Outer Space: Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space, Scientific and Technical Subcommittee, 62nd session, 1028 meeting

Good afternoon, distinguished delegates. I now declare open the 1028th meeting of the Scientific and Technical Subcommittee of the Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space. We will shortly begin the symposium organized by the International Astronautical Federation on the topic Space: Indispensable on the Agenda of Policymakers. Public and nations. Before doing so, I would like to inform delegates of our schedule of work for tomorrow morning. We will meet promptly at 10:00 AM. At the request of the distinguished delegate of the United Arab Emirates, we will continue and hopefully suspend our consideration of Agenda Item 10, Long-Term Sustainability of Outer Space Activities, pending the discussions of the Working Group. At the request of the distinguished delegate of Argentina, we will continue and hopefully suspend our consideration of agenda item 11, future role and method of work of the committee, pending the discussions of the working group. We will begin and hopefully suspend our consideration of agenda item 16, draft provisional agenda for the 63rd session of the subcommittee, pending the discussions in the working group. We will then suspend the plenary meeting so that the Working Group on the Long-Term Sustainability of Outer Space Activities can hold its 3rd meeting. We will have 5 technical presentations for tomorrow morning. Delegates are reminded that the full schedule of technical presentations is available on the session's webpage. Are there any questions or comments on this proposed schedule?

I see none.

Distinguished delegates, we will now begin the symposium organized by the International Astronautical Federation on the topic, Space, Indispensable on the Agenda of Policymakers, Public, and Nations. I now invite the participants of the symposium to the podium. This meeting is adjourned after the conclusion of the IAF symposium until 10 AM tomorrow morning.

Thank you very much, Madam Chair. Ladies and gentlemen, distinguished guests, good afternoon and a very warm welcome to the International Astronautical Federation Symposium, which the IAF traditionally organizes at this COPOS STSC session every 2 years. We extend our gratitude and respect to the United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs, UNOOSA, specifically to its Director, Dr. Arti Holmaini, for her leadership and outstanding cooperation with the IAF. We are delighted to officially kick off now the IAF Symposium, and at the occasion of this 62nd session of the Scientific and Technical Subcommittee of the United Nations Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space, and we are very happy to also be joined by a large audience from remote. It is an honor to address such an esteemed gathering here in Vienna. The International Astronautical Federation is proud to organize this symposium, and And I would like to start our symposium by an introductory video about the IEF and show you a few highlights of the IEF. So if we could run the video, please.

Thank you very much, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, 0.

5, 4, 3, 2, 1, 0.

As you look up to the skies tonight, we will wave back at you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

So the IAF organizes this symposium to foster ongoing global dialogue on the most pressing issues in space exploration and development. This year we focus on a topic of critical importance: space, indispensable on the agenda of policymakers, public, and nations. Space has become integral to addressing global challenges and driving innovation. However, ensuring that policymakers, the public, and emerging nations are actively engaged in the space debate is essential for fostering collaboration, securing support, and building a truly inclusive global space community. Space represents a global concern that intertwines politics, public interest, and national ambitions. Balancing space exploration with ethics and sustainability will determine how humanity navigates this vast frontier. Today, we will have 3 insightful panels that will explore ways to bridge gaps and engage diverse space— stakeholders. in shaping the future of space. We have continuously asked ourselves, how can we engage policymakers? How can we gain the trust of the general public? And how can we reinforce global cooperation? So the IAF Symposium this year will focus on 3 critical how questions through 3 dedicated panels. And I'm very happy to be the moderator of the first panel that is titled, How to Engage Political Decision-Makers in the Space Debate. And I'll move for the moderation to my distinguished panelists here. Engaging political decision-makers is crucial for shaping policies, securing funding, and fostering public interest in space. This panel will explore best practices, experiences, and innovative ideas for engaging political decision-makers in the space discussion. Without further delay, I would like now to introduce the speakers on this first panel. My distinguished colleagues and speakers, I will start from the right here. We have Angelina Bekasova, She is Head of Space Policy Entrepreneurship Competitiveness Department from the Ministry of Economics in Latvia. Next to her, we have Heriberto Saldivar, who is the Head of the Strategy Department of the European Space Agency, ESA. To my right, Ursula Ferencz, Ministerial Commissioner for Space Research from the Ministry of of Foreign Affairs and Trade in Hungary. On my left, Agnieszka Lukaszek, founder and CEO of High Altitude Consulting. Next, Mr. Jacek Jaskowiak, mayor of Poznań. Poznań in Poland, you know, is the host city of our IEC in 2 years, in 2027. And last but not least, on the left, And Mrs. Sena Yildiz, Member of Parliament, spokesperson for the Committee of Digital Platforms from the Grand National Assembly of Türkiye. So, I'm very pleased to have representatives of diverse stakeholders. We have policymakers here, representatives of parliaments, of ministerial— ministries, but also local governments. But I'm also happy to have here representatives of space agency and also from industry. So we have everybody around the table to discuss, and I would like to jump into my first question. And I would like to address this to the European Space Agency, to Mr. Saldivar. ESA plays a crucial role in shaping European space policy and fostering international collaboration. From your perspective, what are the key strategies to ensure political decision-makers remain committed to long-term space investments, even in times of economic and geopolitical challenges?

Thanks so much, Christian. Uh, good afternoon, everybody. Uh, it's a pleasure to be here. That's a very long and charged question, but I think that it is, uh, very into the shape of what ESA is.

is.

The European Space Agency consists of 23 member states. This year we accepted our new member state and other cooperating and associate member states. And this is the intention of a lot of people of joining and working with our DDs because we have been working together for a long time, gathering a lot of the different decisions and different ideas that the member states have into one direction. And this is part of the whole process of the agency. We have something that is called our council, and it is our governing body, and we have a gathering every quarter of the year, and every 3 years we have the council at ministerial level, that the ministers of all of our member states come and agree on the funding and the direction of the agency in the years to come. This is, for me, very important because I think that it extends the lifecycle of what we're doing. It guarantees that there's a commitment of the Member States, but it's not just that, it's a whole process. We start by, first of all, understanding the challenges of our Member States. We listen to them, we sit down with them and we discuss to make sure that the proposals that we do are going for a long term. At the same time, we have a very important tool that is the Long-Term Plan. It's a tool that we present every year and we update it, that gives us a 10-year scope of what we're planning to do from a financial but also political situation and how we can change the direction of the agency if needed. And given the current, what you said, economic and political and the world situation, what we're also doing is trying to build a little bit of a direction from the agency. We have started 2 years ago an exercise that is called Strategy 2040. And what we went through was reviewing all the strategies of our member states, not just in space, but the strategies that affect everything that goes into society, because space has been permeated in society across multiple things. We can talk about fisheries, we can talk about security, we can talk about transportation, agriculture. So all of those have important pieces that eventually create this bigger picture, and what we do is make an analysis of all of our member states, seeing how is the international context, and we put it together. And we're working to that to make sure that we have a vision for at least at least 2040, guaranteeing what we want to do. On the other side, we also have the part that it is the scientific community, and we have an even longer term. We have what we call Voyage 2050, and this is when we're talking about the scientific missions. We're looking ahead into the future, what we need to develop, and we have a scientific community that it is advising us, that it is composed from all of our member states, that provides the direction that we want to do to ensure that when we as ESA propose a mission, it is going to be committed by our member states.

