In a speech at the White House two days ago, Vice President Mike Pence announced the Trump administration’s plan to create the sixth branch of the U.S. military: Space Force. Because if missiles could orbit us at all times, you can trust that Trump will be the man to put them up there. Following a characteristically hyperbolic announcement of the U.S.’s intentions to reignite the country’s space exploration and put American astronauts on “the red soil of Mars”, Pence highlighted that “our Commander-in-Chief’s highest priority is the safety and security of the American people.” Continuing to say that while Obama’s administration continuously failed to see “the growing security threats in space, President Trump has stated forcefully a truth that the leaders of the National Defense University have long understood: that space is ‘a warfighting domain, just like the land, air, and sea,’ and America will be as dominant there as we are here on Earth.”

The Trump administration’s deluded approach to war and protectionism is by now a given, and with that this new space-war turn of events does not come as a shocking surprise. What does however present itself as somewhat of a plot twist is SpaceX’s compliance to aid the administration on its new mission. While the private space exploration company—the only one operating as such in the world—spearheaded by Elon Musk, has thus far launched several of its Falcon 9 for the U.S. military Air Force, the question of sending out weapons into orbit is entirely new.

Emphasising the need to both further militarise and privatise space as a new war-fighting domain, Pence stressed that the new branch of the military is targeted for a 2020 implementation date. And in case you were wondering what the new budget for this new sixth military branch might be, the administration is pushing for $8 billion in new space spending. At the Air Force Association’s annual Air, Space, and Cyber conference in September, SpaceX President and Chief Operating Officer Gwynne Shotwell confirmed the company’s tightening relationship with Air Force and, more worryingly, when asked if SpaceX would launch military weapons for the government, she answered “I’ve never been asked that question. If it’s for the defence of this country, yes, I think we would.”

Thing is, while it may seem ludicrous that a space exploration private company has never considered the possibility of using its highly advanced technology for the use of national security (or at least publicly admitting as such), it is because, basically, it’s illegal. By treaty, the U.S. is barred from placing nuclear and other weapons of mass destruction as well as conventional weapons into orbit. And to date, no President has opened this pandora box since 1993 when Bill Clinton’s administration brought Reagan’s Strategic Defence Initiative (SDI) to a close.

This new turn of events has raised one crucial question: will tech tycoons use their technologies to advocate defence systems and warfare in the name of national defence? Apparently, for SpaceX at least, the answer is yes.

Only two weeks ago, UPS launched its first fully operational and revenue-generating commercial drone-delivery service—surpassing other tries by competitors like Amazon, FedEx, and Uber. For now, it will only deliver medical supplies in North Carolina but this small step should push us to further our thinking on technology and the future. What place can drones have in the future? Maybe it’s time to go back to tech magnate and Amazon founder Jeff Bezos’ predictions about drones filling the skies to deliver our Domino’s pizzas and Amazon packages, and have a look at three sectors where drones are already starting to appear: healthcare, e-commerce, and humanitarian aid.

Drones first started to get noticed in 2013, when Amazon declared that they could potentially be the next big means of delivery. The media got excited but it soon calmed down again when people realised that this concept would probably take ten years to be put into place. And yet, here we are in 2019, and UPS (surprisingly not Amazon) has started flying drones out for deliveries.

The ‘shipment’ was made possible by collaborating with the California-based drone start-up Matternet. The company’s drone, the M2 quadcopter, left its starting point and flew to Raleigh’s WakeMed hospital. This successful try is the first one of many, with UPS programming to deliver healthcare products in other countries as soon as possible. Even though UPS was involved in this project and deserves some of the credit, most of it should go to Matternet.

Not only has the company worked on the test flight with UPS to deliver medical supplies, but it also works in the e-commerce and humanitarian sectors. In Switzerland, Matternet used vans as helipads as moving distribution hubs for aerial package delivery. This approach is very different to the success in North Carolina as it doesn’t require individuals having to interact with the drones, which remains one of the problems for drone deliveries to become ordinary.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dD1yyWuULCs

In Switzerland again, cities will soon have quadcopters making deliveries to hospitals in urban areas across the country. The idea is the same as the UPS test flight—drones flying over densely populated areas, using automated landing stations to quickly deliver blood and pathology samples.

The third and last sector where drones are being tested is humanitarian aid. Working with Unicef, the company started testing drone flights in 2016 to explore cost-effective ways of reducing waiting times for HIV testing of infants. By cutting waiting times dramatically, this project could be integrated into Malawi’s health system. Unicef representative in Malawi, Mahimbo Mdoe said in an interview published on the NGO’s website that, “This innovation could be the breakthrough in overcoming transport challenges and associated delays experienced by health workers in remote areas.”

Unlike what many people believe about the drone industry, also known as the Unmanned Aerial Systems (UAS) industry, this technology could mean new careers will be on the rise—with roles like technicians, programmers, operators, network administrators, and software engineers.

The first and most important obstacle that big companies will have to overcome in due time is regulation and approval from whichever countries they’ll be operating in. There’s a difference between being granted a test flight and getting a permit for commercial use. Many questions will need to be answered before anything can be approved—how high will the drones fly, in which areas, how much will they carry?

Drone pilot from the production house Stem Studios, Barney seems hopeful about the future in an interview with Screen Shot, “The possibilities with drones are endless, it’s just a new aerial tool that we use to lift equipment. We’ve had hot air balloons, blimps, birds, planes, helicopters—maybe vertical takeoffs and multi-rotor systems are the future as battery tech shrinks. Personal flying vehicles from films like Back to the Future will use vertical takeoff technology, I’m sure.” When asked about the problem of regulations, he said, “They’re set up for ten thousand and more planes that are in the sky at any given time, which is serious work. Drones are relatively new but these same aviation bodies are those who govern it and you can imagine the risk assessment of unidentified objects in the sky. The main limit is the technology, the reliability of lithium-ion batteries, and signal interference weaknesses. As these two parts of tech strengthen, so will the reliability of drones.”

For now, it remains to be seen whether hauling packages in this way is truly cost-effective, and if drones could save us time and money. Improvements must also be made to the drones’ battery life and performance if people are to receive larger items than a pizza. The closest that any company had come to people’s utopian expectations was Flytrex, with its shipping groceries services across a bay in Reykjavik in August 2017—an accomplishment that remains hard to meet in America due to regulatory issues. Let’s hope that Matternet continues to focus on using new technology to solve more important issues than an ASOS next day delivery.