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Astronomy and astrophysics have always been about advancing our knowledge of the universe through collaboration. However, the rise of space privatization threatens this spirit of collaboration and the advancement of knowledge. Companies like SpaceX and Axiom Space are driven by profit rather than deepening our understanding. This could lead to economic disasters and even space militarization. The 1967 United Nations Space Treaty, designed for a different era, has loopholes that allow corporations to exploit space for profit. We need new laws to protect against this and reinforce collaboration in astronomy. Collaboration has already led to important discoveries, such as finding potential signs of life on an exoplanet. Instead of prioritizing money and power, space exploration should be about knowledge and understanding our universe. We should focus on protecting our planet rather than mining asteroids for profit. For a millennium, astronomy and astrophysics presented itself as a playing field for many of the world's greatest thinkers to wonder about the cosmos and ultimately wonder what our place in the universe is. Astronomy has a spirit to it. Like all sciences, the spirit of astronomy focuses greatly towards the idea of advancing our knowledge, advancing our wealth of knowledge into what that field of science is, in this case with astronomy, the universe, and necessarily putting aside what obstacles could come in the way of understanding the universe in a better way than we already do. An important aspect of this spirit of astronomy is the collaboration that is very prevalent across the effective side of astronomy, the side of astronomy that actually does discover more things about the universe, that actually does put new ideas out there, new and verifiable ideas out there. One example of what can be done with collaboration is the Sputnik launch, the first ever launch of a human-made object into space by the Soviets. And that took a collaborative effort because that took the resources of an entire country. And while, yes, they were motivated by the beginning of the space race and the arms race, it took an entire force to be able to complete something that had not been done yet. Another example would be such as the moon landing, the moon landing which was, on the America side, their full response to the Sputnik, and that was even more of a greater collaborative effort from the rocket scientists to the training that the astronauts had to do and all the calculations that had to have been made. That was a full collaborative effort. And then another example, on top of that, from even the space race days when there was still the heat of competition, there was the Apollo-Soyuz project which effectively ended the space race when the United States and the Soviet Union put down their tensions in space and they came together to work on something. So from the end of this space race up until somewhat recently, up until now still currently as well, space exploration and the studying of space has gone much smoother as there is now international collaborative efforts. I will discuss more about this later, but there is now the James Webb Space Telescope which is a telescope that is operated on by multiple countries across the planet and it has been bringing forth many great observations and advancements in our knowledge and understanding of the universe. So currently collaboration still dominates what happens in space, what happens in the cosmos and what happens in astronomy in general, but there is something that is threatening it. The concept of space privatization and space industrialization which I find to be threatening both the advancement of our knowledge into the universe and therefore our knowledge as a society in general and also it may even have economic impacts to our society as well. Space privatization includes the private sector of space which previously had not necessarily existed and so this manifests in ways in companies such as Elon Musk's SpaceX or the rising Axiom Space and so it's these companies that are looking towards space not necessarily in a way to deepen our knowledge as a society and just like in the field of astronomy, they are looking to make a profit off of space whether that be through space travel, the idea that one day humans will be able to go to the moon just for fun for the weekend pretty much or space mining which is far more dangerous and insidious because it promotes the abuse of nature outside of our planet if we have not already done enough damage to our planet, it promotes abuse outside of our planet and this is what causes the economic disaster because there is an asteroid that NASA and SpaceX have both been looking at and it's been valued to have I believe 16 quadrillion dollars worth of metals such as iron and copper which, if introduced to the economy, introduced to our society, could cause terrible effects on like probably cause high amounts of inflation and also a single company being able to wield that much power can create serious like influence problems. With this amount of value even being possible to be privatized and owned in space, it also brings up the possibility of space militarization which is a very, very almost, it's a very far out concept to think about because it almost sounds like I'm implying that Star Wars will happen and it's very interesting to see that like yes, the holding of private property will create militarization. Private property's exclusive nature will create militarization and the effects of that we just have no idea, it is too far out to even think about. And so with the idea of something this dangerous to our economy, to our well-being as a society and the well-being of the field of astronomy, why aren't there any laws against it? Why hasn't anything happened? And there are laws of conduct in space. There is the 1967 United Nations Space Treaty and while at the time it was a very, very great idea, very great solution to the burgeoning space race, the problem that it caused, that causes now, is that it is not written to handle the idea of privatized corporations abusing space for profit. The concept of privatized space corporations was just not really into existence at that point. So there are a lot of loopholes, a lot of, it's almost legal Swiss cheese for many of these companies that are very, very wealthy, that can afford very good lawyers who understand how to manipulate, especially old documents that may use outdated language, might not be able to protect itself against just the stream of time and how things adapt and how things change. So to give you an example of what exploiting these loopholes have looked like so far, because it has happened already, the Federal Aviation Administration has a certain set of criteria that people who are space traveling people need to meet to be considered astronomers, not astronomers, astronauts. And what is important is that they fill out these qualifications not just for bureaucracy's sake, but for their own safety. But the idea is that training these astronauts, these would-be astronauts to become certified astronauts, costs more money, is more of a problem for SpaceX in one of their manned flights that they found a loophole around it and they found that in the treaty there was language that allowed the idea of crew members to act almost as the astronauts and go up to space without the proper training, without any of this. And that is a legitimate problem because that can create safety issues that can damage the technology that it takes for them to go to space and it can damage the people themselves and create a tragedy that could impact the view of how people see astronomy and space exploration negatively in the public eye. So I bring this all up because now is the time to act. We live in a world with a lot of issues currently and I understand if the idea of, oh, this space stuff, space wars, all that stuff, I understand if it doesn't seem too important, but now is, the 2020s are the now or nevers. Because when it comes into the 2030s, this will kick in to full swing and we just have no idea what will happen from there. The rest is going to be the history of space. And I really think that the 2020s are the time to push for new laws that reinforce the 1967 Space Treaty, but also are very specific towards privatized corporatizations and like just stopping what could potentially be occurring, what already is planned to happen by many of these companies that threaten the essence of the spirit of the astronomy that is collaboration. And to go back to earlier, what I was talking about, what collaboration looks like right now is that James Webb Space Telescope that was worked on with NASA and the European Space Agency, which is already comprised of scientists from multiple countries and everything. And so it took, it's a multi, it's an international effort that has proved very important recently to give an example of why this collaboration is so important. Because of this collaboration, recently it was discovered that methane and carbon dioxide and potential other life marking chemicals were found in the atmosphere of an exoplanet just a few light years away. And that is so far the closest that humanity has come to having a concrete and solid answer of whether we're alone or not. So to look back on what space privatization does to the field of astronomy, I don't feel that anything about this up and coming concept aligns with what astronomy and what space exploration and space travel should be like. It should not be for the money and power that comes with the money in the capitalist society that we live in. It should be about knowledge. It should be about a passion for our universe, for understanding our universe, and therefore understanding ourselves. It should not be something that is influenced. It should be something that we as humans leave alone and admire from the distance that we have. And if we are to worry about anything, we should worry about our planet instead of mining asteroids for the quadrillion dollars that they have.