Thank you very much, Heriberto, for this insight in how ESA is navigating through European space strategy. Thank you very much. My next question would go to a representative of the policymakers stakeholders here, to Angelina Pikasso from Latvia. As a government official, can you share your personal experience where you, as a political decision-maker, get up-to-date information about space-related issues? Or do you have the feeling that the information you get is sufficient? Or do you see any gaps which you would like to get more information?

Okay, thank you very much for the question and for the invitation to speak here. Good afternoon, everyone. So, as a space policymaker who approaches space space with my brain and heart, I have enough information. And I have 2 streams of information about the space sector. So, first one, the official roles and institutions, so the European Space Agency, European Commission, now UN COPUSS, but also social streams, so social media and people. I love talking about space. There is a problem with information, but it lies elsewhere. It is the—

our—

it is our final targets of communication, the political decision makers and the industry who actually has to use this information. While for us, that all information about the opportunities, about the recent developments of the space sector is like a huge ocean that I assume everyone here in the room enjoys. We swim, we dive, we surf. For the people we need support from, for them, this is a tsunami. And what we're doing is saying, like, look, the water is very warm, so join us. But for now, it's still very easy not to speak about space. So people just escape. When you see a tsunami, you want to escape. That's what is happening here. Uh, we need to engage non-space people into the space sector to really grow the importance of the space sector and to make this development faster. For years, I've been told we need to raise awareness, but raising awareness is not everything because it puts the target of our communication into a very passive position. They just take it into consideration and they cannot reproduce this information. And this situation is not only in Latvia. We talked to institutions, agencies, non-space ministries in large countries, uh, and space-leading countries, both in Europe and outside of Europe, not only they're not interested in space sometimes, sometimes they just disagree. They don't want to support space, and it was a huge problem. Um, and then why, for example, now is the decade of digitalization. If I said digitalization for people now would be most probably immediate association, AI. It should be satellites. It should be satellite data. It is still not a synonym of digitalization, satellites. We have to improve that. And a really short anecdote. Once I approached 2 political decision, not makers, but shapers, and I say, okay, it's my opportunity. And I told them, listen, we need more support for the space sector. So, they looked at me like, like, do you need help? Are you crazy? What are you talking about? And then I said something that I don't entirely agree with, but it was very impactful. I just told them, listen, when we talk about the space sector in Latvia, we are talking not about astronauts and stars only. We are talking about experts and digitalization. They immediately changed in their faces. So, the support for the space sector went— this development went through. This tendency to really, um, huge demand for the space sector. People need to be able to reproduce this information. So this is my invitation. Let's stop bragging about the space sector because we know it's cool. Let's try to engage people better into our topic to really get more support for ourselves.

Thank you.

Thanks a lot, Angelina, for this very insightful advice on how to to get out of this tsunami and kind of raise really the engagement with space, with important space stakeholders or shaping— shapers. Thank you very much. My next question would go to Mr. Jacek Jaskowiak, Mayor of Poznań. As the Mayor of Poznań, you are the host city for the 78th International Astronautical Congress in 2027. You have personally personally strongly involved yourself in this initiative to gather the global space community in your city. What are your expectations with respect to the impact such an event will have on the socio-economic development of your city?

First, it is— first, it is the honor for us to host such event, and yeah, it is of course very good for the city, for the hotels, for restaurants, but it is not so important. Much more important, it is this platform to inform citizens how important our investment in Vienna are. We are in the smartest city in the world, in Vienna. Vienna is the smartest city in the world, but if you are waiting on this bus stop or on the tram stop for the next tram, you receive the exact information when the next tram is coming. It is from space. And so we have such opportunity or possibility to inform people that it is not abstract. It is not only such competition between super states, you know, who is the first on the moon, and it is not abstract. At the moment, even private sector is investing a lot in this area. And so we have to inform people. We have to support our governments spending money for it. Even our government increased the fee for European Astronautic Agency to 100 million euros. So I am going to invite a lot of mayors. I have a lot of colleagues in the world. And so we can explain people how important such investment is. It is not only the competition between United States and Russia or China. It is much more. And so such event is for us the opportunity to make space much closer to Poznań.

Thank you very much.

It's really refreshing to hear that promotion for space is not only taking place on country level, on regional level, but on municipal level. And I think informing the community, the citizens of a city about the benefits of space, they are where it all starts from. Thank you very much. My next question goes to Ursula Ferencz, Ministry of Hungary. Hungary is actively working towards increasing its role in European space activities. What platforms or diplomatic approaches have been most successful in engaging with European, but also with global space actors? And for you as a decision maker, how do you envision the best way to be engaged with other space stakeholders?

Thank you very much, and thank you for this good question. Um, Hungary changed a bit the perspective in 2018. Uh, before this, we were active in the decades from the middle of the 20th century in the space sector. We were part of the Interkosmos programs and other, other important international cooperations. And we, uh, became the full member state of the European Space Agency in 2015. This was a very important game-changer moment. But in 2018, this topic went to the, to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade. Which could be first a very interesting approach. But if you think that this is absolutely an international cooperation, so this is the cornerstone. It was really a catalyzer of the sector. We started to build up a bilateral network all around the globe with a lot of MOUs and bilateral negotiations with other partners, and we strengthened And the multilateral work with the European Space Agency, in which we quadrupled the budget of the Hungarian national contribution in the European Space Agency's budget. And this was important to open the doors for as many missions as we could. And we strengthened the partnerships with, for example, the European Space Policy Institute, the International the European Union, the EUSPA, and the United Nations as well. So, this is important to keep in mind that this is a global game in which, for example, the whole European space sector is just one gamer. So, we must cooperate if we want to keep this sector on the peaceful side. And this is a dual-use topic, to be honest.

Thank you.

honest. So we must take into consideration all the aspects. This is why, uh, this was important to— for the Hungarian government to adopt the Hungarian National Space Strategy in 2021, in which we, uh, defined the most important trajectories for, uh, such a not too, too big country like Hungary. Uh, and, uh, for example, in this strategy, we, uh, defined the, uh, necessity of the Hungarian National Astronaut Program. program, which is now the Hungary to Orbit, the HUNAR program. This is a, uh, part of the AEX-4 mission. And to, to my Polish colleague, I must say that it's wonderful that we will, we will be together the part of this wonderful mission with our Polish colleagues.

Mm-hmm.

And, um, this is important to, to keep in mind that there in the space, there is no small or big country. There is just a mankind. And the history of the mankind will be written in the face in this century. This is a critical infrastructure, and we must and we have to decide what to do, how to use, how to utilise these capacities. So, the permanent communication, negotiation, bilateral and multilateral diplomacy, I think this is what we can do if we want to open the decision-makers' eyes, which is not easy, I must say. So, I absolutely understand my colleagues. I'm also a member of the Hungarian Parliament, and I can say that this is a permanent work to explain why the space is so important and crucial.

Thanks.

