U.S. Space Transportation and Climate Change: Potential Impacts of Climate Change on Access to Space

Abstract

The President’s Vision for Space Exploration - National Security Presidential Directive (NSPD) # 31 and U.S. Space Transportation Policy - NSPD # 40 both require continued access to Low Earth Orbit (LEO) over the long-term. However, there is a growing possibility that changing climate trends pose risks to our Nation’s critical spaceport and LEO transportation capabilities. Managing climate change risk is a growing field of study, but there are no known systematic approaches that have been applied to spaceports to date. Potential hazards to U.S. spaceports are generally recognized as changes to precipitation, temperature, sea level change, extreme weather events, and related natural hazards, but the site-specific risk characterizations required for risk management have not been systematically applied to these critical national assets. Existing tools and framework resident within NASA’s own Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) are well-suited for the task of better understanding NASA’s spaceport and mission support risks related to climate change. The GISS approach manages uncertainty and enables risk characterization and adaptation using multi-model probabilistic forecasts tailored to users’ site-specific region, variables, and timeframe. This proactive approach enables anticipatory adaptation for infrastructure planning and operations cycles, and risk reduction for our Nation’s critical spaceport infrastructure.