Maria Pozza: International Space Expert on New Zealand joining the multi-national space initiative Operation Olympic Defender

There are hopes New Zealand can help lead the effort to clean up space.  

Space Minister Judith Collins has announced we've joined a US-led multi-national space initiative: Operation Olympic Defender. 

International space expert Maria Pozza told Ryan Bridge that as well as defence, it will see New Zealand contribute to reducing space debris. 

She says in recent decades space junk has become a key issue, and sustainable use of space is becoming increasingly important. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
New Zealand has accepted an invitation to join the US
lead multinational space initiative, Operation Olympic Defender. It's about defense,
it's about deterring what they call hostile actions in space.
The US, the UK, Canada and Australia all part of
the group. Judith Collins says, we'll deploy Defense Force liaison
officer to the US Space Command in Colorado for the

(00:20):
next two years. Doctor Maria Potza is a lawyer and
international space law expert, and she joins me this morning.

Speaker 2 (00:26):
Good morning to you, Morena Ryan, how are you.

Speaker 1 (00:29):
I'm very well. Thank you Tell me how serious the
threat is a defense threat from space or in space.

Speaker 2 (00:37):
Look, there's always threats in space, but those threats tend
to be posed mainly by space debris, so as opposed
to the hostile nature that you speak of a little
bit earlier. Look, we don't have huge threats of that
nature to be terribly terribly concerned about. It is though,

(00:57):
the sustainability and space debris that we're seeing a rise
of that does make us a little bit more concerned
when we think about threats, because of course, if you've
got a lot of space debris in space, then you've
got a problem of accessing space. Now. NASA and there's
a couple of other organizations around the world do monitor
space debris particles, but we need to have clear pathways

(01:20):
to space and orders get assets up there for both
military purposes, commercial purposes, as well as human exploration. So
I'm hoping that that.

Speaker 1 (01:30):
Helps a little bit, because that is what this is
focused with them, This is like rubbish collection.

Speaker 2 (01:37):
Well, hopefully we'll get there soon. But the really important
thing about this program and us joining this program is
it's not just about safe, responsible, secure use of space.
It's about sustainable use of space and resilience of the
space structure. So it's much much more than just the
one idea.

Speaker 1 (01:58):
Right, how many pieces of space her up there?

Speaker 2 (02:01):
A good question. I have no idea, but there's a lot.

Speaker 1 (02:05):
Someone told me it was more than more than half
a billion pieces. Would that all be from us, things
that we have put up there and that are flying around?
And how do you how do you go about cleaning
up space?

Speaker 2 (02:17):
All? Right? Look, big, big complex questions. First of all,
because we know exactly I haven't had coffee yet, so
I'll do my best. Look, I wouldn't know exactly how
many pieces of space debrusy there are floating rut up
there because we've got something called the Kessler syndrome, and
that's whereby you've got one piece of space debris that

(02:38):
could collide with another piece of space debrary and cause
lots and lots of more space debrrisy, and it becomes
really hard to monitor that new space debrary because of
course most of us as are pointing at the Earth,
so we can make estimations and we can make an
estimate of trajectory of that new space debris and what
it might be and where it's heading to. But that's

(03:01):
why I say, I'm just not sure, because we may
have had lots of collision pieces and they may just
be floating up all around up there. Now. You said
about you asked a question about space junk and space
deb re collection. I know that there's quite a few
nations around the world looking at this. We've even got
a U N Organization committee who are looking at the

(03:22):
question of space ever, and yeah, we are looking at
organized you know, how how we com mitigate space every
I mean, don't have a crystal ball, but it's going
to happen.

Speaker 1 (03:33):
Yeah, I guess the thing is, if we can't clean
up the ocean, how can we clean up space?

Speaker 2 (03:38):
These are all good questions, all good questions.

Speaker 1 (03:40):
So the threat from other countries, you know, the defense three.
You're saying that that's not such a serious thing, like
people countries aren't trying at the moment to be able
to hit Earth from space or can they already?

Speaker 2 (03:54):
Gosh, again, a lot of good questions there, whether or
not they have the capability to do so. I don't
think actually anyone knows. But what I will say is this,
our joining the program, the Olympic program, is not necessarily
a response to some imminent hostile threat that's happening at
the moment. What I'm getting at is our joining this

(04:15):
program is a really important step for New Zealand on
a range of issues, and Minister Collins has really got
us going in the right direction when you think about
how we are shirting ourselves on that space stage of
the Space Ferry nation.

Speaker 1 (04:31):
Good to have it, good to be at the table
as things get underway. Doctor Maria Potts, So thank you
very much for your time this morning. Really appreciate it.
Sorry about the questions. Lawyer and international space law expert.
I don't know, because at Russia and China, what are
they doing up there? I imagine something, you know, they'll
be eyeing something, and are we worried about that? Do

(04:51):
you want to make sure that we're with our five
Eyurs partners up there making sure, you know, patrolling space
not only there with the hoover camming up the debris
that we've left up there, but also you know, protecting it.

Speaker 2 (05:06):
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Speaker 1 (05:11):
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