Thanks a lot to Azula for this kind of advocacy for space diplomacy. And I think the model in Hungary to hook space responsibility on the Ministry Ministry of Foreign Affairs is a very interesting signal that it is all about connections with stakeholders. Thank you. I would like to next move to a representative of another country that will even host an IEC even closer than 2027, but in 2026. The 77th International Astronautical Congress will come to Türkiye, to Antalya, and it's my great pleasure to welcome I'm a representative of the parliament in Türkiye. This is Yildiz. Türkiye has been increasing its ambitions and focus on space activities and technological advancements in general. How can Türkiye's growing space capability enhance and support its geopolitical standing?

Thank you, first of all.

Thank you.

Dear moderator, first of all, I would like to express my gratitude to be there. Thank you again for your kind invitation. And as we can see there, actually, when it comes to space, the most crucial moving point for all of us, I think, is teamwork. So, uh, when we define the pathway of Turkey, we need to first focus on a concept of teamwork. In order to sustain— provide sustainability in our space work, to provide a good medium for teamwork is really crucial. For instance, now we gathered here in a roundtable there, and we can see that all of the participants has different files. One of them representatives of government, one of them representative of industry, one of them representative of the mayors. So as we can see, here is also representing a good vision of teamwork. So when it comes to condition in Turkey, I think the key concepts are there. For instance, the entrepreneurs has imagination, academia has information, and government has the vision and on the parliamentary level, we have the legislation. So, uh, we need to cooperate, all of us, so, uh, and, uh, to, uh, maintain a, uh, sustainable teamwork, uh, in that perspective. And, uh, as, uh, you all know, uh, our, uh, President, uh, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan announced our, uh, national space program. And within, uh, this vision, uh, we, uh, you know, uh, made our— in the scope of this program, uh, Turkey has now 2 astronauts. One of them is here too, and we— they had already their space experience. And now we are— now work on our satellite launch systems. And as well as we now have our sub-meter resolution Earth observation satellite imaging And as well, we have our own communication satellite, Turksat 6A. The reason that I want to mention these all, these are all results of really good teamwork. For instance, we now built up a generation. You know, Turkey has a really young population, and within the scope of this, now we have the largest technology contest which directly focus on aerospace activities, Technofest, millions of young people attending this competition and they are mentored by academicians and after this competition they have chance to keep up their own entrepreneurship. And by this way, government put out a vision And later on, step by step, they was— that vision was supported, is supported by academia, and later on, this procedure turns into entrepreneurship and the industries grows day by day. And now, on the legislation basis, I think we have a great responsibility to enhance the diplomacy on space, because the parliamentary diplomacy is really important. And we see that, as my colleagues mentioned before, we are always talking about the challenges on AI, but here are so many challenges regarding space. For instance, the Outer Space Treaty is not enough for, uh, have legislate to the lower orbit satellites. So we need to have a common framework on the international level. So we need to enhance the parliamentary diplomacy on that perspective to get rid of security concerns and to preserve the sustainability of this space exploration with the principle leaving no one behind.

Thank you.

And I think, uh, IAF is a really good platform for achieving this goal. Uh, and I think we need to, uh, be, be, be a part of that diplomatic approach in order to, uh, maintain it, uh, on the parliamentary level, on the industrial level as well. Thank you very much.

Thank you very much. Uh, as you may know, the International Astronautical Federation is every year organizing a dedicated meeting and a meeting for international ministers and members of Parliament at the International Astronautical Congress, and many of you are permanent visitors and participants to this event. And it plays together with what you were saying, team— teamwork, team playing, and I like very much this bridge which you are making from knowledge, ambition, to vision by the government, and then the legislation by the Parliament. Thank you very much.

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

I would like now to turn to my left to Agnieszka Lukaszek, who is bringing the industry perspective a bit in. However, I mean, you have big experience formerly working for the European Commission, but then also working for one of the leading Earth observation companies, Planet, and now as a consultant in space advocacy and policy. What are the most effective methods to translate complex space issues into compelling narratives that resonate with politicians and then ultimately also with the general public? And how can industry leaders and policymakers work together to create more informed legislative decisions?

Thank you.

Thank you so much, Christian. You just gave me a business idea, maybe to write an ebook, you know, how to translate space decision-makers. Thank you so much for inviting me. It's quite a sentimental, actually, situation for me right now. My career started about 20 years ago, almost, in this room, actually. I was the executive director of Space Generation Advisory Council, sitting in the back. This was my first job, and I was freaking out being among all these distinguished delegates. And I am back here, you know, after 15 years or so and sitting on the other side, and it makes me feel quite special but also old. So I don't know. I don't know. I still have to figure it out if it's a good thing. But going back to your question, I think it's a very important question to ask because if we want space economy to grow, if we want space to move further, space activities, then we need the blessing of decision-makers. And to do that, we need to make them care. And it seems like kind of what Angelina was saying before, we are all in this sector extremely enthusiastic. Most of us are not here by accident. We are doing this job because we genuinely care, which is quite a privilege, really. You don't have that, you know, A lot, like for instance, I don't know, and not to pick for instance on accountants, but how many of them dreamed as a child to be an accountant? Probably none of them. But many of us dreamed to be astronauts or go into space or, you know, look at the stars and these sort of things. So we are very privileged. However, we're not very good at selling that enthusiasm outside of our bubble. So we love to talk to each other and saying how great we are and how amazing space is and all the great programs we're doing. But outside of our bubble, nobody really cares. And this is, I think, where our problem is. And why nobody cares? Because we are not very good communicators. Because you cannot have a skill set of being a brilliant engineer, physicist, policymaker, businessperson, and communicator all in one package, right? So unfortunately, usually people who are extremely smart are not very good at talking to decision-makers. You know, after 30 seconds of showing numbers and graphs, they lose them, right? You actually see that, and I mean, I'll be poking a little bit, but to this forum, you know, you have a lot of diplomats that come, and everybody gives their statement that their capitals give them instructions on, and then they either hang out or they leave. When actually space discussion is happening, where you have this technical presentation, the room is empty. Nobody cares. And those people are coming here to care about space. So how can we convince then ministers and parliamentarians in our capitals to care if we cannot even do it in this room. So this is a question too, a bit of a reflection on ourselves, how we communicate and what we say. And we have to adjust our message to the audience we speak to. So we cannot bring the same presentation we give at a technical space conference to COPUS or somewhere else, because the audience is very different and their ideas are very different, their interests are very different. So if you talk about politicians, And you probably know this better than I do, they are elected. So what they care about is being elected again or their parties being elected again. So you need to give them a hook that's going to help them to do that. And I know it sounds, you know, we don't want to think about it that way, but that's how it works in the real world. So we need to make space relevant to what they do. So as Angelina was saying, it's not just about astronauts and Mars and moon. But it is about navigation, it's about Earth observation, it's about agriculture, insurance, deforestation, tram stops and bus stops, as you said. Most people don't even know that. They would never connect seeing that they have 3 minutes for the next— until the next bus, that it actually comes from space, because we don't tell them that. So we need to make sure that they know that whatever we do and whatever we're asking money for, It's actually going to help them to grow the economy. It's going to help them to create jobs. It's going to help them to succeed politically. And that's something that we need to, as a space sector, learn how to do. And if you don't know how to do it, I can help you.

Just kidding.

Thank you.

