Four Alternative Scenarios of Commons in Space: Prospects and Challenges
- Title
- Four Alternative Scenarios of Commons in Space: Prospects and Challenges
- Creator
- Yap X.-S.; Janssen M.A.; Aganaba T.; Tutton R.; Korpershoek K.; Profitiliotis G.; Rabitz F.; Subbiah M.S.; Wagenknecht L.
- Description
- The rapid expansion of human activities in outer space is likely to bring new economic, social, and political dilemmas in the next 50 to 100 years. Future governance will have to increasingly juggle earth-space social justice, resource trade-offs, and environmental sustainability issues. This poses new challenges to the governance of global commons, i.e. whether existing studies are fit to address commons in a global context and whether the governance of outer space commons (dis)integrates with Earth-bound sustainability governance. To explore these questions, this study uses scenario-building techniques to generate alternative future scenarios via a workshop conducted during the 2022 Commons in Space conference. We derived four future scenarios based on two major contextual conditions: (i) the degree of equity in resource distribution in space, and (ii) the degree of integration with Earth-bound sustainability, more specifically Earth system governance. The four alternative scenarios are (i) Space Cartel in which the use of space resources becomes dominated by the rich and powerful; (ii) Earth-centric Gold Rush in which the current business as usual continues; (iii) Open Space (also Space Utopia) in which open access of space resources leads to thriving developments in space at the expense of sustainability on Earth; and finally, (iv) Earth-Space Sustainability in which challenges on Earth and in space are addressed through an integrative governance model. Based on the challenges identified from these scenarios, we discuss specific as well as cross-cutting implications for policy and governance to better address commons in space in the future. 2023 The Author(s).
- Source
- International Journal of the Commons, Vol-17, No. 1, pp. 390-410.
- Date
- 2023-01-01
- Publisher
- Igitur, Utrecht Publishing and Archiving Services
- Subject
- commons; earth-space; imaginaries; Outer space; resource governance
- Coverage
- Yap X.-S., EPFL Space Center, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Lausanne, Switzerland, Copernicus Institute of Sustainable Development, Utrecht University, Netherlands; Janssen M.A., School of Sustainability, Arizona State University, United States; Aganaba T., School for the Future of Innovation in Society, Arizona State University, United States; Tutton R., Department of Sociology, University of York, United Kingdom; Korpershoek K., Jagiellonian University, Poland; Profitiliotis G., TU Delft, Netherlands, Blue Marble Space Institute of Science, United States; Rabitz F., Kaunas University of Technology, Lithuania; Subbiah M.S., Christ University, India; Wagenknecht L., Copernicus Institute of Sustainable Development, Utrecht University, Netherlands
- Rights
- All Open Access; Gold Open Access; Green Open Access
- Relation
- ISSN: 18750281
- Format
- Online
- Language
- English
- Type
- Article
Collection
Citation
Yap X.-S.; Janssen M.A.; Aganaba T.; Tutton R.; Korpershoek K.; Profitiliotis G.; Rabitz F.; Subbiah M.S.; Wagenknecht L., “Four Alternative Scenarios of Commons in Space: Prospects and Challenges,” CHRIST (Deemed To Be University) Institutional Repository, accessed February 24, 2025, https://archives.christuniversity.in/items/show/14489.