Antinuclear

The satellite has previously been condemned by the Green Party, while a security expert has suggested it puts New Zealand into “the kill chain” and makes New Zealand a military target.

Non-profit group The Peace Foundation has now added to those concerns: the launch may breach New Zealand’s nuclear-free laws.

In an open letter to the prime minister, the Peace Foundation’s International Affairs and Disarmament Committee says Rocket Lab’s launches for US military agencies risk drawing New Zealand “into supporting the weaponisation of space and the related nuclear arms race”.

Satellites contributing to nuclear weapons programmes cannot be approved under New Zealand law. But the Peace Foundation says New Zealand may lack the technical expertise and information necessary to properly assess whether a satellite is making such a contribution.

As a result, the Peace Foundation says approvals of US military satellites should be suspended, and approval of the Gunsmoke-J satellite revoked, until greater oversight of space launches is implemented.

The letter has been endorsed by 17 civic, peace and religious groups, as well as members of the public…………

The US Army says the technology being demonstrated could, among other purposes, assist in “long-range precision fires” – a type of missile used to provide “precision surface-to-surface deep-strike capability”.

The minister responsible for approving the satellite, Stuart Nash, told parliament last month that he was “unaware” of its “specific military capabilities”.

Otago University conflict resolution and disarmament expert Kevin Clements said it is “astonishing” that Nash was unaware of the Gunsmoke-J’s specific military capabilities.

“It is even worse that he is willing to rely on the US Army alone to provide the information required by him and New Zealand’s space agency in relation to the approval process,” Clements said in a statement.

“Rocket Lab’s launch programme is increasingly opaque. The precise content of each payload seems intentionally ambiguous and approvals do not seem to take New Zealand’s anti-nuclear legislation into account.”

Strong parallel’ with nuclear ships issue

The Peace Foundation says there is a “strong parallel” between the launch of US military satellites from New Zealand and the “neither confirm nor deny” issue of the 1980s.

The US policy of neither confirming nor denying whether its ships were nuclear armed led to a ban on US warships visiting New Zealand ports – the seminal moment in the anti-nuclear campaign.

As with that issue, the Peace Foundation says New Zealand cannot be confident that US military satellites launched from New Zealand are not contributing to nuclear weapons systems.

The Peace Foundation says assessing whether the Gunsmoke-J complies with the nuclear free law would require detailed technical knowledge of how the technology might be used in the future.

“Increasingly, space-based US military assets are ‘dual-capable’ (can support nuclear and non-nuclear weapons), and dual-capable satellites used for non-nuclear targeting today can easily be used for nuclear targeting tomorrow……….

Call to reform space law 

In light of its concerns, the Peace Foundation says greater oversight is needed over New Zealand’s space regime.

It proposes assigning oversight of space launches to the prime minister, strengthening space regulations, and mandating oversight of space-launch activity to the Public Advisory Committee on Disarmament and Arms Control (PACDAC) – a body set up by the Nuclear Free Zone Act to advise the government on disarmament matters.

Minutes of PACDAC meetings obtained by The Spinoff under the Official Information Act show the committee has had ongoing concerns about the consistency of space activity with New Zealand’s nuclear free law. Space Agency officials have met with the committee to assure members of the legality of launches.

The Peace Foundation also calls for changes to the Technology Safeguards Agreement that New Zealand signed with the US to allow for the transfer of sensitive rocket technology. The treaty requires the US to provide “sufficient information” about its spacecraft to allow New Zealand to assess them, but also allows the US government to veto any space launch from New Zealand.

“There are some very big moral questions at stake here,” says Clements. “Is this current Labour government willing for New Zealand soil to be used by Rocket Lab in order to assist US government targeting in conventional and nuclear warfare?”

The Peace Foundation’s letter comes a week after Rocket Lab announced that it would list publicly on the Nasdaq stock exchange, with a valuation of $5.7 billion.

Although its main launch site and production facility is in New Zealand, Rocket Lab is US owned. Its investors include major US venture capital firms as well as aerospace and defence company Lockheed Martin, which produces nuclear weapons.

Rocket Lab also unveiled plans to launch a larger rocket called the Neutron, which will allow it to launch astronauts.

Since 2018, Rocket Lab has launched military or intelligence payloads on seven different missions for agencies ranging from US Special Operations Command to the National Reconnaissance Office, a major US spy agency. 

Rocket Lab says around 30% of its business is for defence agencies. https://thespinoff.co.nz/politics/09-03-2021/nz-rocket-launches-may-breach-nuclear-free-laws-say-peace-groups/

Space radiation is currently regarded as the most limiting factor for long-distance space travel because exposure to it is associated with significant negative effects on the human body. However, data on these effects are currently only available for those members of the Apollo programme that travelled as far as the Moon – too small a number from which to draw any significant conclusions about the effects of the space environment on the human body. In addition, although exposure to space radiation, including galactic cosmic rays and solar “proton storms”, has previously been linked to the development of cancer and neurological problems, data on the consequences of space radiation exposure for the cardiovascular system are lacking.

In an effort to address these limitations, researchers based at the University Medical Center (UMC) Utrecht, Leiden University Medical Center, Radboud University and the Technical University Eindhoven in the Netherlands, as well as Stanford University School of Medicine and Rice University in the US, have carried out an exhaustive review of existing evidence to establish what we know about the cardiovascular risks of space radiation. They present their findings in the journal Frontiers in Cardiovascular Medicine.

Manon Meerman.As first author Manon Meerman, a graduate student at UMC Utrecht, explains, the majority of current knowledge comes from studies of people who have received radiotherapy for cancer, where cardiovascular disease is a common side-effect, or from animal and cell culture studies that demonstrate the major negative effects of exposure to space radiation on the cardiovascular system. Such effects include fibrosis, or stiffening, of the myocardium and accelerated development of atherosclerosis, the main cause of myocardial and cerebral infarction.

“You can argue that if NASA, ESA and other space agencies want to expand space travel, both in terms of location – for example, to Mars – and time, astronauts will be exposed to the specific space environment for longer periods of time. However, we currently do not know what the effects of exposure to these space-specific factors are,” says Meerman.

“NASA currently sees space radiation as the most limiting factor for long-distance space travel, but the exact short- and long-term effects are not fully understood yet. We are therefore exposing astronauts to extremely uncertain risks. However, research into the effects of space radiation has increased over the past few years and we’re constantly gaining more knowledge on this topic,” she adds.

Advanced models

According to Meerman, another important factor in this discussion is the fact that we currently cannot adequately protect astronauts from space radiation. Shielding with radiation-resistant materials is very difficult since exposure levels are far higher than on Earth and the type of radiation is much more penetrating. Pharmacological methods of protecting the cardiovascular system are hampered by the fact that no effective radioprotective compounds have yet been approved.

“The most important conclusion is that we actually do not know enough about the exact risks that long-distance space travel pose for the human body. Therefore, in our opinion, we should keep looking for new ways to protect astronauts from the harmful space environment before we expand human space travel,” says Meerman.

Moving forward, Meerman stresses that research on the effects of space radiation should incorporate advanced models that provide a more accurate representation of the cardiovascular impacts of space radiation – such as those based on lab-created human cardiac tissue and organ-on-a-chip testing technologies. Studies should also examine the effects of combinatorial exposure to different space radiation particles, as well as combined exposure to space radiation components and other space-specific factors, like microgravity, weightlessness and prolonged hypoxia.

“These are all crucial studies to be conducted in order to really understand the risks we’re exposing astronauts to,” says Meerman. “Therefore, we believe we are not there yet and we should debate whether it is safe to expand human space travel significantly.”