Need for “Space” to heal our Planet

At the dawn of this new decade, the decade of action to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), the environmental, health, and food crisis is reshaping the whole world. Entire sectors are being repurposed, cities redesigned, resources revalued and reallocated, and food production rethought.

Resilience and adaptation have now become necessities rather than mantras repeated across different levels of society from local to national, and even international. Respecting our planetary boundaries now determines our ability to succeed in these global challenges.

Just last week, on the 5th of December, we celebrated World Soil Day, as a warning of the need to preserve and advocate for the sustainable management of soil resources, especially to keep feeding the growing global population. 33% of our planet’s land is heavily degraded and unproductive and, according to the World Counts, we already need the equivalent of 1.773 planet Earth to sustain us

Will we have enough space for future generations to feed themselves, to grow, to prosper?

It is clear that the way we use and perceive space has already been heavily adjusted to the current needs. Cities have been reshaped, both to deal with rising sea levels and to ensure adequate access to food. Our houses now need not only space for cooking, but also for working at home. Office and shops’ layouts and ventilation have been totally rethought given the health pandemic. Squares and public spaces have been regaining traction and relevance and technologies are enabling food to be grown and produced without soils, saving hectares of precious space.

What if solutions come from outer space?

“Have a peculiar passion, audacity, and boldness that see farther and further into outer space.” ― Israelmore Ayivor

This week we have virtually celebrated the European Space Week, a moment of reflection and exchange not only on the progress of EU space projects but also their contribution in advancing equality, inclusion, and the strict connection with 2019–2024 European Commission commitments (such as the EU Green Deal and Europe fit for the digital age). This is a celebration that follows in time the World Space Week, established by the United Nations from the 4th to the 10th of October dating back to 1999.

How can outer space contribute to the global challenges we are facing? Can space projects help us achieve the 17 SDGs?

First of all, it is important to stress that several of the past and ongoing projects running in space play a central role in evaluating and monitoring environmental changes.

• Ice Measuring: one of the most evident consequences of climate change is the gradual melting of ice sheets and glaciers. Additionally, as per the World Glacier Monitoring Service’s reference network, ice loss over the last few decades has been five times higher than in the past. With its satellite CryoSat, the European Space Agency (ESA) has been monitoring the ice changes affecting Antarctica and Greenland since 2010.
• Wetland monitoring: Urban expansions, overexploitation of groundwater, together with the hectic pace of global warming, are driving biodiversity loss. The result is evident when analyzing the current state of wetlands: water-rich natural areas that can be found primarily along rivers and in deltas with incredible carbon stock functions (twice as much as the carbon sequestered on average by forests). Vanishing at an alarming rate, the loss of these areas generates undeniable consequences in terms of GHG emission and biodiversity loss. Data reveals that today, only 12.6 million hectares of coastal wetlands are protected, out of the 53.2 million hectares present. Thanks to the GlobWetland Africa Project, ESA has been monitoring and contributing towards better management of wetlands in Africa, starting from satellite observations.
• Plastic Watchdog: Representing 80% of all marine debris, plastic and especially microplastic (particles smaller than 5 mm) and nanoplastic (particles smaller than 100 nm) are the major cause of ingestion, suffocation, and entanglement of marine species, found both in surface waters and deep-sea ocean floor. Thanks to the use of remote sensing technologies, ESA is not only monitoring the state of plastic in oceans and freshwaters, but it is also opening up towards submission of novel ideas and multi-stakeholder collaborations with its Open Space Innovation Platform (OSIP).

From space, we can also discover some solutions for a more sustainable future on Earth. In 2008, ESA launched the Space for Earth initiative, offering solutions in terms of health, sustainable development, and energy, concretely contributing to the achievement of SDGs, given that “40 percent of targets cannot be met unless space-based tools are used,” as reported by Simonetta di Pippo, Italian candidate for ESA presidency.

ESA, and its newly elected president Josef Aschbacher, are working on recreating plant-photosynthesis, as a way to provide humans with sustainable and limitless hydrogen energy. Essentially, they are creating devices fueled by plant-generated electricity which enables communication via satellite with low environmental impact and is available also to people in developing countries. In this way, farmers could have a live feed on their crop and harvest conditions to maximize the yield (Advanced Research in Telecommunications Systems — ARTES — through collaboration with Plant-e and Lacuna Space.

Other take-home insights we can bring from outer space include performance techniques and strategies which may be extremely helpful in dealing with the human and social sides of the coronavirus pandemic. We sometimes forget that astronauts’ lives are characterized by frequent periods of isolation and distance from their families. Creating room for “decompression time,” as recommended by behavioural scientists, may generate psychological benefits in hard times, just as being present in the moment and acting consciously in every activity. The Financial Times reported how “Simple actions, such as feeling the wind on your face, can help to reduce stress. In space, you miss “a lot of things that you can still do here on earth. For example, open the window and get some fresh air.”

Space for mutual contamination

“In the last 15 years, we have found that we have many more questions from the studies we have done than answers which is perhaps the greatest thing about science.” — Luca Parmitano @ESA astronaut from Italy

Understanding what we can learn from outer space, does not mean that life on Earth is not also helping life in space. Only a few months ago, the first-ever attempt to bring Earth soil in space to grow edible plants was carried out. In the majority of cases, hydroponics and controlled environmental systems are used to produce food outside our Planet.

Just as the pioneering technology developed by the Italian startup BioPic, which has developed a prototype for allowing cultivation on Mars through patented photosynthesis stimulators capable of replacing the sun (Project Mars Farming).

And, of course, food still plays a central role in astronautic missions. We all know the importance of a perfect nutritionally-balanced diet, especially in environments such as outer space, where the calories consumed by astronauts in space per day are on average 3000, while the estimated calories needed per day for a moderately active adult “on Earth” range from 2200–2600 (for men) and 1800–2000 (for women). However, the news of ESA astronaut Matthias Maurer deciding to add to his usual portion of space food, a slice of homemade traditional German food, has opened the path for chefs to prepare a list of space-worthy dishes.

Food creates bonds, food is a cultural and national identity, food is a hedonistic aspect of our lives, even in outer space.

Conclusion

Although all of the SDGs are necessary and urgent, one, in particular, can be seen as the glue connecting all the others, the means to ensure a form of development respecting People, Planet, and Prosperity simultaneously — partnership for the Goals, SDG 17. Multi-stakeholder forms of collaboration are pivotal if we really want to achieve an Everyone economy and leave no-one behind.

We have the unique opportunity to reverse the paradigms and make sure that all the apocalyptic scenarios we see in movies belong exclusively to the world of science fiction. We have natural planetary boundaries to respect if we are to live in Harmony with Nature. But at this stage, cooperation can and must exceed the Earth’s delimitations and involve as many actors as possible, including those acting and working in outer space.

“I don’t want to survive. I want to live.” — Extract from the cartoon movie Wall-E