 1/1000
chance of explosion for each satellite doubles this rate
[13]. Since this study, SpaceX alone has committed to
building 12,000 satellites before 2030, starting with
1,450 in 2020. In addition, they have already filed for
another 30,000 and are just one of the companies with
LC plans [14]. The number of satellites planned for this
constellation will increase the total active population in
orbit 50% in 2020. If all projected satellites are put in
operation in the coming decades, it would mean a
1400% increase in the number of satellites in orbit.
Given the rapid changes in space development, accurate
predictions for the next 200 years of space development
are almost impossible without strong assumptions and
assuming no further launches.
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While currently collision risk in space is a small
problem, there are already significant costs from the
increased congestion in orbit. To ensure safe entry into
orbit all launches are tracked against the thousands of
catalogued objects. Originally, each launch window
required a 25 km sphere (250 km for manned
operations) of exclusivity from all catalogued objects
but over time density of catalogued objects grew to
prevent 95% of all launch times for LEO due to
overlapping exclusion spheres. As a result, a change
was made to calculate the probability of collision
around space objects, which produced an ellipsoid zone
of exclusivity instead of a sphere. These blimp-shaped
probability clouds represent where the collision is 1:10 -6
and serve as the new exclusivity zone, reducing the
restriction on launch window obstruction to 30% in
LEO [6].
These predictive models are limited however, as
statistically significant orbital paths become too diffuse
within hours after recent launch and the potential error
grows on probability clouds until they are similar in size
or larger than the original exclusion zones. Finding the
stable orbital period of an object and projecting its
statistical collision rate with other objects requires time
to update into the systems and even more time to warn
operators of potential collisions. This lag time is
particularly important to the ISS because of the time
needed to perform a dodge maneuver to protect the
humans in the station. In 2006, it was found that the lag
between when the prediction models decayed and a
maneuver to dodge by the ISS could be executed was
18-36 hours [6]. Predictive models are more precise and
smaller scale than static exclusion zones, granting a
brief reprieve. But increasing traffic, while ensuring the
same level of safety, will continue to decrease launch
windows and/or impose greater costs for better tracking
and maneuvering.
3. There are barriers to fixing the problem
The exponential increase in space debris is also
concerning because if mitigation efforts prove
insufficient it will be difficult to address. Remediation
with Active Debris Removal (ADR) has several barriers
which must be overcome before it is a viable option.
These barriers are legal, technical, economic, and
sentiment based. Legally, the Outer Space Treaty (OST)
of 1967 established rules for salvage of space objects.
Article VIII of the treaty specified that all space objects
retain the ownership and liability of the launching state
no matter where it is found. Article VI extends this
responsibility for the space objects of any non-
governmental group, including private companies to the
launching state as well [10]. These rules prevent any
other states or non-state actors from interaction with
space objects without prior consent. Even with consent,
they leave liability with the original owner. These rules
include any debris generated from rocket bodies or
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satellite fragmentation debris, complicating ownership
liabilities, especially when fragments become too small
to be reliably tracked and attributed.
Any significant effort for ADR will require
international agreement and cooperation. As seen in
Fig. 2, the US only represents a small portion of the
highest risk objects [10]. Russia, in particular, owns
72% of mass in LEO (mostly rocket bodies) and
removal of all that mass from orbit would reduce LEO
shrapnel creation 88% [15]. Following 25-year de-orbit
guidelines would increase the safety in space, but it is
already interfering with the acceptable casualty limit on
Earth of 10-4 for random reentry. Several large LEO
debris objects have already exceeded this limit,
including the re-entry of COSMOS 954 in 1978 which
scattered radioactive debris over Northern Canada for a
clean-up cost of $14 million. The USSR only
contributed $3 million to the effort, despite being
legally liable for the damage according to Article II of
the 1972 Liability Convention [16].
Fig. 2. Top 100 Space Objects based on likely number
of Lethal Fragments Generated from Collison with
those Objects
Even if all legal issues were waived, capturing space
debris, and particularly interacting with non-compliant
careening objects in space, is a very technically
challenging task. To date, there have been no successful
ADR demonstrations, let alone services. Several
proposals to address this problem have been proposed,
including but not limited to: EDDE tether system [15],
Astroscale’s ADR satellite [17], and ClearSpace-1 [18].
Economically, the problem is a matter of market.
The systems proposed above do have some cost
estimates and funding. It is not clear what value
customers would be willing to pay for this service. In
any case, removing debris in this manner is not an
economically efficient method since it is based on
cleaning up someone else’s mess after the fact.
However, given these qualifications, general consensus
is that it is easier and more efficient to remove large
objects like a 3000 kg rocket body rather than removing
thousands of 1 cm sized pieces of debris generated in a
single collision [5].