Thanks, Agnieszka, for giving us, if I say us, the space community, some homework. work to do in order to do better in communicating. Well, I would like to enter in a second round of questions to my panelists, and I would like to put forward the first question to my 4 representatives of the political policymakers here. The Director General of the European Space Agency, Josef Aschbacher, has stated that space as a strategic sector should be anchored with the highest-level government official in each country. That means with the Prime Minister or with the President. How is the engagement of the Prime Minister or President in your country related to space? Maybe we start with Angelina.

Vladi, um, so let me start with another thing. Agnieszka mentioned the symbolism of her being here, but also for me it's symbolic because yesterday I told Agnieszka— Agnieszka was the first space person I've ever talked to in my— when I started my career, when she was in Latvia to teach our decision makers about the benefits of space. So I'll be waiting for your book. It would be very useful for us. Regarding prime minister or president, it's kind of a dream because we really need this push, top-down push for the space sector to integrate it really horizontally. We'd also expect this push from even higher level from the European Commission, that would really, really help us. So, the tendency is nice. We went to the president to talk about space. Now, the prime minister saw our infrastructure we are very proud of. We have the largest radio telescope in Northern Europe. So, the tendency is good. We still have to work on it, but I think that would really, really help us. So, I very much agree with Mr. Aschbacher. Thank you.

Thank you very much. I mean, uh, we see, for instance, the engagement of these top-level representatives or leaders of countries when it comes to the opening ceremony of an International Astronautical Congress. Uh, but it's always interesting to see how is this going in the normal work. And Ursula, on your case, you have mentioned that space is within the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. How does the leadership of the country relate to this?

Um, thank you very much. And, uh, for the first— in Hungary, this government, Viktor Orbán's government, is very committed to the space issue, to the space topic. That's why I mentioned that the first national space strategy was adopted. This was a critical point, not just because of the strategy, but the fact that this topic is so important that, uh, an independent strategy could be adopted. So this was important, and this is critical that the government is, as you mentioned, this is absolutely right, that the politicians are elected. And this means that they are always thinking in 4-year-long periods, which is absolutely normal because they must win the next election, but the space Space is an absolutely long-duration mission. To reach Saturn, to reach another planet, to go to the moon, or to establish there a facility like a station or anything else, it takes decades, generations. And as a space researcher, as I am, I must say that I'm absolutely enthusiastic, but this is the hardest, always to explain to the public that this is your life. This is not a far science with stars or anything else. This is your everyday life. And this is the critical cornerstone of the world economy and other very important— or the safety, security, defense, and all the other topics. And in Hungary, in the recent years, it was a great success that we could, we could explain this on a— on an effective way to the, to the decision makers. And the Hungarian To Orbit astronaut program is a very useful tool to, to explain this topic to the, to the public, and to recruit the young generation, and to gain, uh, them to— for, for this sector. But I absolutely agree that this is a continuous work, and the continuous explanation and conversation.

Thanks.

Thank you, Ursula. Mr. Jaskowiak, how is the leadership of Poland with respect to support of space? I know that they have expressed very strong support to the IEC, but how does this long-term vision play into it?

First, One word. I don't agree the politicians are looking for this 4 or 5 years period and this is the main reason. If we speak about such issues, I think the politicians have to be convinced it is good to spend money on it.

Absolutely.

Because, you know, if you create the budget on the national level or even at the city level. Then you have to put money for national health service, for jets, for protection, for the roads, for the trains and so on, and then you have to be convinced it is good to spend money for this. And this is, in my opinion, the main issue. And in our case, Prime Minister decided to increase the fee for European Space Agency for €100 million. It was the first step. And then he understand it is the future. Everybody want to be innovative. Everybody want to be smart. And city and state and so on. And at the moment, it is, in my opinion, no way to be innovative without being involved in such issues. And he knows. And on the political level, I think we are— some matters where we don't agree, but there are some matters, and in this matter, in fact, there is no opposition, especially in Poland. And Europe, if Europe wants to be innovative, look at the first 20 universities in the world. In fact, in the first 20, we have only 2 from Europe. It is from England, Oxford, Cambridge.

Yes.

We have to invest much more education. And this matter to be elected, in my opinion, much more important it is to explain to the citizens how important it is to invest in such issue on the city level, on the national level, and organizing such event like we organizing. Then it is the platform. I can invite mayors from different cities and we are— we have very strong contact to the citizens. You know, we are—

we don't have security guys, we are close to people and because of this, in my opinion, the role of the mayors of the cities could be quite

Thank you very much for giving us this hint as well, which we will be very happy to take up also in our future events, to include more leadership of municipalities, mayors, into our discussion. And also, I like very much your plea to having space beyond the political discussion between parties. It should be above. Let me turn now I personally had the great privilege to meet the President of Türkiye, who was expressing his strong support for the IEC in Antalya in 2026. Uh, maybe you can tell us a bit more about the broad support of the leadership for space.

Actually, uh, as you've mentioned, uh, our President President, His Excellency Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, has a great support on youth and space activities as well. And, uh, and on that point, I think that leadership is really crucial, uh, to build up, uh, uh, very well-designed, uh, policies, uh, in the long term. Yes, uh, as you mentioned, we need to be elected, but, uh, you know, in Turkey, uh, There is so competitive politics, so in order to be elected, we need to serve people that we plan our future in the long term as well. And also, when it comes to to build up new work areas for the people, it is also very crucial. For instance, I can give an example from my election province. For instance, there is a small province called Kahramanmaraş, and it was actually connected— before it was remembered by agriculture, but nowadays now it's a really crucial capital for the space industry. For instance, there is specialized space and aviation industrial zone right there, and thousands of people have now able to work in that area. So that helps us in 2 ways. Now, in the short term, people can find their work in new areas, and on the long term, it helps us to build up a bit better future for the young generation. And on that point, our President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan demonstrated true leadership on that point, because, um, by establishing, uh, Turkish Space Agency, you know, it was established by a decree of him. And, uh, now, um, all the past experience of Türkiye now, uh, gathered in the, uh, umbrella of, uh, Turkish Space Agency. And, uh, our national space program was developed, uh, with, uh, the involvement of academics and, uh, that this vision document is being implemented to appropriate financial management. So the leadership is directly connected with the financial management as well and with the international cooperation as well. So the leadership becomes much more important on that point because you have to manage finance and also you have to provide a good diplomacy in order to exchange the technological best practices. And I'm just staying right next to Poznań, and we will be really happy to host you in Antalya in 2026. I need to say that as well, we are looking forward to welcome you with our Turkish coffees and with Mediterranean blue and offering you a true Turkish Turkish hospitality, and we have— and our leadership has that vision also. So it's a great honor and pleasure for us to welcome you in, uh, Türkiye too.

Thank you.

Thank you very much for this invitation. Turning now to the European Space Agency, Herberto, I think what we have heard here from the 4 political policymakers, you can report back to, uh, the Director General that it looks quite positive in these countries already with respect to the attention of the leadership to space. But now turning to you, the European Space Agency has been at the forefront of building political consensus amongst multiple nations who usually have diverse interests. What are the most effective strategies ESA deploys to ensure industrial competitiveness of Europe on the global space market that is very competitive, of course, today, considering ESA's geographical return model?

