Spaceport environmental policy in the new space era

Abstract

There has been a recent push by the United States federal government to streamline regulation surrounding the construction and operation of spaceports. The August 13th, 2025 Executive Order, “Enabling Competition in the Commercial Space Industry”, moves these goals forward by tying commercial space operations to national security interests. In particular, the Order requires the creation of exemptions and “categorical exclusions” for commercial space exploration activities from the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA). This situation raises a tangle of complex ethical and political quandaries. On the one hand, national security is a compelling justification for some compromises in environmental integrity. But this does not mean that it should be used as a completely indefeasible ground for environmental degradation. Our goal in this piece is to elucidate the environmental impacts of spaceports, many of which are built in vulnerable areas, usually adjacent to or on environmental reserves. These regions, in turn, are critical to not only preserving endangered species, but their coastal nature means that degradation of these ecosystems can have broader impact on climate mitigation and severe weather resilience. We should not, in short, think of national security and environmental stability as mutually exclusive. We detail several mitigation strategies aimed at balancing short-term national security and long-term environmental preservation interests. In particular, we recommend standardized and streamlined environmental impact assessments that employ clearly defined metrics, a taxonomy and more detailed study of fuel emissions, increased funding for research into less environmentally damaging rocket fuel, and decommissionment and remediation planning.