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All three barrier's listed above are difficult to
overcome, but perhaps the greatest of the barriers to
addressing space debris is a general acceptance of space
debris as an insurable and acceptable risk. Between
1997 and 2013, even in GEO, easily one of the most
valuable orbits, 49.6% of satellites failed to meet PMD
disposal guidelines and 53 satellites (20.1%) were
abandoned and did not even attempt to comply with
PMD guidelines to move into a graveyard orbit. Russia,
in particular, abandoned 33 satellites and has had
negligible political impact as a result, incentivizing
countries to ignore space debris risk [16]. This practice
is unstainable and will require creative financial, legal,
and technical solutions to resolve.
4. Roadmap
This paper provides an assessment of historical
methods to address global public resources and the
negative externalities created from stakeholders in those
environments. The paper will start by defining key
terms and describing the methodology used to choose
and evaluate the historical examples. Next, several
historical case studies will be given and compared to the
current development in space to draw out lessons
learned and best practices. Lastly, these best practices
will be applied to space debris with the aim of equitable
preservation of the orbital environment and through an
economically viable action plan for mitigation and
remediation.
5. Methodology and Definitions
6. Tragedy of the Commons/Prisoner’s Dilemma
The expression ‘Tragedy of the Commons’ was
described in 1968 by Garrett Harden as a scenario in
which herders let their flocks graze on open and free
public ‘Commons’, as they were referred to in the
United Kingdom. The metaphor described how it was to
the personal benefit of each herder to bring additional
cattle to graze on this public land and how every farmer
would logically produce the maximum number of cattle.
Eventually, so many animals grazing would begin to
degrade the environment from loss of grass, mudslides
and so forth. These delayed costs from starving and lost
cattle would cause great Tragedy for the entire group,
despite each farmer supposedly acting in their own best
interest [19]. This allegory is frequently used when
describing situations where isolated individuals observe
a greater marginal benefit than marginal cost for
abusing commonly public resources, leading to
inefficient market outcomes and generally the
degradation of the environment.
reinforce
Similarly, the ‘Prisoners dilemma’ scenario (as
shown in Fig. 3) is used to describe a situation in which
participants are given a binary choice to act in their
collective interest (stay silent) or in their personal
interest (rat out their accomplice). Both are aware of all
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potential outcomes and understand that both staying
silent is the best outcome for them while both ratting
each other out is the worst. However, in this situation, if
only one of them rats out the other then it is the worst
for the prisoner who stays silent. Thus despite a more
favorable potential outcome both parties are aware of, it
logically makes sense to rat out their partner because
their personal interest is maximized [19].
In her book Governing the Commons, Ostrom
questions the inevitability of these above behavioral
models [19]. While they are logically sound and appear
to hold true in situations with limited communication
and single interactions. Like in the prisoner’s dilemma,
these are contrived examples. When groups of people
interact over a time, including many herding
communities, like in Harden’s original example,
empirical evidence shows they did not always destroy
the commons and often acted in the interest of the group
to preserve the commons [20]. Observing how and why
Fig. 3. Illustration of the Prisoner's Dilemma
some groups are able to resist temptation and act in the
interest of the commons is the goal of these historical
case studies.
7. Models to Characterize Utilization of the Commons
The works of Baiocchi and Welser IV in
conjunction with Ostrom’s work, as described above,
guide the following four analytical models [19–21].
Baiocchi and Welser IV reviewed several major issues
in the commons describing various cycles of abuse and
recovery, from acid rain to airline security to access
common themes and best practices.
 The Pyramid Shaped Preservation Model (Fig. 4)
 Stakeholder Diversity and Scale
 Stakeholder Responsibility Spectrum
 Modifications to the ‘Prisoner’s dilemma’
The Pyramid Model is the core metric for this
Fig. 4. Pyramid Shaped Preservation Model
analysis, as it not only applies to every scenario, but it is
the main indicator for the long-term preservation of a
given commons. The shape signifies the increasing cost
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and measures needed to effectively implement the
higher layers. The goal is to preserve the commons as
inexpensively as possible to maximize utility. It also
shows the reliance of the more active measures on the
foundational passive layers. It is important to note that
reaching the summit of this pyramid is not objectively
better, it is just most economically efficient to start at
the bottom and only move up with a wide enough base
to support more intensive operations.
Stakeholder scale and diversity are important factors
for the stability and infrastructure required to maintain
common areas. For the cattle herders in Hardin’s
allegory, stakeholders only represent local or at most
state level interests, as their actions have limited scope.
For other issues, like space debris, the stakeholder pool
is much larger and multinational in scope. Similarly,
herders from the same community likely share values
and goals so they will have low diversity of opinion.
But herders, farmers, and real estate developers
contesting usage of a given commons have very
different values and goals.
