5 min read

Unifying SPACE

$ 92,000,000,000 . Equivalent to ₹ 717153,80,00,000 (7.17 Lakh Crore INR).

This was the Global Space budget just for the year 2021. Mind blowing, isn't it?

Let's break this money, United States is leading with its highest ever budgetary allocation - $54.6 Billion, almost ~60% of the global budget. China takes a distant second place with an allocation of $10.29 Billion. These numbers look great. In fact, we should be happy that such insane amounts of money are being spent in advancing space and science.

We have six government-run space agencies with renowned space launch capabilities and are major players in Space research and exploration.

National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) - USA
China National Space Administration (CNSA) - China
Roscosmos - Russia
European Space Agency (ESA) - Europe
Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) - India
Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) - Japan

Not to mention, there are many other space agencies from many different countries (both private and government) currently speeding up their space research development.

Since time immemorial to up until recently, "Space" was always considered as an area or field, where only very few countries could actually do something about it, sort of like an elite club of countries who controlled the technology like a secret. Times have changed now, we have other countries (apart from the six we mentioned earlier) and hundreds of private organizations, who, in the past, might not have even dreamt of doing something or anything in fields related to space technology, are now actively engaging to unlock the immense potential, the space could offer.

How much better could it be, if we worked "together", as one, on this - no boundaries, no barriers, just a bunch of people working on a shared goal, to simply advance our knowledge on Space and sharing with humanity.

To dig up the past, lets go to the year 1957, when the whole world was in awe due to an event. That's when the Soviet Union (now Russia) launched the world's first satellite (The Sputnik) on Oct 4th 1957. That was a historic moment, a momentous one indeed, not just for them, but for us, for all of humanity. This event lead to the space race we saw in the past and even now, among countries, where everyone wants to be the first - first to space, first to moon, first man in space, first woman in space, first to land on the moon and first to everything. One country does something, others want to prove that they also can do it. Some succeed, some fail but still keep on doing. Why? maybe it could simply be the pride. It is generally a great deal of pride for a country to achieve something when no one else did.

Countries' do like to demonstrate their capabilities, some might call it "Power Projection". This more or less has made each and every country on the planet to allocate their resources to achieve the same/similar feat which some other country did it somewhere, sometime, in the past.

For example, Soviet Union (Russia) reached the moon (Impactor missions) first with Luna 2 then, United States with Ranger 2, later similar missions by Japan, Europe, China, India so on and so forth. Then, the race started to see who could land first on moon. Soviet Union again successfully landed a spacecraft first on the moon - with Luna 9 on 3 Feb 1966. USA also was able to land on the moon, but was 4 months late - with Surveyor 1 on 2 June 1966. The next race was to successfully send and bring back living things to the moon and back. Again, Soviet Union (Russia) took the first spot in history to successfully send animals (tortoises were part of the passengers) to the moon, do an orbit around the moon and safely bring them back to the earth - with Zond 5 on September 1968. Soviet Union (Russia) actually wanted to test if humans can actually be sent for this arduous journey. Well, they did their best but their further tests had several setbacks.

A short 3 months after the Soviet Union (Russia) sent Tortoises, USA did a historic feat by sending first "humans" to orbit the moon - with Apollo 8 on 21 Dec 1968 and then later in July 1969, first humans landed on moon - with Apollo 11. USA was the only country until date to send humans to the moon.

Space races led to these achievements, the efforts by one country to-one-up the competing country with technological prowess. These told us the one thing we want to hear - that we are indeed capable of interstellar travel, just like in the movies. Maybe not right now, but in near future. So, if we wish to travel across the unknown expanse of the universe, it does sound doable by us humans.

I'm sure everyone must have heard about the ISS (International Space Station). Launched in 1998, estimated cost of $150 billion. $3-$4 billion is spent annually, on maintaining it. The ISS was the best multinational co-operation, we have ever seen, till date. Countries part of this co-operation are the USA, Russia, Europe, Japan and Canada.

Note that China was not part of ISS in 1998. China launched their own version of the Space Station - "Tiangong"(Chinese: Heavenly Palace), albeit, smaller than the ISS in the year 2021. There are plans to abandon the ISS by 2030 due to end of its life span. In that case, the Chinese Space Station will become the only station humans can stay in Space.

Remember, this multinational co-operation on ISS was just post the biggest Geo-political tension the world has ever seen (cold war period) between the rivals - USA and Russia. We were even very close to a nuclear war and yet, in the outer space, the peace prevailed and their rivalry didn't matter and we had everyone work together and share research. It has now been 24 years of continued co-operation, the research still continues.

Space was, is and always be a very costly affair. If USA and Russia were able to co-operate in space even when they are rivals on earth tells us, if needed, anyone could work together. The drama of global politics did not influence the co-operation in ISS. Even with the recent happenings in Ukraine, there were talks about Russia ending support for ISS. Everyone thought that this co-operation might end. The good thing was, it did not affect this co-operation, so, yet again, this co-operation continues.

For all things that are good, there will be an equal amount of bad lurking around. That is just nature. The cons of working together are also present. To name a few, working together could potentially kill the competitive spirit driving the innovation. This spirit, is what drives people to do better than others, the zeal to push further, to create new benchmarks, to be the FIRST.

We do have another factor, quite important while dealing with other countries - "Trust", the trust towards other countries. Nothing is wrong with sharing the research and technology, more importantly, if they also have the same or similar ideology and/or goals. Countries might take advantage of the co-operation and chances of weaponizing outer space is high with advancing space technology. This will cause an imbalance of power between countries and possibly lead to more distrust and will not bode well between such countries.

The good and the bad goes hand in hand. It is yet to be seen if countries are willing to act responsibly in advancing the human race.

What do you think?

Go solo and compete with others
Go for co-operation

Unifying SPACE

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