Thanks so much, Christian. Uh, first of all, yes, I'll, I'll come back to the DG and I'll tell him that we get support. Uh, second of all, I think that it is very linked to the point that we're talking at the beginning, how to engage on long-term term. And this is something that, if you ask me what is the most successful of all of these, it is our success. ESA, it is, and its member states, is a leader in what we are doing across the world. It's just a couple of weeks ago that I learned that actually the definition of a second, it is part of what ESA is doing because of our positioning, navigation, and timing technologies. We have highest number of satellites that are providing the second, uh, into the international standards, right? So everything that we're doing, we need to count time. It is something that space is embedded. And this is just one of the examples. ESA is also the leader in the world in Earth observation. We have a huge amount of missions that allows us and our member states to kind of like look down to Earth and support. And it does— it doesn't just go going to space as, uh, what we discussed about astronauts, but it is about food security. It is about how to improve the lives of our citizens. And this is linking to the question before that, uh, what is that we convince to our politicians is this: space is improving the life of the citizens. There's a lot of things that can help. And then you were mentioning a little bit about the, uh, industrial, uh, geo-return. This is a tool that we use in agency. For those who don't know, I'm simplifying it a lot. Every— when our member states invest into an ESA program, there's a mechanism to ensure that their investment goes back to their industry. So what does it do? It allows their industry to grow and develop. We're just hearing about Hungary. Also, we get Poland. 2 member states that have been in the agency for less than 15 years, and you can see here what is our success. Hungary just says they're investing 4 times what they were doing. That means that we're doing something right. Poland has also been increasing their subscriptions, has become also a leader in some of our programmes, and why is this? It's because we help them to develop missions, we guide them into the process. Many times smaller member states come, and then what we do is work with them in a small programme. They develop an instrument. With this instrument, they develop an new technology and they just keep growing, right? We work with the large system integrators. We work with national agencies, with universities, small and medium enterprises. And the idea here is that we are building the capacity for our member states and for the industry. And because we gather together as a group, we are making sure that there's a solid and robust industry in Europe. I think that I can see that in Europe, one of the industries that still remains very European, very strong, it is the space industry. And it is thanks to this system that we get that we improve the investment of our member states, right? So, we had a great return of investment there. So, that's, I think, one of the strongest points that we get there.

Thank you very much, and congratulations to this success. Let me now turn to Agnieszka. Space is an expensive activity. activity, as you all know, and requires broad public endorsement to mobilize public money. And it goes already a bit into our next panel, but let me still ask you the question: according to your experience, what are the most successful strategies to promote the benefits of space to the general public?

Um, I think it was said a little bit by different panelists, and maybe I'll just pull it back together. It is we need to bring space home. So as it was said by President Jashkowiak, the taxpayers' money that is being spent on space needs to come back to the country, right? So it has to improve the life of the citizens, their safety, their security, the agriculture, infrastructure. There has to be that sort of return on investment. And we need to help them understand that this is possible. So they don't have to choose between infrastructure, for instance, or space, because space is horizontal. It's not vertical. I think we need to make them— help them see space as a horizontal activity that trickles down to all these different verticals and improve them. I think it's extremely important also to work with cities and municipalities, because As President Jaskowiak said, it has to be people in general. Citizens need to kind of understand and they need to get it. And it's very difficult to do that on a very high level, but if you bring it more closer to home and if you have leaders in cities that get it, then this is a game changer. So hopefully we're going to see in Poland a lot more cities like Poznań who are going to be taking these activities on because they will understand that this is actually beneficial. And space is getting— is becoming more important. Of course, ESA is doing a great job, but I also would like to kind of look at the general geopolitical situation. I mean, space is a sensitive infrastructure, and countries like Poland, where there is a war going on, they will of course care about this sensitive infrastructure. With natural disasters coming, you know, happening around the world, of course you're going to care about space because it helps. So it's also like, I think, a deeper understanding that this technology is there and we cannot go about our living without acknowledging that it's important. So I think we just need to make sure that we communicate, we bring them money back to society, to general society. We help the economy to grow, and that will justify the expensive spending, I think.

Thanks, Agnieszka. We are running a bit out of time already, so I would like to quickly just summarize by saying a few of the keywords which I have noted down at our discussion. The importance of long-term plan and strategy, as mentioned by ESA. The tsunami of information and filtering out and making it understandable for political decision-makers, for non-space people also. The connection between digitalisations and satellites, uh, to move— to make people aware that we are talking about space when we are talking about digitalisation.

Thank you.

The importance to inform citizens about the benefits on municipal level, at all levels actually. The importance of space diplomacy and teamwork, as was mentioned, the bridge between knowledge, ambition, vision, and legislation. But certainly also the comment about going out of the bubble and doing better in communication to the general public. Space needs continuity. It's a long-term investment, a long-term activity, and we need to convince decision-makers. That was also mentioned here. Space above political debate, hooked high up, leadership is necessary. And last but not least, success is the key to convincing.

Thank you.

So I would like to close this panel by doing a very, very short lightning round by asking you a question which you hopefully will be able to answer very quickly with yes or no. Today, spaceflight has become more and more accessible to a broader public. We see celebrities, billionaires, politicians even flying to space. Question to all of you, would you fly to space?

Yes.

if you were offered the opportunity? Angelina?

No, I like comfort too much.

Okay. Heriberto?

Well, I'll summarize in 15 seconds. Definitely yes. Actually, my first application for ESA was for being an astronaut. Obviously didn't get it, but well, here I am.

Well, it's never, it's never too late, I would say. Ursula?

On this technological level, definitely no.

I mean, I would not pay for it, so if somebody invites me— oh, if I'm offered, I'm going for sure.

Of course, I will.

Why not?

Yeah, we know you as a very strong sportsman, so I'm sure you would.

It will be something new and something interesting. to see the Earth from such distance.

Thank you.

Definitely, yes.

So we have about a 50/50 here. Well, thank you all for your attention to this panel, and I would like to ask for a big applause for all our panelists here. Thank you very much. And let's make a group photo here before we go to The next panel. Maybe we just stay here.

Yeah.

So now, without further delay, I would like to move on to our next panel, and I would like to ask our next panelists panelists to come up on stage. The next panel will focus on how to engage the general public. And this will be moderated by Nicole Koleva. You know her very well as the Executive Director of the Space Generation Advisory Council. And we are very happy that she's taking up the moderation.

Thank you.

And she will also introduce the 4 panelists whom I would ask to come up, and we are very pleased to welcome you here. With this, I hand over to Nicole for moderating the 2nd panel titled, How to Secure General Public Support for Space.

Nicole.

Perfect.

