In this week’s episode, host Daniel Raimi talks with Akhil Rao, a professor of economics at Middlebury College, about the use and management of Earth’s orbit. Rao outlines the significant increase in the number of objects orbiting the Earth in recent decades, challenges caused by this accumulation, and governance of the various layers of Earth’s orbit by countries and international organizations. Rao and Raimi also discuss the management of space as a resource, which is the subject of Rao’s current research on space sustainability technologies.

References and recommendations:

“The Earth Transformed: An Untold History” by Peter Frankopan; https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/635264/the-earth-transformed-by-peter-frankopan/

“Building a Ruin: The Cold War Politics of Soviet Economic Reform” by Yakov Feygin; https://www.hup.harvard.edu/books/9780674240995