The Stakeholder Responsibility Spectrum addresses
how much parties committing harm feel repercussions
for their actions, internally and externally. Farmers
illegally siphoning public water upstream of their
neighbour might be able to avoid any negative
consequences for their actions, but a fisherman who
nets all the fish right before they start spawning not only
damages the community but directly damages their own
fishing potential in the future. When there is high
overlap between blameworthy and affected groups,
negative externalities are easier to understand and
mitigate.
As described in the previous section, Prisoner’s
Dilemma situations involve a binary choice in which
actors choose between collective and personal interest.
In the base scenario it is logical to choose personal gain.
Allowing for communication, rewarding collective
action, ostracising/punishing selfish actors, or simply
having actors who will play again with the same people,
can change this dynamic. This metric is more nuanced,
but its goal is to measure what shifted the balance from
maximizing personal gain to acting in the collective
interest.
8. Methodology for choosing historical examples
Historical case studies for this paper were selected
to represent different positive and negative utilization
cases of the commons in order to understand the
patterns which supported preservation of those
commons. Key attention was paid to how each use of
the commons attempted to change the underlying
Tragedy of the Commons logic to maximize personal
utility. Standout cases were selected based on relevance
to space debris while still attempting to cover the
breadth of the previously established spectrums in terms
of diversity, scale, and responsibility.
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Additionally, while not analyzed at length, projects
were also chosen based on how relatable the project was
to Ostrom’s observed design criteria of effective
utilization of common public resources as listed below
[19,22]:
1. Clearly defined boundaries
2. Congruence between appropriation and
provision rules and local conditions
3. Collective choice arrangements
4. Monitoring
5. Graduated sanctions
6. Conflict resolution
7. Mechanisms minimal recognition of rights to
organize
8. Nested enterprises
9. Historical Case Studies
10. Littering and Ocean Dumping
Hidden problems get worse because of human
complacency and not being forced to confront the issue.
Identification is more than just reporting levels, it has to
do with changing the frame of context to see the
problem. Only then can it be addressed. Littering in the
US is an ongoing issue, but it has substantially
improved in the last 40 years. Roadway litter decreased
61% and the number of Americans surveyed who
reported littering decreased from 50% in 1968 to only
15% in 2009 [23]. A major cause of the decrease in
littering was changing public perceptions, leading to
voluntary mitigation, and increasing levels of demand
for active remediation.
Localization was a central part of managing litter as
public opinion campaigns and solutions focused not on
litter as a whole, but on litter in your neighbourhood, on
your street, or around your homes and businesses
because personalizing the issue was most impactful
[23]. Awareness about the impact of litter on Real
Estate values was also motivating, especially for
businesses, which observed average property value
reductions of 9% with the presence of litter on site [23].
Additionally, organizations and structures like Adopt a
Highway made cleaning up the commons a piece of
pride for community engagement.
In Rwanda, President Kagame made it a priority to
clean up the streets, literally and criminally. Strong
actions were taken to impose responsibility for
communities’ cleanliness. Regulations included a
decade long ban on plastic bags and a compulsory
monthly national day of cleaning for all citizens [24].
Rebuilding the country after the genocide in 1994 under
this strict regime has been largely effective. Today,
Rwanda has remarkably clean streets despite those same
streets being choked with refuse in the early 2000s.,
Focusing on pride in having the cleanest country in
Africa has started to change the mindset of citizens who
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not only view it as a helpful community service, but are
changing their norms and vigilance to fit this
preservation ethic [24]. Kagame has been very
successful at tying litter mitigation and remediation to
national pride and transformed the country with very
little economic cost, though at a very high political
capital cost.
Ocean debris has not been successfully addressed to
the degree that many countries in the world have dealt
with littering. Two major factors contributed to this
difference: the international scope of the problem and
the difficultly in monitoring and informing the public of
the issue [20]. It is estimated that 80% of ocean debris is
as a result of land debris that was dumped in rivers and
streams, but carried to the ocean and away from
communities [25]. Once the international community
identified the Pacific Ocean Garbage Patches, the
patches began to be measured and actions were taken to
mitigate the problem. The garbage patches have not yet
been addressed, but international organizations have
begun to define the extent of the problem, the source,
and needed actions [25,26]. This is the first step in the
pyramid model—defining the scope of the problem and
its causes among stakeholders.
Ocean debris is more problematic to address because
it is specifically an international problem that relies on
different groups with different norms, customs, values,
and information. Ocean debris has not experienced
positive change because it has yet to fully build the
foundation of the pyramid. For ocean debris to be
mitigated and remediated, there will has to be an
international understanding of consequences and a
localization of solving the problem, such as beach
clean-up efforts.
11. Lighthouses and Salvage Operations
Public solutions to complicated problems are
economically inefficient and market solutions can be
preferable if the conditions are right. Governments,
private sector actors, and the public can work to create
these market conditions so sustainable, economic
solutions can rise. Two solutions to this kind of problem
are lighthouses built in Britain and the management of
marine salvage operations.
