ISU MSS 2024

Features

#SpaceWatchGL Opinion: FT Live Investing In Space 2023 – Ten things that will happen in Space by 2030

On the 5th and 6th of June 2023, the Financial Time’s held its second Investing In Space conference. Similarly to last year, it was held in a hybrid form. The first day online, the second day live from London. Titled “Balancing Optimism with Realism”, the two-day summit hosted a selection of investors, innovators, government, and end-users for analyses of the opportunities of space.

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#SpaceWatchGL Opinion: The GLOC is ticking: Space needs a temperature raise in the fight against the climate crisis

Photo by Kevin Wolf on Unsplash

The Global Space Conference on Climate Change (GLOC 2023) arrived in Oslo last month; it was uncharacteristically interesting for a space conference. Not because it was overflowing with greatness, but because the bar for innovation and programmatic depth with space conferences has always tended to be quite low so the experience was unexpected.

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#SpaceWatchGL Opinion: GLOC 2023 – Frustrations and Encouraging Takeaways

Namib Desert

The climate crisis keeps me up most nights. It occupies my thoughts persistently, and induces profound concern with climate-related matters, leading to intense emotional distress, sadness, and anger. I oscillate between feelings of hopelessness and experience a diminished interest and enjoyment in activities unrelated to climate and animal rights advocacy. I have to actively manage panic and anxiety attacks, depressive episodes, and there have been instances where I have felt physically ill due to the lack of action from global leaders.

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#SpaceWatchGL Opinion: GLOC 2023: Making Sense of Space for Climate “Action” by Addressing the Crisis Root Causes

Sentinel-1A radar image of the Aral Sea. The Aral Sea is a striking example of humankind’s impact on the environment and natural resources. Once the world’s fourth-largest inland water body, it has lost around 90% of its water volume since 1960 because of Soviet-era irrigation schemes. Credit: Copernicus data (2014/2015)/ESA

On May 23-25 2023, we attended (online) GLOC2023: The Global Space Conference on Climate Change 2023, organized under the patronage of the International Astronautical Federation (IAF) and its member the Norwegian Space Agency (NOSA).

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#SpaceWatchGL Opinion: Sinking Maldives looks to the stars 

Drone shot of coral

The Maldives hosted its first ever space conference last month. The Space for Island Nations Conference 2023, or ‘SINC’ for short. Of course the name ‘SINC’ was chosen with a wink. Small island nations are in trouble. As the flattest country on Earth (an average of 1.2 metres above sea level and only 0.4% of land area), the threat posed to the Maldives by climate change has been known for decades.

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#SpaceWatchGL Opinion: Making the Case for Space – The Cross-Cutting Impact of Emerging Space Ecosystems

Airport worker holding crashed quadcopter near airliner. Credit Space Foundation

For some, space activities are conceived only as bold exploratory missions and plans for a future on the Moon and around Mars. While these pursuits are inspiring, they do not on their own reveal the powerful potential that space affords. The truth is activities in space are vast, complex, and local, and the value of their impact might not be immediately obvious to all stakeholders.

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