If there is one major effect that space activities exerts on our daily lives then it is the implantation of the buzzword "GLOBAL" in our mindsets. Space is not a national territory, it not something that only particular countries have access to, such as the sea. Every country is free to run its own spaceport. Every government is free to develop the necessary technologies to launch its own astronauts and/or satellites into space. Every person is free to look onto the starry sky at night and to dream about going into space himself.
Going into space in persona and living this experience is unfortunately something that only a few hundred people had the privilege to live up with. Based on a state monopoly, access to space is expensive, by far too expensive for the majority of mankind. But with the success of the X-Prize and SpaceShipOne things might change for the better so that the dreamers will finally get their chance.
Once up there, above the tiny thin blue crescent of the atmosphere you are prone to experience one thing: it is ONE world, beautiful and fragile. The national borders are only illusionary, but what is real is the thin line between live and the void of space: the atmosphere. You are better doing everything you can to protect it, as it is the only shield against the live threatening hazards out there. The tiny blue marble deserves our deepest respect, which means that we have to treat it not as a landlord but more like a guest. A guest, who is willing to learn the rules of ethics that his host has set up as his own standards.
Telecommunication and navigation satellites, weather and Earth observation systems; all these spacecraft enable – mostly unnoticed – that we can live together in a technological standard absolutely unimaginable a few decades ago. Space has no frontiers, and so all these systems can therefore eventually become available to all of humanity to enable a better live for all of us. As long as this is not the case, space can already help to inspire and allure. Space activities are an attempt to reach out for an unreachable goal, the fulfillment of our dreams and ambitions. If space activities have one impact on human society then it is about the will to materialize ones dreams, to measure ones intellect against the final frontier and to do so in a cooperative way on a global basis.
Mr.
Norbert
Frischauf
High Energy Physicist and Future Studies Systems Engineer
Booz Allen Hamilton
Professional Category:
Engineering
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