Lighthouses are an old technology but the British
built them with a new economic model that was
previously considered impossible. The foggy and rocky
shores along the British coast were a significant hazard
to merchant vessels traveling, particularly as the
quantity and scale of merchant vessels increased. But
there was resistance from the Crown to pay for
additional lighthouses because there was no reliable
way to tax them. This problem was vexing for many
economists including Mill, Sidgwick, Pigou, and
Samuelson because they viewed lighthouses as having a
net cost to society with much higher marginal cost to
build and maintain than ships passing would be willing
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to pay. Therefore, funding them would require a forced
duty left to the state [27]. This impasse was eventually
addressed when port authorities set out a plan to levy a
fee/tariff on ships into the Mercantile Marine Fund in
1898 [27]. This tariff was charged at ports based on ship
size, tonnage, and the destination, with annual caps
based on number of voyages, with exemptions for royal
navy and small vessels under 100 tons. The funds were
used to pay private entrepreneurs to construct and
operate needed lighthouses along the coast, sign long-
term lease agreements, and live off the annual pay [27].
Much of the success of this system was because the
groups directly affected by the system were also the
ones developing the rules on how to pay for the system
and how the money was spent. These cost saving
measures, and the engagement of the shipping
community, made the British lighthouse system an
internally profitable enterprise that was entirely market
driven, despite the theories that it was too expensive.
Shipwrecks and debris generation in the ocean have
a lot of similarities to the problem of orbital debris.
Both environments have the problem that collisions or
losses are not stable, and mobile debris and pollution
(like oil spills) are significant and tend to spread in
currents and provide unknown hazards to other vessels
[28]. In order to deal with human produced ‘perils,’
maritime salvage has a history going back to the
Phoenicians, Greeks, and Romans. “Commercial
‘salvors’ were and still are rewarded financially for
rescuing ships and their cargo, clearing shipwrecks from
shipping lanes, and eliminating or preventing other
environmental hazards” [27]. Funding, tracking, and
bounties for these clean-up operations was handled with
protection and indemnity insurance organizations (P&I
Clubs) [28]. Members in these organizations, including
ship operators, charterers, and warehouse operators,
would pay into a group fund (like the lighthouse
system) and then the Club would allocate use of the
funds for salvage operations. Such a fund helped to
protect the operators from unintentional hazard creation
and cover damage created with indemnity and plans to
address the risk [28].
11.1. Traditional Agricultural Models Preserving
the Commons
Sustainable agricultural practices were achieved in
stable communities that planned for generational
benefits. These methods utilized social stigma to
compel ethical behavior as well as allowing space for
failures in specific limited cases. Enforcement relied on
social linkages and rules and punishments that were
designed to fit the punishment to the crime. These
systems were not built around a concept of punishment
or reward, but on vigilance and social contract.
The models below never got to the point of needing
remediation because the system of identification and
establishing normative practices was effective enough
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to prevent serious damage. Mitigation, in the form of
fines and social pressure, contained the rest. In part,
such protection was necessary because older societies
had no means to fix the environment, other than the
slow natural healing process. Proper use of the
commons was vital to survival for these communities,
so its protection was paramount.
12. Forestry in Switzerland
Törbel, Switzerland shows an example of the strong
balance of private property and effective use of the
commons to provide maximum sustainable utility.
Written legal documents dating back to 1224 detail the
rights and obligations for citizens owning private
property, and separately, the right and obligations to use
of the commons, including: alpine grazing meadows,
the forests, ‘waste’ lands, irrigation, and roads
connecting all of these areas [19]. These documents
highlight many interesting features, including highly
regulated and encouraged use of both private and public
lands. They also specifically exclude outsiders from
using the commons, even for those owning private land.
Regulations and authority to address conflicts was in
place to ensure fair distribution of resources based on
both even distribution and bonuses for larger
contributions [19].
Such delineation of the commons into many discrete
chunks was critical to accessing the health of each
section. More than four-fifths the total land area was
considered the commons. Each niche was managed by
different households and annual festivities, cheese
distribution, and firewood allowance allowed many
regular and low cost opportunities to meet and air any
grievances [19].
13. Harvesting in Japan
Similar alpine environments in Japan where
regulated based on groups of households called kumi.
They were allowed to harvest materials at specific times
of year and in specific quantities for more rare goods.
The mix of public and private utilization allowed for
balanced utility from the commons and household
prestige from well-run private lands. An important part
of the system was the meticulous account for
households and rules to prevent sub-dividing a house
without village permission, which encouraged stability
in family size and guarded against rapid growth.
Between 1721 and 1846, population growth in these
communities was extremely low at only 0.025% [19].
