Inventory of Country Space Capabilities Mapping How Each Nation Can Contribute (In Its Own Way) to a Space 2030 Sustainable Development Agenda

摘要

Space activity has vastly enlarged human economic activity on earth - while unlocking revolutionary new prospects of prosperity, exploration, and settlement beyond our planet. In both the terrestrial and extra-planetary realms, space participation has altered the present reality and future trajectory of our species. Yet in recent years - as both the number of space actors and speed of innovation have grown exponentially - government and industry leaders have been slower to connect the benefits of space to those most in need on the ground. This disconnect persists, especially for the 1 billion people classified by the UN as living in extreme poverty below 2 US dollars per day. How can our rapidly growing array of space capabilities be better leveraged to support 2030 sustainable development goals (SDGs): poverty reduction, human capacity building, and opportunity growth? While government and industry have made a start, a unified strategy that takes full account of respective national space capabilities and deploys them toward SDG fulfillment is lacking. This paper - authored by multi-continent space professionals across space business, academia, institutions, and government -- offers an initial framework to begin filling that gap. Our approach is two-fold: 1. Introduce National Space Capability Scoreboard Framework: An inventory-style model to benchmark national space achievement across 10+ core technology areas; and 2. Add Capacity-Building Meta-Analysis: Propose how national space capabilities mapped through this model can be more effectively used to build capacity and opportunity - especially in emergent less-developed space-faring countries. A systematic comparison of varying national space capabilities is a prerequisite for planning their most effective mobilization toward UN 2030 SDGs. For this reason, the National Space Scoreboard Framework is the main focus of this paper. Based on 10+ core technology areas, the Scoreboard is a quantitative and qualitative ana