DUBAI – Humanity’s quest to explore the cosmos has paid – and will continue to pay – dividends on Earth, although thousands of unidentified objects flying at speed in space must be addressed, numerous experts agreed during Expo 2020 Dubai’s Space Week, which wrapped up on Saturday. 

Speaking during ‘Sustainability @ Expo | Protecting the Great Unknown’ on Saturday, which touched on the benefits of space exploration through a sustainability lens, Randy Lycans, Vice President, and General Manager of NASA Enterprise Solutions, Jacobs, said: “Every dollar, every euro spent on space technology does not remain in space. [This investment] is brought back to Earth by way of further research and leads to better life for people everywhere.”

He noted that our mobile phones would not exist in their current form without investments in the space sector and added: “The United States spent USD 47 billion on space missions, including military, in 2020, but all that money is well spent.”

Striking a similar tone during an expert panel on Mars earlier this week, Shelli Brunswick, Chief Operating Officer, Space Foundation, noted the creation of global positioning systems (GPS) by the US Government in the 1960s, specifically for the military, and said: “I share with you [that] there is no way it could have been understood back [then] that investment[s] in GPS would have created billions of dollars of economic growth throughout the world.”

Speaking during Saturday’s event, Maruška Strah, Executive Director, World Space Week Association, said: “Space exploration is not for fun. It offers tangible benefits. Just how strong an impact space technology has on our lives can be gauged from the fact [that] out of the 169 targets that form part of the 17 Sustainable Developmental Goals, 65 are related to space.”

But Strah added that out of 6,542 satellites launched since the UN started documenting satellite activity in 1962, 3,672 are now inactive. She said: “Thousands of uncontrolled objects are flying at full velocity. For long-term sustainability of space environment, we need to raise public awareness to the danger of space debris.”

Luc Piguet, CEO and Co-Founder of ClearSpace, a Swiss start-up that specialises in technology for removing space debris, said: “Sustainability in space and on Earth are interlinked, and cannot be treated as separate issues. It is up to the current generation to get rid of man-made junk so that we can continue to benefit from clear space.

“Today there are more than 5,000 objects of space junk that are from decommissioned satellites and fragments from space flights, compared to 3,400 satellites that are in service. So this issue is a challenge for humanity.”

Space Week, which ran between 22 and 27 October, was the second of 10 Theme Weeks taking place throughout Expo as part of the Programme for People and Planet, in an exchange of inspiring new perspectives that tackle the greatest challenges and opportunities of our time, including climate, connectivity, the future of human health and much more.

Other topics raised at numerous space-focused events throughout Space Week included women in space, galvanizing youth in science, the potential for microbial life on Mars, and the importance of winning ‘hearts and minds’ to ensure continued public support for space exploration.

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