This paper was prepared for “The Preservation of Near-Earth Space for Future Generations, ” a symposium for the centennial celebration of the University of Chicago and the International Space Year and under the sponsorship of the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation and the Midwest Center for the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Comments from Ted Glickman, Tom Rogers, Paul Uhlir, and Symposium participants are greatly appreciated. Responsibility for errors and opinions rests with the author.

As the other papers at this conference note, most experts appear to agree that current levels of space debris are presently manageable. The experts caution, however, that the rate of debris growth, estimated to be doubling roughly every decade, could render many orbital locations unusable within the next decades. Because the impact of space debris seems to loom largest in the future, policy towards the environment of space – as the conference theme puts it, “preserving near-earth space for future generations” – must take a long-run perspective. Such a perspective invites comparison of the issue of space debris with the issues of pollution and one of its broader contexts, sustainable development on earth. By reasoning by analogy, perhaps some light might be shed to illustrate how decisionmakers can conceptualize and address debris issues. In particular, innovative approaches to pollution control and sustainable development, including marketable permits for air pollution, debt-for-nature exchanges, and transactions to commercialize tropical biodiversity, suggest a newly emerging social willingness to experiment with economically oriented strategies.