Thank you so much, Christian, and, uh, good afternoon, Excellencies, distinguished delegates. Thank you for being with us today to discuss this important topic. I think in many ways, uh, the panelists in the previous panel, uh, touched upon the topics that we wanted to discuss. We heard, uh, quite extensively that we might have a problem with communication, uh, and communicating the importance of space, uh, convincing politicians why space is important, uh, making sure the governments care, um, and of course conveying the importance of space applications and how that impacts, uh, our lives. So, um, this is exactly what our panel will be focusing on, the, uh, importance really of general public support, um, for, uh, making sure that we have enough funding and, uh, really we can tackle those, uh, issues. I also wanted to, um, really, um, showcase how that can be a game changer and how that can really tackle those discussed problems. I think in many ways, decades ago, sustainability was not a topic that was discussed. It was not a priority on many government agendas, and through mutual efforts, it's become a problem that is discussed by the general public at the moment and has really become a part of every single government policy, company policy, or even association policy. So, we will really try to tackle this in more detail and see how space is really at this crossroads. So, we have really an incredible panel of panelists today here to speak on this. So, without further ado, I wanted to introduce our speakers, starting again from the right. So, Professor Pascal Ehrenfreund, who is currently serving as the COSPAR president and and is a renowned astrobiologist and space policy expert with distinguished careers spanning from ESA, NASA, the Austrian Space Science Fund, DLR, and George Washington University. And she also served as the IAF president from 2019 to 2022. We also have Alper Gezeravci, who is Turkey's first astronaut serving as mission specialist on Axiom on Mission 3, a former Turkish Air Force pilot and aerospace, uh, engineer, and has really extensive flight, uh, experience, uh, also working as a Turkish Airlines captain. We also have, uh, Anil Kumar, who is IAF's Bureau's Vice President for IAF Relations with International Organizations and serves as Chief General Manager for Safe and Sustainability Space Operations Management at Israel. And last but not least, we have Eitan Stibbe as Axiom-1's astronaut and founder of the Rakia mission, which brought together Israeli educators, scientists, and artists to demonstrate that space is for all. He is also a pioneer in impact investment. He is the founding partner of Vital Capital, investing in developing countries for over 30 years. Thank you.

years.

So, we wanted to, um, start with a little bit, uh, of a broader question that, um, our panelists can shortly address and then, um, get into more specifics. So, as you all know, uh, space exploration relies on funding, on policies, and public engagement. So, based on each one of your experiences, is public support really critical for space programs, both government-funded funded and private? And if so, why do you think it's so critical in your own respective fields? Perhaps, Pascale, we can start with you, and then we'll just do a short round.

Okay.

Thank you very much. And thank you very much for inviting me here and having this nice panel with different aspects. So, I think today in our panel, we look more really for the public, which I think is important. Important to recognize that we are talking to different audiences, and we have to provide a different language to those audiences. And I think public support is extremely important. It's the foundation, both of government-funded but also indirectly of private-funded programs. And we have heard already in the previous panel that obviously it is taxpayer money, which actually is financing the government-funded space programs. And so, if you have no broad public enthusiasm, it will be very, very difficult for politicians to justify that. There is always, of course, this discussion, what should we— where should taxpayer money be invested? And, uh, there are a lot of competitors. And I think our role and, and, uh, what is important is to see that space is really vital for our daily life, and that we actually really can also open new markets, uh, uh, with, um, uh, increasing and helping the growth of the space sector.

And that's why it's really important that we activate, uh,

First of all, I would like to greet and welcome all participants and audience who are here today, investing their valuable time and energy and contributing for the future of humanity in space. Uh, public support plays a vital role in ensuring that space exploration continues to receive the attention, funding, and political backing necessary for its success, while also promoting broader social engagement with space-related innovations and discoveries. Public support is critical for space programs, whether government-funded or private. For several key reasons like funding, as it belongs, as the budget belongs to the taxpayers, political will, long-term commitment, innovation, talent attraction, public engagement, education, and private sector growth. When it comes to funding, which is the key factor in the public support. space programs require significant financial investments, and public support helps ensure continued funding. In the case of government-funded space agencies like Turkey Space Agency, NASA, ESA, public support influences political decisions, which often determines the size of budget budget allocated to space exploration. Similarly, private companies like SpaceX may rely on public interest to drive investments and generate revenues from partnership customers as well as government contracts.

Thank you.

Anil?

Yeah.

Good afternoon. Thank you for inviting me for this panel. In fact, securing the public support for space exploration programs is very crucial for sustainable development in the space sector. As already mentioned, considering the national agencies, it is from the taxpayers' money, and many political decisions, decision makers They will go along with the public, the requirement of the public. So if unless they feel public feels that there is a requirement for the space activities in their country, no governmental agencies can promote the space activities. Specifically, if you see apart from the few developed countries, other aspiring countries or emerging countries or developing countries. As we know that they all require the space activities for the better standard of living for their population, public. So unless the public knows that the space is giving benefits for them and they have to feel the necessity for getting space activities, the public support will not come for the any governmental activities related to the space. So it is very important. And how to bring the public, how to make aware the public that this is very important, space is very important. If you consider 50 years back what is the life of the people in many areas to today, how their life has changed, standard of living has changed. So that we have to bring to the public so that they will support the space activities.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you, Anil. Aitan, I don't know if you want to add to that as well.

Sure, I'll add a few words. So both government and private sector are driven by this amazing question, are we alone in the universe? And this drives everything. Obviously, the governments are supporting, are creating the regulations, are building the The infrastructure for space exploration. Resources are limited, the previous panel discussed that. Why prioritize space over housing, transportation, social security, education? So once you understand that there's no choice, we have to rely on space, everything depends on space. You need the private sector to get involved in order to create efficiency, to attract talent. Private sector can attract the talent, has the ability to support this exploration, and we see that now that the only way from the US to space is private. The future space stations are all private. the American, I would say. There's a Chinese station that is a government station. So the cooperation is essential.

Yeah, I think it's very interesting. It's become quite apparent also from the previous panel, but from what our speakers are sharing, that public support is really vital and it's something that we need to improve in the near future. Another aspect of that is that in many cases the public is not exactly aware of why space is so relevant to them. Why is it useful? Why does it really affect their life? And why we should invest so much in, in space? So, um, I wanted to really target this for our next question and maybe get Pascal's scientific perspective. If you can share one example of how space infrastructure benefits benefits society and how you think we should better communicate that to the public to ensure that they really know the benefit. And maybe, Aitan, if you can share from the business perspective, maybe why it's so important to communicate why space applications are so useful.

Yeah, so we have some wonderful projects in space exploration. And I have to say, right now, where we are in 2025, we have never had so many space missions, for instance, exploring our solar system ever. We also had never had so many satellites in orbit. I think it is over 11,000. So, the space sector is really, really exciting. We have also not only anymore a space agency sector per se, we have really many stakeholders. So, everything— messages should actually be amplified. And concerning the scientific— so, going more in the direction of space application— sorry, space exploration, we have so many exciting missions. What you see from the public is the response is mostly to missions where they can relate Where there have been movies, where there have been a lot of missions before, where they have a stronger connection. And that is, I have to say, it's always everything what concerns astronauts. And I think they can speak for themselves here. The other topics are asteroids and asteroid impacts. We see that continuously, that if something is happening, there's very big interest. interest. And I have to say that Mars still, I would say, outweighs the Moon until now. And you can look from the engagements and from space agencies, which of course are doing outreach and education, that this is really something where there is big interest. And I think it is important, you know, to to come with a good message and not with a very complicated message people have to relate to. And you have also really explained them what are we exploring in the solar system and how important that is in order to understand how our solar system originated. Ethan has already said, you know, are we alone in the universe? Is there life somewhere else in our solar system or beyond. We have detected now, I think, over 5,500 exoplanets, so planets which are outside of our solar system, which have eventually similar systems. We are looking for Planet B, so a planet which is like our Earth. These are all really, really exciting things, but we have to do much better. We have to I would say, take it down a notch in explication, not talking about white dwarfs and red giants, but really trying to explain it. I think we will come back at this later. Citizen science, we are talking a lot about outreach, promotion, and so on, but involving the people. We see that also wherever you go, you have reality shows, and people want to be a part of it, and citizen science engaging actually the public in order to be a part of an endeavor, I think, will get more and more important in the future.

