Game Theory and Space Debris
In recent years the drive to explore space has been reignited by the privatization of space exploration brought about by notable billionaires like Elon Musk (SpaceEx), Jeff Bezos (Blue Origin), and Richard Branson (Virgin Galatic). They are looking to make space travel a commercial reality. This possibility calls into question the potential harms and existing state of space travel. One pressing concern is the presence of space debris that makes space travel less safe and the possibility of a catastrophic collision is growing more likely as debris accumulates. In this scenario private space companies are not the only stakeholders but also space agencies owned by countries who also seek to avoid a collision with debris. Clean up of debris is the lens through which we will analyze game theory and how it influences players in this case private and public space industries.
First it is important to mention that both private space companies and government space agencies stand to benefit from the clean up of space debris. However, space clean up is costly and the mentality would be for one party to wait for the other party to pursue the clean up. If the government cleans up the debris they pay the cost and private companies benefit from this clean up (the vice versa is true). In economics this is known as the tragedy of commons, where if parties act in their own self interest then there will be a depletion of a resource or in this case there would be an accumulation of space debris that could lead to a collision. Even though collision is a possibility both groups will act to save money and in the process increase the risk of going into space for generations to come.
The University of Liverpool studied this phenomenon of space agencies and space debris by modeling the behavior of the players in a game theory simulation. Their findings showed that the rational behavior of players committing to active debris removal (ADR) was mixed. Behavior was influenced by the price of the clean up and the price of the satellites they had in space that were in danger. We learned in class that players will aim to maximize their payoff but in this scenario this might not necessarily be a good strategy. If space clean up remains expensive and public/private space industries continue to avoid the clean up the accumulation of space debris will continue until a party decides to take on the responsibility. This probably will happen when a crisis happens which in this case most likely means a collision in space. Public pressure is another factor that could change the decision of both parties in pursuing clean up efforts. In summary this scenario illustrates how game theory is a tool to make rational decisions for a party. This does not mean that the party in question is concerned with long term consequences. Space companies/agencies are using short term cost as the metric of their maximum payoff but in doing so maybe avoiding the long term consequences of ignoring the space debris a dilemma that could result in fatality.
https://theconversation.com/how-to-clean-up-space-debris-using-game-theory-50347
https://www.esa.int/gsp/ACT/doc/ARI/ARI%20Study%20Report/ACT-RPT-AI-ARI-15-8401-ActiveDebrisRemoval.pdf