This stability created strong social honor among the
villages for monitoring and imposing escalating
sanctions on any violations. Fines and strong vigilance
from ‘detectives’ were used to help enforce strong
adherence to restricted harvest intervals. The result of
these preservation efforts of the commons prevented 12
million hectares of forests and uncultivated mountain
meadows from experiencing any signs of environmental
degradation between 1600 and 1867, before they were
IAC-20-E6.2
broken up and privatized, while the remaining three
million hectares were still pristine though the mid-
1980s [19].
14. Irrigation in Spain
Water has always been an extremely limited
resource and absolutely required to grow successful
vegetable gardens in the intense Spanish sun. In 1435,
residents in Valencia, Spain, formalized regulations on
the distribution of water in good years and bad to be
distributed from an intricate series of canals. Annual
flow was inconsistent. It was not until 1951 that any
dams were built to regulate the supply of water [19].
Tensions and violence were high in the region for
hundreds of years, but distribution of water was
astonishingly smooth. Based on extensive
recordkeeping, it was shown that among the 1,000
hearths served by irrigation channels, each was
methodically allocated several water rations a year.
Cumulatively this gave more than 25,000 opportunities
to siphon some extra water from the channels, but
infraction rates were consistently below 200 annually –
a rate of only 0.8% [19]. These records are a large part
of why the system was so stable. All the farmers, ditch
guards, distribution officers, and irrigators were
extremely vigilant. Infractions occurred, but rarely more
than once from any individual and those that did were
social ostracized, fined, or even killed. Two of the
strongest pacifying aspects were efficient methods for
guards to impose fines and public venues where
grievances could be made to an audience [19].
15. Fishing in the Commons
Not all fishing spots are created equal, nor are the
commons a smooth field. Different areas of the
commons are unique and need to be treated as such.
Similarly, when developing norms and mitigation
strategies, it is important to note that not all fishing
techniques are equally damaging to the commons.
Instead, the sustainability of fishing techniques depends
on location, timing, methods, frequency, and number of
fish removed from the ecosystem. One of the major
failures in preserving fish diversity and population
recently occurred in 2002 in Canada where a
moratorium was forcibly declared on fishing any
northern cod as a result of the collapse of a valuable
fishery [20]. This failure to protect the fishery was
preceded with a near-failure to protect the vulnerable
fishery in 1977, when Canada declared a 200-mile zone
of exclusion to try and limit outside interference from
damaging the vulnerable fishery. The failure in 2002
was a direct result of optimism in the 1980s about how
the fisheries were recovering from misleading
information and assumptions about the homogenous
nature of the ocean stock. These misleading
assumptions included: treating all northern cod as one
stock; ignoring yearly classes of cod; focusing on off-
shore data rather than conflicting inshore data; and
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ignoring concerns the stock projections were wrong
[20].
Fishing in the commons shows the need for both
local and regional solutions, norms, and remediation
measures. Fishing is more complicated than agriculture
because fish move and migrate and the actions of one
group can have an impact on groups in a different
location with an entirely different practice. In the
absence of effective governance in the global oceans,
more than 90% of large predatory fish have been lost in
the global oceans, 80% of local decline has typically
occurred with 15 years of industrial exploitation in new
regions [20]. Purely local solutions do not necessarily
solve the problem, even if every locality adopts
successful normative practices. The swing towards
regional solutions has also gone too far and created
problems of abandoning useful traditional practices that
were less harmful to the environment and relied on
well-supported social networks to create enforcement,
as Ostrom noted in Sri Lankan fisheries [19].
The pyramid of preservation is not a static structure.
Unlike the above agricultural examples, global fisheries
experienced major changes in the ecology, technology,
and population. Many of the problems in fishing has
been not adapting these changes. For the pyramid to be
effective, with every change, the pyramid must be
rebuilt from the bottom-up.
16. Industrial Self-Regulation
As industrial systems have become larger and more
complex, there are more tools available to manage
environmental overreach than ever before. But that
capacity does not automatically induce action. Three
major systems can be used to compel this action:
command and control (C2), where government
interaction is used to legally enforces action; market
solutions, which allow the market to develop an internal
solution (like the development of the lighthouse and
salvage systems); and performance contracts, where
companies are forced to acquire government bonds
contingent on meeting requirements and, once met,
those funds are then returned [21].
The C2 method can be effective, especially in
smaller, easily observed populations (or larger
homogenous ones with sufficient capacity) with a clear
method for correction. In these systems, regulators can
effectively manage the entire population because the
collective shared values and goals are similar enough to
create simple universal rules and policies for normative
behavior. But as the diversity and complexity of the
systems increases, regulating nuances quickly become
too costly or unwieldy [21], as seen in the Canadian
northern cod case study.