So just imagine that you were given this note that humanity cannot leave Earth. Just imagine that. Assume that we cannot reproduce another planet. We cannot give birth to babies on the moon or on Mars because it hasn't been proven yet that even trying IVF procedures on the International Space Station succeed. So imagine that we are told, hey guys, you're— this is your planet, this is the only place, you can't go anywhere. How would we protect our planet? How would we look after it? We would do a much better job.

Certainly a scary thing to imagine, but putting more focus on a government level, Anil, I wanted to ask how does public attitude affect the decisions at the top level on a national and international level from your perspective?

Yeah, I will just give a few examples considering India's space program.

Yeah.

As all of you know, Chandrayaan-2, we were planning to land on moon, soft landing, but somehow some last-minute glitch, maybe it has reached up to about 2 meters, but it could not— 2 kilometers, but it could not touch down soft landing, but orbiter was working properly. But that particular Chandrayaan-2 failure actually it made the public knowing that there are a lot of lot of challenges are there in the moon mission, and later when it came to Chandrayaan three landing, the soft landing day, we saw thanks to social media, YouTube, that is the maximum number of viewers for a YouTube event was Chandrayaan three soft landing. And similarly, other space exploration missions like Aditya L1 mission, solar observatory for the Indian space program. All these things actually inspired the Indian public, and that inspiration and this public support— there was a few— all media, Twitter, all social media, everywhere they were hailing that this is a very big achievement. Okay, because of that, what happened is government also then felt that yes, it is required, public support is there. So such what will happen, like space exploration programs helps national governments to support the space programs without any hesitation. That is the one thing. Second is, now if you see, recently we had a platform, space exploration platform, is called— we call it POEM, for microgravity experiments. There were 24 payloads. Each payload means it is from an academic institution. So different parts of India, academic institutions, 24 payloads comes means, uh, 24 regions are getting involved in that. That is ownership, sense of ownership for the, uh, space activities, space explorations that has come to the public. That also especially in academic, in, um, engineering colleges, IITs, IISCs. So all over India, across India, the awareness has grown up and the benefits for the space they understood and new innovations have come up, new discoveries have come up, new electronics, new sensors, everything has come up. So all these things helps government to promote the space activities and also not only that, because of these successes and the commercial aspects of the space industry, the lot of space industries have come, lot of venture capitalist people are ready to support support. They are funding it. So these are the important things. The public— we require the awareness to the public. In turn, public will support for these programs. That will help not only the government agencies or even the venture capitalists to fund for space programs.

Certainly, I think when it's such a positive, such a positive, let's say, achievement happens really unifies a community.

Yes.

Um, and it's very easy to then justify, um, the investment in, in space. Um, building up on that, uh, Alper, I wanted to, um, touch, uh, upon, uh, another instance where perhaps it's harder to justify such investment. Um, Türkiye recently, or not so recently, placed, uh, space exploration on the national agenda. Uh, but, um, shortly after, uh, unfortunately, the tragic earthquake— earthquakes happened. There was a question if that should still remain a public priority and a government priority. Can you tell us a little bit about the steps that the government took to justify this decision?

Public attitudes, both in positive as well as in negative way, is affecting the decision-makers' decision processes in several ways. And as you mentioned, this national disaster, which was one of the worst ones in the whole world's history, which affected 11 cities and more than 40 million people in a single night, which also affected our budget big time. But didn't change our vision into the space which is affecting not today's but the future of our youth generations especially. So our government in that manner took really bold steps evaluating priorities on their agenda, taking care of those people who were affected initially. And I'm proud, so proud to mention this actually. At this point, even though it was one of the biggest disasters ever in humanity's history, the Turkish government has taken care of more than 500,000 people in just 2 years. They have already provided more than 200,000 homes to those who got affected directly in the earthquake area.

Thank you.

So, we have been tested in several manners in the history of humanity with several challenges. This was not the only challenge that we faced with. So, based on the experience that we gained throughout the history, our government took into considerations all the positives and negatives of a later Target that was put into the future of the Turkish children. So even though that was a quite difficult decision at the time, as the people were really questioning based on the Maslow's hierarchy of the needs at the time that were affected, and who were getting really difficult times in managing, maintaining their lives with the question that was affecting our future time. So the government took that into the agenda by elevating all the educational resources out there available to be able to just infuse the importance of this target for our future time. And we have We have lived both the difficult agony and the bitter time of after disasters that we have faced with, as well as the national pride that we gained during our first manned space mission that was handled over our time, our history. So, as it is directly affecting our national pride, science and education played a critical role in shaping this public opinion and the country's approach to the space engagement. Both of these factors influenced how our general public perceptions in the space exploration and drive the government's policy and investments in the space-related activities. And Turkey has embraced space exploration as part of its vision for strengthening national identity and asserting its place on the global stage. Space missions and achievements are seen as a reflection of Turkey's growing capabilities in science, technology, and innovation. The success of space missions fosters a sense of pride, and hence public support is often higher when national government emphasizes the country's growing space ambitions. And in the end, as a result of all these faced challenges within the last 2 years, under the leadership of our President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, space has become a major element of Turkey's national pride, which reflected onto the perceptions of the people together that— to gain that as a future goal that we need to hold on to.

Thank you so much. You mentioned it's a matter of national pride, and I certainly think you have a lot to be proud of, especially with the coming IAC. So definitely more to come. We heard about the positive scenario and somehow the negative scenario. I wanted to move perhaps to a middle ground with Pascal to tell us a little bit maybe of the scientific community. Pascal, you're part of a multitude of historic scientific findings and projects. Do you feel that the public truly connects with the excitement of those achievements? And if not, what can we do better to improve on that?

Yeah, I mentioned already before, we have, of course, very strong outreach program of the space agencies all over the world.

world.

We have seen that in all the different nations, that recent space projects to Mars and to Moon have a very strong response from the public. So, I think this is a very important tool that space agencies do. I think there was one thing, I think, which we didn't discuss yet, but I think it is really, really crucial. With public outreach goes also also inspiration of the young generation. And this is really something crucial because we are missing so many— an entire workforce in STEM. We have very low rate of STEM graduates all over the world, male and female, and we need really to inspire them in order to lead later on all these endeavors which we are planning now. And the space sector is growing exponentially, is very vibrant, and we have to look that there is a workforce, and we have to inspire them. So, everything what we are discussing today by, I think, um, uh, you know, addressing the public, we have really to take in particular in, um, into account, uh, to inspire the next generation, which, uh, is taking over. That's really something important. So I think that, as I said before, when something is discussed rather in rather simple terms and people can relate to a first landing on a celestial body, I think these breakthroughs, they are really exciting for the community. we are scientists, what we always sometimes do, using a language which is very complicated because we are living in this kind of world, I think that is not helpful. And we have really to learn much more to communicate as scientists and explain even difficult technical problems in a simple way. I think this is something where we still have really, really to work on from the scientific point. And also, understand what has been discussed in the first panel, that we have really to— not only to inspire the public and the young generation, but also politicians. We have really to do policy in a way that we can, in simple terms, explain the advantages and the breakthroughs in science. And a final sentence. sense. We discussed a lot about personalizing, and we will still discuss because that works also so well with astronauts, with their story and their evolution and how they actually finally flew to space. That's also the same with space missions, explaining how everything came to be and personalizing the breakthroughs and space missions. I think that's something, and I mentioned already interactive citizen science before. So I think we have to, from the scientific community, we really have to improve the way how we promote. We have to learn new technologies, how we present, and in order to really to contribute to this excitement, which have to keep over long term, because all our space endeavors are now quite long term, and we have to keep the people involved.

