12 Time May 9/May 16, 2022
Space Station and stop supplying
rocket engines to U.S. companies.
Todd Harrison, director of the
Aerospace Security Project at the
Center for Strategic and International
Studies, said Washington is giving
up very little by banning ASAT
tests because the weapons “do more
harm than good.” But it “puts the
United States back in the position of
leading by example.”
—W.J. HenniganECONOMY
Why the rentwon’t stop risingneW York UniversiTY gradUaTe
student Garrett deGraffenreid ex-
pected the rent on his Manhattan
apartment to rise, but he didn’t antici-
pate by how much. Last year’s lease
averaged to $1,600 per month. On
Feb. 11, he got a notice that a new lease
would raise it to $2,750: a 69% surge.
Double-digit rent spikes are
hardly isolated to Manhattan. From
2021 to 2022, rents rose 26% in Hen-
derson, Nev., and 39% in Miami,△
Fatima, 29, with
her 5-month-old
Diego and two
relatives, leaves
an ICE office
on April 19SPACE
White House bans U.S.
tests of space weapons
seeking To sloW THe emerging space arms race
among world powers, the Biden Administration on
April 18 announced a unilateral moratorium on antisatel-
lite missile tests, calling on other spacefaring nations to
follow suit.
Vice President Kamala Harris announced the U.S. pro-
hibition after high-profile tests in recent years by Russia,
China, and India that obliterated orbiting satellites and
created hazardous clouds of debris that will linger in outer
space for decades. “Simply put, these tests are dangerous,
and we will not conduct them,” she said during a speech
from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California. “We are
the first nation to make such a commitment.”
The risk of human conflict extending into the cosmos
is on the rise as the world has become ever more reliant
upon satellites to communicate, navigate, and conduct
daily life. More nations, militaries, and companies have
taken advantage of novel space technologies in recent
years, resulting in more capabilities here on earth but
more competition in the heavens among global powers.
Antisatellite (ASAT) weapons testing goes back to the
earliest days of the Cold War. Over the past decade, how-
ever, the U.S., Russia, and China have developed sophis-
ticated antisatellite arsenals designed to render satellites
deaf, mute, and blind in space. Missiles may be the most
widely known space weapon, but several nations have
developed other measures including lasers, jamming ca-
pabilities, cyberattacks, and maneuverable spacecraft de-
signed to deceive, disrupt, deny, degrade, or destroy other
nations’ space systems.
Despite these advancements, there are few enforceable
rules for military action in space. The 1967 Outer Space
Treaty forbids countries from deploying “nuclear weap-
ons or any other kinds of weapons of mass destruction” in
space. But that language is broad, space experts and arms-
control analysts say, and could not foresee the rapid pace
of technology now in development. Reining in the prolif-
eration of such weaponry is essential, they say, to avoid-
ing an international catastrophe—either intentional or
accidental.
Until recently, space was seen as a peaceful domain.
Many satellites, like the GPS constellation, were thought
to be too far away and too costly to target. But growing
missile technology and arsenals have brought them in
range. This new reality was a prime driver behind the cre-
ation of the Space Force as a new uniformed service of the
U.S. military in 2019.
And while the U.S.-Russia partnership in space tradi-
tionally transcended terrestrial political tensions, even
during the Cold War, Russia’s unprovoked invasion into
Ukraine has raised tensions between the two countries’
space programs. Dmitry Rogozin, head of Russia’s space
program, has threatened to pull out of the International