Market approaches are better at covering these
deficiencies and creating more cost-effective systems,
but they are much more dependent on price fluctuation
and market adoption. Without sufficient profit margins,
IAC-20-E6.2
market solutions often fail to adequately address the
problem or create systems with more corruption [21].
Additionally, without strong market adherence, this can
inadvertently create a ‘race to the bottom’ where
operators acting in a free market can move operations to
areas without imposed regulations from either C2 or
other market approaches as a means to cut costs. This
can be especially difficult in environments with poor
tracking or high diffusion, where even compliant
markets receive minimal benefit if their neighbors are
not also acting in good faith [20,21].
The third method in which performance bonds are
used to enforce behavior is a hybrid between the two
systems because it affixes a market price with
enforcement, but blunts the impact by returning the fee
based on desirable behavior.
Two large scale industrial operations exemplify the
diverse outcomes possible when using these systems:
Deepwater Horizon and the Montreal Protocol.
Deepwater Horizon was a deep sea oil well in the Gulf
of Mexico which suffered a catastrophic oil leak in
April 2010 while operating a 18,000 ft deep, well more
than 5,000 ft under the ocean [21]. This oil leak could
not be stopped for more than a month and released
around 120 million gallons of oil into the gulf [21]. This
problem was so catastrophic because the oil industry
had grown complacent. Despite trying several solutions,
all failed under the extreme pressures at the bottom of
the ocean. None of the solutions had ever been tested at
such an intense depth. This complacency was driven by
general acceptance from the public and industry-wide
because the risk of damage was considered below the
level of effort to change. C2 structures were not
engaged (and lobbied not to exist), market solutions
were not compelling because there was no demand, and
no performance incentives were then in place to contain
the issue. Only at great cost and damage to the
environment in the local area was the problem
eventually addressed [21].
This situation is contrasted with the extremely
successful Montreal Protocol to reduce the production
of harmful chemical agents damaging the ozone, which
has the unique distinction of having all members of the
UN accept and/or ratify the agreement [30]. In the 30
plus years since its signing, it has been hailed as the best
environmental international treaty ever and has gone on
to phase out 99% of chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) and
other harmful ozone-depleting substances [31]. The
structure leveraged joint Technical and Economic
Committees to advise on how to effectively: freeze,
reduce, and eliminate various harmful chemical based
on flexible and empirically driven standards. This non-
punitive system was able to eliminate 100% of emission
from 142 developing countries by 2010, and has already
started to reverse the damage to the ozone [30]. The
funding for this effort was mostly imposed on the
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chemical industry, but international funds helped to
subsidize the elimination process and make the
transition minimally harmful to operators all over the
world.
The Montreal Protocol was successful because it
engaged the international community to a solve a very
specific problem that everyone agreed was an issue of
international import and focused on strict non-punitive
adherence to targeted changes. Industrial self-regulation
applied in this manner can address many problems, but
identification and pressure from the community is
essential.
17. Orbital Debris
Space debris is not a new issue. Efforts to partially
mitigate the outcomes with post-mission disposal
guidelines (to deorbit or move satellites to a ‘graveyard’
orbit within 25 years of end of life) were enacted in
2001 in the US and 2008 internationally [18]. Further
measures, including a modest update to the US
Governmental Orbital Mitigation Standard Practices
and the UN Long-Term Sustainability Guidelines in
2019, continue to add weight to these goals, but neither
has much enforcement clout [18]. The empirical rate of
PMD does not come anywhere near the 90% removal
guidelines. As shown in Error: Reference source not
found, in the last 10 years, on a per mass basis, only 15
to 25% of non-naturally compliant satellites in LEO
even attempted post-mission disposal and only 5 to 15%
were successful [2]. Any economically viable plan to
address space debris will need to address the failure in
mitigation practice.
Mitigation alone will not be enough to address even
the current problems in space, let alone any further
generation [5,10,11,15,28,32]. The shortfall and natural
debris generation rate is well documented, and rising
space object generation will only compound the
problem. Fortunately, removal of the largest objects has
a strong impact and is much easier than removing
thousands of smaller pieces later [5].
Fig. 5. Empirical Payload Mass
Clearance from LEO
IAC-20-E6.2
As reliance on space for military and commerce
applications continues to increase, funding for space
defense and deterrence has also risen.
The entire federal budget for space
sustainability efforts is measured in the low tens
of millions of dollars, and funding for critical
areas like civil space situational awareness,
space traffic management, and remediation is
virtually nonexistent [18].
In contrast, the 2021 budget for the recently formed
US Space Force, under Space Policy Directive 4, is
$15.4 billion [33]. If, and the ‘if’ is stressed, there were
to be any escalation in ASAT (anti-satellite weapon)
testing or orbital hostilities were to occur, then debris
generation would be devastating. The space community
is not prepared to address removal of space debris from
natural or non-natural sources.
