SpaceWatch.Global Opinion

While Earth remains engulfed by endless wars, biosphere destruction, and other calamities of biblical proportion, we too, not unlike Don Fabrizio, Tancredi, and Claudia, navigate upheaval again. For us too, this is not an era of change, but a change of era.

If you have ever driven through a pitch-black, rainy night on an unlit country road, you probably have been thankful for the invention of reflective paint. Illuminated by the car's headlights, lane markers and road signs appear magically out of the darkness.

How does the world outside the Space bubble perceive our domain? And what can we do to promote our own sector in a productive, modern and fruitful way? On the 22nd and 23rd of June 2022 the Secure World Foundation 4th Summit for Space Sustainability discussed this profoundly modern issue with a panel of communication and public relations experts.

Imagine walking on a remote beach away from the polluting lights of a city. You look up and see thousands upon thousands of stars blanketing the heavens, bisected by the pale glow of our Milky Way—the galactic disc in which we live. You pick up a grain of sand and hold it at arms’ length to cover a minuscule portion of the night sky. What might lie in that tiny patch?

The session ‘Making the Moon Work: Governance and Safety in a New Environment’ took place in the afternoon on the second day of ‘The 4th Summit for Space Sustainability’ held in London on June 22nd-23rd, and organized by the Secure World Foundation (SWF). SWF’s hot topic to not junk-up space with waste and debris is as much a concern on the Moon as in Earth orbit.

In 1985, the Australian ecofeminist philosopher Val Plumwood had an extraordinary experience. She was attacked by a crocodile while canoeing in Kakadu National Park in northern Australia. She fought the crocodile off three times and survived; but it had a profound effect on her philosophy.

The Asia Tech x Singapore (ATxSG) conference took place from May 31 to June 3 in Singapore, the Lion City. Composed of several events such as the Asia Satellite Business Week, BroadcastAsia, CommunicAsia, ATxAI and others, it constituted a golden opportunity to catch up with the state-of-the-art technology and emerging trends across many parts of the tech sector.

There is gap between the interests of space agencies and private investors toward sustainability. While agencies build their reputation and PR campaigns on the commitment that the sector has towards sustainability – meaning here the use of space technology and data for monitoring the state of the planet- the private sector remains tepid to the entire concept.

With space as a far-reaching domain entangled with Earth issues across many industries, geopolitics affect how global alliances deal with security in orbit and beyond, and how collaborative governance motivates investment: from connectivity to Earth observation to crowded orbits and debris, to energy, space traffic management, space exploration and resources utilization.

The global space market size will raise from 340 million USD annual sales to a 1 trillion USD domain in the next two decades. It is projected that the number of people employed in the space industry as a whole will increase to 400,000 in the next few years. This enormous growth could bring some challenges and opportunities, some of which have been openly discussed at the event.