Introduction

In 1929, a 17-year-old German boy named Wernher Magnus Maximilian Freiherr von Braun bought a movie ticket that would change his life and, eventually, the world (see Figure I.1). In a Berlin cinema, he watched what is considered the first great science fiction epic: Fritz Lang's two-and-a-half-hour silent film Frau im Mond (Woman in the Moon).

FIGURE I.1 Dr. Wernher von Braun at the Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, 1960.

Source: NASA

The movie tells the story of a visionary scientist, Professor Mannfeldt, who has a plan to send a rocket to the moon, where he believes there is a fortune in gold. A gang of thieves steals the professor's plans and threatens to destroy his mission if he doesn't cut the gang in on it. He agrees and sends his assistant, a woman named Friede, to the lunar surface, where she discovers breathable air and lots of gold. But the whole situation goes sideways, and the thieves try to hijack the rocket, destroying it in the process.

The depictions of the rocket inspired von Braun to devote his life to rocket science. In fact, they were so realistic that the Gestapo banned the film after von Braun commenced his top-secret work on the notorious V2 rocket, which devastated London in World War II. After the war, von Braun enabled the Americans to put a man on the moon with the Apollo missions-just 40 years after he watched Lang's film (see Figure I.2).

Even as space exploration was in its infancy, forward-looking people recognized that space could be a venue for piracy, a form of criminal mischief and war by other means that has existed for millennia. A 1952 Colliers Magazine article asked, "Who Owns the Universe?" and anticipated the threat of pirates operating in space. We're going to start answering that question in this book.

The current security conditions in space are ideal for piracy. Space systems are vulnerable. Great riches await pirates who can breach their poor defenses. The talent pool of available pirates is growing as nations with space expertise become economically and geopolitically unstable. Global criminal cartels allied with rogue state actors are poised to exploit these conditions for profit.

It is our contention that as the world embarks on lucrative ventures in space, it is a virtual certainty that space piracy will soon emerge as a major threat to their success. This may seem hard to believe, but the world has changed since the heady days of the Apollo program. The conditions that favor space piracy are on the rise.

While space exploration has long been the province of national governments, an honorable form of national service and international cooperation, space is rapidly transforming into a corporate free-for-all and playground for rogue states. Stakeholders will ignore these dramatic shifts in policy and ethics at their own peril.

FIGURE I.2 Still frame from Fritz Lang's 1929 silent film Frau im Mond (Woman in the Moon), juxtaposed with a photo of the German V2 rocket, shown at the Rocket Center of the Third Reich in Peenemuende, Germany and the poster for Fritz Lang's 1929 silent film "Frau im Mond" (Woman on the Moon)"

Sources: Nataliia Budianska/Shutterstock and Pictorial Press Ltd/Alamy Images

Today, nearly a century after Frau im Mond, space is home to a large, growing collection of industries. Corporations are following in the footsteps of Professor Mannfeldt. They are contemplating mining for gold on asteroids like modern-day incarnations of the professor. And, as the plot of the film suggested even in 1929, space was a rich venue for criminal conspiracies. Frau im Mond was disturbingly prescient.

It is our view that piracy in space will become a lethal, vexing, and technologically sophisticated aspect of the new space economy. It will force all the stakeholders in space to rethink how they operate in space. It will also lead to a reckoning as to the efficacy of legal, military, and global enforcement bodies in dealing with crime, piracy, and smuggling in space.

With all of this in mind, let's begin.

Can You Actually Predict the Future?

Before we dig into the topic of space piracy, we feel a need to address a question that has come up multiple times in the process of writing this book. That is, "Who are you to imagine that you can predict the future?" It's been asked more politely than that, but the gist is the same. This book anticipates events that have not yet occurred, though there have been some incidents that show clear signs of what's coming. Who are we to prognosticate?

This is indeed a problem. Serious people don't consult crystal balls and expect to be taken seriously. Only a charlatan would predict the future, right? The answer is yes and no. Yes, making guesses about what is going to happen next year, or in 20 years, requires an admission, up front, that you could be wrong, and probably are. And yes, only a charlatan would make a claim like, "Tomorrow, the Dow Jones will go up 102 points."

At the same time, many of us, including a lot of highly paid and very serious people will say things like, "If the Federal Reserve raises interest rates next week, there is a high probability that the Dow Jones will go down." That is a prediction of a future event that is based on past experience. It is not absolute. Rather, it is framed in terms of probability. In this sense, you can predict the future.

We feel comfortable predicting that piracy and other forms of mass criminality will arise in space as the sector grows more commercialized. Like the stock analyst who expects the Dow to drop if interest rates go up, we too anticipate that criminals will target rich space assets based on past experience. In our view, just as pirates over millennia have tried to seize ships carrying valuable cargoes when they transited narrow sea passages, so too will space pirates attempt to hijack space riches when they have the opportunity. This is not a fanciful guess. It's a prediction with a high probability of coming true.

Furthermore, if we take a step back from this immediate topic, we can see that predicting the future is the foundation of much policy planning. The Pentagon, for instance, strategizes, recruits, and spends based on future warfighting scenarios. Does the Pentagon know for sure that Country A is going to attack Country B, drawing the United States into the conflict? Of course not, but they have to plan for that scenario. We have military units formed and ready to address conflicts that have only a probability of occurring.

Whom This Book Is For

Who should read this book? In our writing process, we have spoken with many truly impressive people who have much more specific knowledge in their areas of specialty than we do. Our intention is not to replicate their entire expertise here. Indeed, each of these people could write their own books, and several have. Instead, our approach is to be integrative. The book blends our own knowledge with that of our subject-matter experts.

This book is for anyone who wants to gain a broader understanding of the potential for space piracy and crime than they already possess. If you're from the finance field, for example, you will gain insights into the geopolitical aspects of space piracy from this book. If you're from the world of intelligence, you may learn a thing or two about space insurance, and so forth. Our goal is to broaden your horizons with a (we hope) insightful overview of the subject.

Not Authoritative, by Design

This book is not authoritative in nature. That's on purpose. For one thing, it's hard to be authoritative on a topic so speculative. More importantly, dealing with space piracy is by necessity a process that has to involve experts from a range of disciplines. There are no individuals who can be authoritative about space piracy. The subject is too multithreaded, too integrative for that, at least in the present. As time goes on, we may see space piracy experts, people who can speak with authority on the topic. Today, however, our goal is to introduce the full breath of subjects that come under the rubric of fighting space piracy and initiate the interdisciplinary dialogues that will ideally make progress on this serious issue.

Space Piracy, an Overview

What do we mean by space piracy? A simple answer is robbery or hijacking of objects of value in space, akin to piracy on the high seas. Just as pirates board oil tankers off the coast of Africa and hold them for ransom, we envision space-based pirates hijacking space cargoes and demanding payment to set them free.

The specifics of how space piracy would work remain to be seen, but in all probability, space piracy will be significantly more complex than piracy at sea. For one thing, space piracy requires the use of costly, sophisticated space equipment. The barriers to entry are higher in space than they are on the world's oceans.

Space piracy will also probably involve the use of robots or other automated technologies to perform many of the acts of piracy. Human space travel is rare and very expensive. Though it may be entertaining to imagine a Johnny Depp character swashbuckling on the lunar surface, the greater likelihood is that someone on Earth will direct a robot to hijack the item of value and hold it for ransom.

Additionally, space piracy may encompass criminal acts that take...