by “India is on the moon,” announced S. Somanath, chairman of the Indian Space Research Organization, in August 2023. The announcement meant that India was connected to the short list of countries to have visited the moon, and the applause and the following screams of joy meant that this performance was not only a scientific, but a cultural.
In the past ten years, many countries have set up new space programs, including several African nations. India and Israel – nations, which did not perform technical participants for the space in the 1960s and 1970s – tried to land landing on the lunar surface.
With more countries that join the developing space economy, many of our colleagues have celebrated the democratization of space in space strategy, political ethics and right: the hope that the space is now more accessible to different participants.
We are a team of researchers based in four countries and has written about the difficulties and importance of inclusion in space in space policy and rights, ethics, geography and anthropology.
Large actors such as the USA, the European Union and China may have dominated the room once and saw it as a place to try out new commercial and military activities. Emerging new players in space, like other countries, commercial interests and non -governmental organizations, can have other goals and rationale. Unexpected new initiatives of these newcomers could change the perception of the space of something to dominate and to have something more integrative, fairer and democratic.
We deal with these aspiring and historical tensions in an article published in the magazine Nature in May 2025, in which we describe the difficulties and importance of the inclusion of non -traditional actors and indigenous peoples in the space industry.
Continuation of the inequalities among space players
Not all space agencies of the countries are the same. Newer agencies often do not have the same resources as large, established players.
The US and Chinese programs receive much more funds than that of another country. Since you most often send satellites and suggest new ideas, you will be able to establish conventions for satellite systems, landing points and resource extraction, which may have to follow all other.
Sometimes the countries may have assumed that owning a satellite gives them the appearance of a soft or hard geopolitical power as space nation and ultimately obtained relevance.
In reality, student groups of today can develop small satellites that are called autonomously, and the latest scholarship has come to the conclusion that even successful space missions can negatively influence international relationships between some countries and their partners. The respect that a country expects cannot be accessible, and the costs for maintaining potential reputation can exceed profits.
Environmental protection and indigenous perspectives
As a rule, the construction of the infrastructure required for testing and starting missiles requires a remote area with established roads. In many cases, companies and space authorities have established these facilities in countries in which indigenous peoples have strong demands, which can lead to land disputes such as in Western Australia.
In the past, many of these locations have already been produced by people by mining and recovery of resources. Many locations were at zero for tensions with indigenous peoples on land use. Disputes are widespread within these competitive rooms.
Because of these tensions about land use, it is important to include indigenous claims and perspectives. This can contribute to the goal of protecting the environments of space and earth aside is not set aside, while here on earth builds up room infrastructure.
Some efforts lead to this more integrative approach to the commitment in space, including initiatives such as “dark and calm sky”, a movement that ensures that people can start the stars without noise or sound pollution and deal with the stars. This movement and other integrative approaches work on the principle of reciprocity: that more players who deal with space can benefit everyone.
Researchers have recognized a similar dynamic within the larger space industry. Some scientists have come to the conclusion that the mutual obligations can help to ensure that Place exploration, which may not be able to access the financial or infrastructural means to support individual efforts, can continue to “pay” access to broader support structures.
The disadvantage of more players who enter the room is that this expansion can make protection of the environment more difficult on earth and beyond.
The more players there are on both private and international level, the more difficult could become sustainable space research. Even with good will and the best intentions, it would be difficult to enforce uniform standards for research and use space resources that would protect the moon surface, Mars and beyond.
It can also be more difficult to monitor the start of satellites and committed constellations. Limiting the number of satellites could prevent spatial writers, protect the satellites in orbit and enable everyone to have a clear view of the night sky. However, this would have to compete with the efforts to expand internet access to everyone.
What is space research for?
Before we deal with these problems, we find it useful to think about the greater goal of space research and the various approaches. One approach would be the quick and integrative democratization of space – it makes it easier to play more players. Another would be a more conservative and slower “big player” approach that would restrict who can go into space.
The conservative approach is obliged to leave developing countries and indigenous peoples from the outside in an important process that shapes the common future of humanity.
But a faster and more integrative approach of space would not be easy to run. More serious players mean that it would be more difficult to agree on regulations and the greater goals for the expansion of humans to space.
Stories about emerging technologies, such as those required for space research, can change over time when people see them in action.
The technology that we take for granted today was once considered futuristic or fantastic and sometimes suspected. For example, George Orwell introduced himself a world at the end of the 1940s in which totalitarian systems used Tele screens and video conferences to control the masses.
At the beginning of the same decade, Thomas J. Watson, then President of IBM, predicted that there would be a global market for about five computers. As humans, we fear future technologies often.
However, not all technological shifts are harmful and some technological changes can have clear advantages. In the future, robots can do tasks too dangerous, too difficult or too boring and repeated for humans. Biotechnology can make life healthier. Artificial intelligence can search large amounts of data and transform them into reliable guesses. Researchers can also see real disadvantages for each of these technologies.
Space research is more difficult in a streamlined story about the expected advantages. The process is simply too big and too transformative.
In order to return to the question of whether we should go into space, our team argues that it is not a question of whether we should go or not, but a question of why we do it, who benefits from space research and how we can democratize access to wider segments of society. Including a variety of opinions and points of view, can help find productive ways.
Ultimately, it is not necessary for everyone to end up in a single story about the value of space research. Even our team of four researchers does not share a single belief about its value. However, if you bring in more nations, tribes and companies in discussions about the potential value, this can help to create collaborative and worthwhile goals at the international level.
This article will be released from the conversation, a non -profit, independent news organization that brings you facts and trustworthy analyzes to help you understand our complex world. It was written by: Timiebi aganaba, Arizona State University; Adam Fish, Unsw Sydney; Deondre smiles University of Victoriaand Tony Milligan, King’s College London
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Tony Milligan receives the European Research Council (ERC) as part of the Horizon 2020 research and innovation program of the European Union (Grant Agreement No. 856543).
Adam Fish, Deondre Smiles and Timiebi Aganaba do not work for a company or organization that would benefit from this article and have not passed on relevant affiliations about their academic appointment, or do not receive any relevant affiliations.
