I first began using the term “circular space economy” in 2022 to describe a regenerative, restorative and socially just approach to space activity — one that keeps the orbital commons open, safe and accessible to all, not just in perpetuity but with the right perspective. It’s not just about recycling hardware or repairing satellites, though those are part of it. It’s about shifting from extraction to reciprocity, from control to care. This vision draws on diverse knowledge systems, including Indigenous cosmologies, that teach us to honor cycles, resist waste and embed responsibility into every layer of design, governance and intent.
While many have embraced this challenge, I’ve noticed that often, my concept is framed as a long-term goal, something to be achieved in some abstract future when billions of hypothetical descendants inhabit megastructures orbiting distant stars. That was never my intent. I wasn’t making a utilitarian argument about maximizing expected value over cosmological timescales. The circular space economy, as I meant it, is not a spreadsheet fantasy or long-termist narrative in which if we play the math right, the future will take care of itself. It is a moral and ecological imperative, a direct response to the very real, very present damage we are doing to the orbital commons — not in some distant future, but now.
Long-termism, in its dominant form, treats time as a blank canvas. It seeks to engineer futures through dominance of probabilistic reasoning, often at the expense of present suffering. It is vertical, top-down and often indifferent to cultural context or ecological limits. By this logic, the growing amount of on-orbit debris and ever-increasing risk of collisions is something that can only be tackled if there is money to be made from doing so — aka, if the business case closes.
By contrast, the Traditional Ecological Knowledge, or TEK, philosophy long held by Indigenous communities teaches us that time is relational. Sustainability isn’t about maximizing utility but is about maintaining the right relationship with our natural environment to ensure the longevity of these ecosystems. It’s about cycles, balance and remembrance. TEK doesn’t seek to own the future. It seeks to live with integrity in the present so that the future might still arrive intact.
So when I speak of circularity in orbit, I don’t just mean modular spacecraft or recycling platforms, though I’ve advocated for both. I mean designing technologies that help heal the orbital commons rather than harm it — technologies that humanity can harness to restore trust, regenerate knowledge and do not outsource consequences to the unseen and unheard.
Let’s ground this in five distinctions:
1. Regeneration versus optimization
The circular space economy is not about optimal trajectories, but resilient ones. It asks: Can this system recover from shock? Can it regenerate its own informational and functional integrity without depending on external rescue? Longtermism over-optimizes systems to the point of brittleness. Regeneration, by contrast, builds for endurance. Consider the LEXI servicer in development by Astroscale and the European Space Agency’s ClearSpace-1: Both are early attempts to design spacecraft capable of capturing, servicing or deorbiting debris. This is regeneration in action, systems that contribute to orbital healing rather than harm. Designing satellites with standardized, replaceable modules (like Orbit Fab’s refueling ports) also reflects this principle. This approach may cost more initially, but it reduces the fragility of space operations by enabling reuse, repair and in-situ servicing — all essential qualities of a truly circular system.
2. Accountability now versus hypothetical tomorrows
Longtermism defers moral urgency, wagering that someone in the future will deal with problems we could act on today. Circularity doesn’t wait, but begins with radical responsibility in the now. TEK reminds us that decisions ripple across generations, meaning that ignoring debris today is a curse on tomorrow’s launch windows. The Zero Debris Charter that ESA adopted in 2022 is a model of “accountability now.” Signatories commit to actively eliminate debris generation through satellite design, mission planning and end-of-life protocols. Compare this to the various commercial operators who delay deorbiting or refuse to invest in fail-safes unless regulators compel them to do so. Circularity asks us to step forward before being forced, because planetary responsibility is not optional.
3. Communal stewardship versus technocratic control
Longtermism centralizes decision-making in the hands of elite futurists, who are often detached from ecological or cultural context. A circular space economy centers pluralistic stewardship. It recognizes that governance must be shared — among engineers, Indigenous knowledge-holders, ecologists, ethicists and communities disproportionately impacted by space systems. The construction of the Thirty Meter Telescope on Hawaii’s Mauna Kea provides a cautionary tale, as well as illustrating the importance of consulting local and Indigenous communities on matters that impact them. And on orbit, we must reject the logic that whoever launches the most satellites gets to dictate the rules. Circularity demands inclusive governance, where no nation or company “owns” low-Earth orbit, and where affected voices help shape orbital futures.
4. Epistemic integrity versus existential betting
Longtermism bets big on uncertain futures, but in space, knowledge is often incomplete, manipulated or deliberately withheld. Epistemic integrity demands we prioritize auditability, intelligibility and shared situational awareness. The Space Data Association international organization, while voluntary, is an example of how satellite operators can pool their orbital data to help avoid collisions. But this shouldn’t be optional, and sharing information should be the baseline, not an afterthought. The European Union’s Space Surveillance and Tracking, or EUSST, program, seeks to do just that. Likewise, the epistemic knowledge graph we are building at my own my own startup, GaiaVerse, can help promote transparent, explainable models over black-box forecasts.
5. Reciprocity versus exploitation
Exploitation in space looks like dumping dead satellites in graveyard orbits, launching megaconstellations without global consent and strip-mining celestial bodies under the guise of progress. Longtermism can frame these as justified tradeoffs, but a regenerative space ethic says, “Just because you can, doesn’t mean you should.” A tangible example: Luxembourg and the United Arab Emirates’ early space mining laws focused almost entirely on ownership. But Indigenous-led frameworks, like those proposed by the Cree and Inga communities in terrestrial contexts, ask what spiritual, ecological and cultural consequences are set in motion by extraction. Reciprocity means returning value, not just extracting it. What if satellite developers were required to invest in Earth-based community education, or fund orbital cleanup proportional to the mass they launch?
The bottom line is, I never coined the term “circular space economy” to give cover for techno-solutionism or to decorate policy papers with green-tinted buzzwords. I coined it to name a deeper vision: a future where orbital infrastructure, ecological wisdom and planetary justice meet. A future where sustainability isn’t a statistical output but a daily act of remembrance, restoration, and restraint.
If we forget that, circularity becomes another empty loop. But if we remember, if we embed TEK, epistemic clarity and moral courage into the heart of orbital governance, then circularity can be something more: a compass, a commitment, a ceremony.
Not to prolong humanity at all costs, but to be worthy of orbiting Earth in the first place.
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