Tournament: berkeley | Round: 2 | Opponent: Amador Valley NG | Judge: Mishra, Anshuman
1AC
1AC—Plan
Plan: The appropriation of outer space through asteroid mining by private entities should be banned.
We’ll defend normal means as the signatories of the OST adding an optional protocol under Article II.
Tronchetti 7Fabio Tronchetti is a professor at the International Institute of Air and Space Law, Leiden University, The Netherlands, 2007, https://iislweb.org/docs/Diederiks2007.pdf, 12-15-2021 amrita
Advantage – Space War
Current space treaties have zero authority and lack clarity—which creates ineffective regulations
MacWhorter 16 – Kevin, J.D from William and Mary College and Contributor to the William and Mary Environmental Law and Policy Review, “Sustainable Mining: Incentivizing Asteroid Mining in the Name of Environmentalism”, William and Mary Environmental Law and Policy Review, 2016, https://scholarship.law.wm.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1653andcontext=wmelpr
Inevitable market expansion guarantees wars over property rights—governments get quickly involved
Funnell 18 – Anthony, Writer for Future Tense News Citing Dean of Law at University of Adelaide, “War in space 'inevitable' because there's so much money to be made, expert warns”, ABC News, 8/23/2018, https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-08-24/conflict-in-space-is-inevitable-expert-warns/10146314
Asteroid mining furthers tensions between the US, China and Russia and escalates
Jamasmie 21 Cecilia Jamasmie Cecilia has covered mining for more than a decade. She is particularly interested in Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), Diamonds and Latin America. Cecilia has been interviewed by BBC News and CBC among others and has been a guest speaker at mining conventions, including MINExpo 2016 and the World’s Copper Conference 2018. She is also member of the expert panel on Social License to Operate (SLO) at the European project MIREU (Mining and Metallurgic Regions EU). She holds a Master of Journalism from the University of British Columbia, and is based in Nova Scotia., 2-2-2021, "Experts warn of brewing space mining war among US, China and Russia," MINING, https://www.mining.com/experts-warn-of-brewing-space-mining-war-among-us-china-and-russia/ DD AG
Space wars go nuclear
Grego 18 – Laura, Senior Scientist in the Global Security Program at the Union of Concerned Scientists, Postdoctoral Researcher at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, PhD in Experimental Physics at the California Institute of Technology, Space and Crisis Stability, Union of Concerned Scientists, 3-19-18, https://www.law.upenn.edu/live/files/7804-grego-space-and-crisis-stabilitypdf
Nuclear war causes extinction.
Starr ’17 (Steven; director of the University of Missouri’s Clinical Laboratory Science Program, senior scientist at the Physicians for Social Responsibility, Associate member of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, expert in the environmental consequences of nuclear war; 1/9/17; “Turning a Blind Eye Towards Armageddon — U.S. Leaders Reject Nuclear Winter Studies”; https://fas.org/2017/01/turning-a-blind-eye-towards-armageddon-u-s-leaders-reject-nuclear-winter-studies/; Federation of American Scientists; accessed 11/24/18; TV) AV
Advantage –debris
Mining creates space debris
Boley and Byers 20
Space dust destroys spirals and exponentially accumulates through time, increasing the likelihood of collisions.
Intagliata 17 Christopher Intagliata, 5-11-2017, "The Sneaky Danger of Space Dust," Scientific American, https://www.scientificamerican.com/podcast/episode/the-sneaky-danger-of-space-dust///DDPT
An increase in space debris and dust from mining collides with key defense satellites
Scoles 15 Sarah Scoles Freelance science writer, and a contributing writer at WIRED Science, with articles in places like Popular Science, the New York Times, Scientific American, Vice, Outside, and others., 5-27-2015, "Dust from asteroid mining spells danger for satellites," New Scientist, https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg22630235-100-dust-from-asteroid-mining-spells-danger-for-satellites/ DD AG
Laundry list of impacts – compromised communication, loss of military capability and more
Divorsky 15 George Divorsky George P. Dvorsky (born May 11, 1970) is a Canadian bioethicist, transhumanist and futurist. He is a contributing editor at io91 and producer of the Sentient Developments blog and podcast. He was Chair of the Board for the Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies (IEET)23 and is the founder and chair of the IEET's Rights of Non-Human Persons Program, 6-4-2015, "What Would Happen If All Our Satellites Were Suddenly Destroyed?," Gizmodo https://gizmodo.com/what-would-happen-if-all-our-satellites-were-suddenly-d-1709006681 DD AG
Collisions with high-value satellites guarantee nuclear escalation.
Egeli 21 Sitki Egeli is an assistant professor in the Political Science and International Relations Department of Izmir University of Economics. He was previously a director for foreign affairs in Turkey’s Undersecretariat for Defense Industries (SSM) and vice president in charge of the defense and aerospace sectors of an international consulting firm. “Space-to-Space Warfare and Proximity Operations: The Impact on Nuclear Command, Control, and Communications and Strategic Stability,” Published 25 Jun 2021, https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/25751654.2021.1942681, VM
Squo debris is goldilocks – current orbital debris deters space aggression, but adding more generates more risk than reward
Miller 21 Gregory D., PhD PSci from Ohio State University, Prof and Chair of Dept of Spacepower and Director of Space Scholars program at Air Command and Staff College. “Deterrence by Debris: The Downside to Cleaning up Space.” Space Policy, Vol 58, Nov 2021, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.spacepol.2021.101447 TG
1AC—FW
The standard is maximizing expected wellbeing.
Prefer it:
1 Actor specificity: aggregation – every policy benefits some and harms others, which also means side constraints freeze action.
2 Death is bad and outweighs – agents can’t act if they fear for their bodily security which constrains every ethical theory
3 Intuitions outweigh - since they’re the foundational basis for any argument and theories that contradict our intuitions are most likely false even if we can’t deductively determine why