Space and Defense
Abstract
Following the news in late 2024 that there was a city-killer asteroid on a possible collision course with Earth, many members of the public were shocked to learn there was no reliable global plan for managing such asteroidal and cometary impact hazards. While calculations of Asteroid 2024 YR4’s trajectory were further refined to exclude the previously reported 2-3% chance of collision in 2032, this event highlighted a major security threat: the lack of a globally coordinated, appropriately resourced, and politically supported planetary defense strategy (Gibney, 2025). In so doing, it also provided an opportunity for security experts to consider the role of cosmic threats for securing public and political support for the development of more robust ethico-legal agreements and norms to govern human activity, conflict, and cooperation in the space domain.
DOI
10.32873/uno.dc.sd.17.01.1338
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
Recommended Citation
Kendal, Evie
(2026)
"Planetary Defense as the Ethico-Legal Gateway for International Space Security,"
Space and Defense: Vol. 17:
No.
1, Article 7.
DOI: 10.32873/uno.dc.sd.17.01.1338
Available at:
https://digitalcommons.unomaha.edu/spaceanddefense/vol17/iss1/7
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