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Let’s talk about New Space and how space data is being used for earth applications. Because while many people think only about rockets when thinking about the space industry, the space sector is much more than this and impacts many around us!

New Space can be considered as a trend of the space sector towards being more innovation and business oriented (Clarke et al., 2021). While at first, the space industry consisted of government agencies, nowadays key players in the space industry also include privately funded companies such as SpaceX, Rocket Lab or Blue Origin. These types of companies have a highly innovative culture and aim to disrupt the space industry by taking risks that are more difficult to take as government agency with tax-payers money. With its disruptive innovation of reusable rockets, SpaceX has already caught the entire launch industry off-guard, making it much more affordable to launch satellites into orbit.

            When talking about the space industry, many people only think of upstream space, which includes everything that is focused on (outer)space and sending objects to space. For example, satellites and rockets. However, downstream space is where the greatest growth comes from and where the most opportunities currently are. Downstream space, in short, utilizes the technologies and data from upstream. There are too many examples of how space data (mostly coming from satellites) is being used for real-world earth applications, but I will briefly mention a few that illustrate the importance of space data for earth.

             Many governments and companies use satellite data that measures e.g. carbon dioxide and methane levels to locate large emitters. This is being used to in line with the climate action SDG. Furthermore, space data is being used to forecast natural disasters, monitor oceans (plastic) and enable autonomous shipping (ESA, 2022). But there are many more applications, such as visual inspection of large infrastructure projects, (precision) farming, vegetation analyses, detecting and monitoring infections in forests, risk analysis for buildings, archeological research and even in the finance sector to better understand potential risks associated with giving out loans (e.g. for farmers).

Do you believe space data is important and will only become more important in the future? What are some other earth applications based on space data that you can think of?

References:

Clarke, N., Kaufmann, S., Sodtke, C., Weber, C., Moranta, S., Hrozensky, T., de Clercq, A., Alfageme, N. H., Speidel, S., & Spuck, J. (2021). Cosmonautics: the development of space-related technologies in terms of patent activity.

ESA. (2022, April 19). Space technology for life on Earth. The European Space Agency . https://www.esa.int/Enabling_Support/Preparing_for_the_Future/Discovery_and_Preparation/Space_technology_for_life_on_Earth

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We all know that technology can be extremely beneficial and help us with various things. Especially in the BIM programme, many students likely have a thorough understanding of the capabilities of new (information) technologies. However, often little attention is directed to the potential existential threats that can come from technological innovation. I will briefly discuss how accelerating growth in technology results in the pacing problem and how this effects humanity.  

Technological innovations show accelerating growth. Depicted in the graph below, we can see that new technologies are following previous ones at a very fast pace, arguably at an exponential rate. While this generally results in great benefits for society, there is also serious risks associated with this. While technologies and its associated capabilities are becoming increasingly complex at a fast pace, our human understanding of these technologies and its unforeseen consequences do not increase at a similar rate, resulting in a pace problem (Downes, 2009). In other words, there is an increasing gap between actual technological capabilities and the understanding of these technologies together with its associated (unforeseen) risks. Sagan (1994) worded this nicely: “many of the dangers we face indeed arise from science and technology- but, more fundamentally, because we have become powerful without becoming commensurately wise. The world altering powers that technology has delivered into our hands now require a degree of consideration and foresight that has never before been asked of us”.

The pacing problem affects humanity in numerous ways, and has already affected us in the past. New technological innovations in the area of nuclear energy resulted in serious existential threats through the devastating powers that nuclear power brings and our limited understanding of this technology. Even technological developments during the Industrial Revolution have resulted in dramatic consequences years later. Only when our understanding of the previously unforeseen effects of increased greenhouse gas emissions increased did we understand how serious the threat actually is. What exactly are the (unforeseen) effects of rapidly evolving technologies such as Artificial General Intelligence, nanotechnology or bioengineering? Can we even understand these unforeseen consequences? Indeed, as Toby Ord pointed out, technological progress has been at the base of some recent major existential threats and there is strong reason to believe that existential risk will increase this century, as technological progress continues (Ord, 2020).

If we believe that the pacing problem indeed is a serious threat to humanity, three potential solutions can be identified. I am curious to hear which solution you like best. First, ‘renouncement’ is the idea that we can reduce the risks from new technologies by stepping away from it. For example, a potential ban for certain technologies. Second, ‘continuation’ indicates that we continue with our current norms. We continue developing world-engineering technologies at a fast pace to shape our world and if a problem arises from an unforeseen effect, we develop and implement new technologies that can hopefully solve these effects. And third, ‘transhumanism’, meaning that we do not only allow world-engineering, but also person-engineering. In other words, we do not only alter the world around us with new technologies, but also alter ourselves. Humans are merged with technologies so that we enhance human capabilities and are better equipped against existential threats. What are your thoughts on the following statement? “Although it may be dangerous to pursue the idea of transhumanism, it may be more dangerous not to pursue it.” I am curious to hear your thoughts!

References

Ord, T., 2020. The Precipice. New York: Hachette Books.

Downes, L., 2009. The Laws Of Disruption. Basic Books.

Sagan, C., 1994. Cosmos. London: Warner Books.