18. Discussion
19. Common Themes and Best Practices
Based on the historical case studies, two key
patterns emerge: the importance of building up the
pyramid and the fundamental importance of human
social groups with a vested interest in the commons.
Each of the most successful cases, including
lighthouses, salvage, the agricultural models, and the
Montreal Protocol, relied on these two structures. While
the villages in Ostrom’s empirical studies obviously had
close social connections, in the lighthouses, salvage
P&I Clubs, and the Montreal Protocol cases, the
stakeholders managed to form artificial groups based on
mutual interest.
In contrast to the successful examples in utilizing
common public resources, each of cases that failed can
be drawn back to their deviation from building the
pyramid or losing vested social groups. In order to get
the space sector on track to preserving the orbital
environment, we will need to engage stakeholders in
socially meaningful ways and to focus on building up
the pyramid.
20. Creating Vested Interest Through Identification of
the Issues
The stakeholders in the positive examples were not
morally superior to those in the other case studies.
Instead, they formed groups that reframed the issue of
preserving some external commons to preserving
Common Themes and Best Practices because it was in
their best interest as a group. The change is subtle, but
very important. These groups chose to value the
commons and take ownership and pride in their niche.
They were able to leverage human ego and ingenuity to
preserve the commons and found ways to share
resources and efficiently achieve the best-case scenario
in the Prisoner’s Dilemma.
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This reframe on how the commons were considered
was only the first step. Once these groups formed, they
had to come to a consensus on what were the negative
effects happening to the environment. This was critical
for the Montreal Protocol; identification of the problem
and its source meant all parties could start with the
problem and agree on the end goal – stopping and
reversing damage to the ozone. Rather than jumping
immediately to expensive solutions, the next aspect of
the successful cases was that they tested (including
failures) normative behaviours to minimize damage to
the environment. In Spain, this manifested in the even
distribution of water allotments and highlights the
importance of vigilance in the system to keep everyone
honest. Adherence to the establish norms was not
assumed, but strict adherence was demanded in all the
systems. Any rules too onerous were debated
immediately. Frequent communication in neutral
settings, like the cheese festivals and beer halls in
Switzerland, meant safe places to always work toward
the best solution.
Littering provides an even more poignant
verification of the importance of vested interest and
informed stakeholders. The rise and fall of littering was
closely correlated with public opinion about their
responsibility to the commons. Adopt a Highway has
made a big difference, not only because of the clean-up
efforts, but because it provided a concrete setting to
impress responsibility and a sense of pride on its
caretakers.
To start this process for space debris removal,
organizations like IAC should provide a neutral venue
for discussion to establish common understanding of the
problem, embracing niche industry understanding for
distinct orbital environments.
21. Creating Vested Interest Through Exclusive Access
Agreement to ideals was clearly important to all the
groups because they all had specific rules excluding
others from their commons. Even the Montreal Protocol
specifically imposed trade sanctions on non-party states
to coerce them into joining. In the agricultural settings,
it could take generations until outsiders could ascribe to
these reframed value sets. Outsiders were allowed in,
but not to utilize common public resources. The
commons were a privilege shared by the community,
not a right for everyone to use at their pleasure.
Historically, fishing did share a lot of traits with the
agricultural success stories. Fishermen, working
together, did form groups to rotate access to fishing
spots and regulate catch timing. But the fishing
environment fell victim to the issue of hidden problems.
Fish populations are mobile and subject to natural
fluctuation, so identifying problems is more
challenging. Human population pressure, technological
development, and expanding political systems
eventually broke down the social systems delicately
IAC-20-E6.2
balanced to preserve the environment. Without clear
identification or characterization of the different areas
of the commons, it was impractical to establish good
consensus on normative behaviors. In turn, these more
general norms decreased the vested interest of
fisherman, and the commons was no longer their
commons it was everyone’s. This change caused the
Tragedy of the Commons to shift from community
benefit to maximizing personal utility.
The space sector should enact graduated, non-
punitive sanctions based on consensus agreement about
normative behaviors.
22. Building Group Consensus and Leveraging Public
Pressure
It should be noted that, without exception, the
breakdown of the social groups was universal in all the
failing cases: littering, ocean debris, fishing, oil spills,
and space debris. This is not to say all group cohesion
was lost. Indeed, in the Canadian example, there were
strong national regulations in place and even
international exclusion to protect a specific identified
resource. This process of disassociation was also not
always followed by an immediate change, as it
continues to change overtime.
For the larger scale cases, oil spills, ocean debris,
and space debris lacked this local social component but
were still influenced by public opinion. In the Montreal
Protocol, public pressure was the key factor in the
development of the organization and the lack of public
pressure led to the Deepwater Horizon Spill. Larger
scenarios and more diversity of stakeholders make
group consensus more difficult. To overcome this
difficulty, it is better to break the problem into smaller
pieces rather than expect the public to exert enough
pressure to cause industry change. People have a limited
capacity to give attention, keeping the preservation of
the commons personal and within nested social
networks can preserve this vigilance. Without the close
personal connection to the commons it becomes far too
easy to focus on personal gains and rationalize bad
behaviors like littering. This apathy is the antithesis of
preserving the commons.
The space sector needs greater accountability for
space activities and to highlight transgressions from
specific actors, both on the international stage and
locally within countries. This should be done with the
goal of bringing everyone into compliance and to instil
public pride in each nation’s performance.
23. The Pyramid as a Whole
Among the successful cases, the final tier of the
pyramid (remediation) was only truly utilized by the
P&I Clubs. This shows the immense economic value in
building the pyramid. Remediation is unequivocally the
most expensive and difficult step in the process,
requiring huge buy-in from stakeholders and intelligent
management. Therefore, avoiding the cost altogether is
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the least expensive solution. However, this was not
always possible. P&I Clubs were, at their core, a group
of people with a shared interest to protect their
ships/wares/wealth for the lowest possible cost. Storms,
pirates, and bad luck are almost unavoidable, so these
groups formed to mitigate this threat. Funding a shared
pool of money, they had the ability to protect their own
and even to pay salvors to retrieve goods of
value/remove hazards.
Constant revaluation of the effects of the normative
practices in all these cases was augmented with
mitigation behaviours to actively reduce impact. The
funds raised from British ports shows how active
contribution from members can be effectually utilized
to the benefit of the group. The lighthouses reduced
hazards and the benefits of this spread to the greater
society, but it was built on a foundation of sailing
protocols and voluntary market adoption of extra tariffs.
To facilitate this next level of coordination, the
stakeholder paying in not only benefited directly from
the investment, they had active control and voting rights
to influence how the money was spent over time.
The pyramid needs to be established for space debris
from the bottom up to be cost effective and doing so
will make space less expensive and more productive for
everyone. Mitigation adherence is far more important
than remediation development for a viable economic
plan.
24. Overall Observations
In review, it is important to note that remediation, or
any step on the pyramid, can be done out of order. This
paper does not argue that remediation without
mitigation is impossible, or in dire situations even
necessary. The Deepwater Horizon oil spill was an
example of needing to actively collect and contain the
spread of oil in the Gulf. Like a house on fire, it is not
logical to debate better placement of fire extinguishers
or protocol on handling cooking oil before the fire is put
out. Instead it clarifies that building up the pyramid is
just the most economically efficient manner for
addressing problems.
In an emergency, the order of operations is first
contain damage to prevent it from accelerating, then
create a plan to reduce the scope of damage with
mitigating steps, then eventually to phase out the
damage entirely with better practices. The Montreal
Protocol demonstrated the viability of this approach and
as a result, natural remediation from particle decay and
ozone regeneration could start to heal the damage.
Sometimes this system’s shock can helpfully motivate
the public to pressure industry to create those solutions
to prevent a repeat occurrence, but it is not required or
preferable.
Space debris is not currently a threat, but the
residual risk is rising. Learning from the Montreal
Protocol, embracing stronger norms of behavior and
IAC-20-E6.2
ramping up mitigation guidelines with strict adherence
can keep it that way.
25. Conclusion
Based on the above discussion of common best
practices and lessons learned, the following steps should
be taken in order to forge an economically viable path
to space debris removal:
 Focus on building the pyramid, first and foremost
on establishing a present understanding of the
damage being done in orbit and making it
meaningful and actionable for stakeholders
 Shrink problems to the scale they can be addressed,
like specifical orbital layers, and build community
vigilance and legal clarity to develop good
normative doctrines and general culture in these
layers
 Enforce, and if needed, exclude potential members
from utilizing the commons if they do not accept
these norms
 Continue to establish understanding of the problem
and specify areas of greatest threat to maximize the
benefit for establishing new norms to mitigate the
worst actions
 Contextualize the benefits for stakeholders and
reaffirm norms with continued enforcement
 Build a stable marketplace and establish norms to
identify new market opportunities
 As needed, quantify the costs of growing negative
externalities in the system and advance mitigation
protocols to minimize these specific concerns
 Once the above steps have been taken, qualify the
cost of these negative externalities with stakeholder
consensus, because remediation is expensive and
difficult and requires support to be efficient
 Define the value in removing those obstacles and
allocate responsibility, authority, and funding to
remediate those concerns
 Identify the changes from removal of these
negative externalities and establish new norms to
prevent them from returning
 Continually update all the layers of the pyramid
with changes to the economics, technologies, and
the environment
By embracing social contracts, human connection,
and building the pyramid of preservation, we can create
a safer environment in space for all humankind.
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