And I couldn't really agree more with you on the importance of engaging the youth. It's also really the mission of SGAC, ensuring that the next generation of leaders and scientists and experts are engaged and are aware of all the issues that we're dealing with. Um, nowadays. Um, I wanted to, uh, move to you, uh, Aitan, because in the past, or but also now before you became an astronaut, and then nowadays, uh, you were investing heavily, uh, in developing countries but also youth. Um, so you have more of a different perspective, let's say, in terms of why this is very important for the space sector. So, uh, based on, on your own personal experience, and, and also, um, maybe if you can share story with us. What motivates business leaders to invest in space and even in youth or in developing countries, and how can that be relatable to the governments?

So business is not driven only by profit. To attract talent, you have to offer more than income. You have to offer a sense of purpose, motivation, satisfaction. Is there a price for a doctor saving a life of someone? Just the satisfaction is priceless. So the private sector can offer that satisfaction and what we did in the past is take advantage of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, which are very detailed and very interesting and implemented them in both planning the mission and debriefing it, planning the investment and learning about the mistakes and where we should correct. So the idea of involving in our mission in Israel— space was related to tragedy because our first astronaut did not come back. He crashed with the Columbia 20 years ago, and unfortunately, and human spaceflight was not so attractive. So in order to attract the public in general, from kindergartens to scientists, through educators and households, families, we involved everyone. We made competitions of poem writing, for children, for high school children. We invited the children to suggest what I would do in space, so they asked me to do— to talk in sign language. Obviously, scientists and educators asked for the craziest experiments to be performed in space, but this involvement reached every household, everyone. So the whole concept is to not only stay in the scientific rocket science sector, but to bring everyone along. And maybe I'll give an example here. Anil is next to me. Vasco da Gama, who left Portugal 500 years ago, found a way around Africa, reached India, died there.

Kerala, Kappad.

Yeah?

So he was the explorer. He did the mission. He fought the oceans. But he's not the person who inspired the public. He had an— there was a Portuguese author called Camões, and he is the person who took all this exploration and turned it into an inspirational book, poem. People would follow in his footsteps. So it should— space should be open to all disciplines. Imagine we could take a Nobel Prize literature author to space. He would bring the experience much better than any of us did before. So it should be open to humanities, philosophers, architects, even the Biennale in Venice had a section for planning the future human settlement on the Moon and probably in the future on Mars. So bring all those brilliant minds together and continue exploring this amazing universe.

Certainly, that would be really ideal and I for one really agree that space is becoming much more relevant to different professions. I have a background in psychology and somehow ended up in space, so it's definitely becoming a lot more accessible specifically for the younger generation.

I wanted to talk to you about—

Let me just say one thing about psychology. One of the things we trained— Alper, you know that Alper and me, we trained at NASA, ESA, and JAXA. One of the things we were trained is to deal with failure, because the chances of success when the timetable and the schedule is so tight, to succeed with everything is low, so that's a big, big important thing and psychologists and psychiatrists are necessary in the region.

Absolutely, and that's a whole other topic, so I hope we can get together for another panel to discuss that. Um, Anil, you mentioned that, uh, Chandrayaan-3 was really an emotional experience for everybody that brought the people together, and it really generated a lot of public support. Can you maybe give us what are the next steps? How do you remain engaged with the public, and how can, for example, emerging countries or emerging space nations, which, for example, Bulgaria, that doesn't have that big of a space program can, you know, have similar engagement?

Yeah.

See, as already mentioned, the space programs, whatever India has done in the last few years, it has got a lot of public support and inspired the young generation. So that is the one important which inspired the young generation, also inspired a lot of industries to come to the space sector. See, more than 300 startups have come in India because of this support or because of these achievements what we got. Now, considering that, ISRO— actually, we are going, as far as ISRO is concerned, a lot of outreach programs are there. One of the outreach programs, actually you can see that, you know, UNADI program, in which many countries' participants were there, engineers, students, etc., came and studied. They have got a few weeks of training in various Indian space centers. So such programs we are doing it for as an outreach program. And we usually conduct many conferences and for the students, academic institutions, we do especially together with the Space Week celebrations, October 4th to 10th, we go to nook and corner of India, villages, and we talk in their languages. So you know India is a big country and there are hundreds of languages people speak. From one area to next area, the language is different. So we go to these schools and colleges and speak in their languages, local languages, about the space program achievements, what are the benefits we got from this program. If you remember some 20 years back, 30 years back, there were concerns like as a developing country, a lot of people in the— a lot of standard of living is less, how government can fund programs for such space programs. So, but now nobody is asking that. When these achievements have come for the Indian space program, not even a single people asking that why India government is funding for that. So they are now asking why less funding, in fact.

Okay.

That is the status coming. So, um, a lot of NGOs, non-governmental organizations, they are— they have come up and they are going for not only national level, international level also we can see many, many, many are there who are doing outreach programs for the benefits of space activities. And these type of things only will bring funding to these space programs, and also we can cultivate the rewards from these programs, and we will get the space industry more, more, more employments are generated because of this new space in space reforms in whatever we have announced in India. So not only ISRO, actually all government of India itself they are going along. With many of the programs to bring awareness to the common public about the benefits and what are the space program is giving. See, you know, we have search and rescue programs are there, disaster management programs are there. So if you see Earth observation satellites, whatever there, the benefits are so high for the public. So all those things are giving a lot of advantages for the Indian space program.

Absolutely, and it's great to see that there's so much outreach emphasizing those benefits. I think it's been pretty well established by our panelists that public support is really crucial. We've talked a little bit about how to get public support, how to manage expectations, but also, you know, manage the, um, certain disappointments, uh, of the public, uh, when it comes to, um, giving funding for, for space. We've touched upon the importance of space applications and talking about, uh, how to communicate this better. And perhaps, let's say, the, the most important topic that we haven't talked about yet is, uh, really, uh, how astronauts act, uh, as a symbol for space. Um, and I think in the previous panel, uh, Agnieszka, uh, mentioned, uh, none of us really dreamed to be, uh, you know, accountants. However, many of us really, really dreamed to be, uh, astronauts, and we're, uh, lucky to have 2 people on our panel who can, uh, speak on that. So, um, my, my question is, is really, really simple. Astronauts have become really the, the champions of space, the symbol of space. Um, so my question to our 2 astronauts is, how do you get it so right, and how can we get it right?

Thank you, the key answer is communication. As the Turkish Space Agency, and after our very first, uh, human space mission, I have traveled through 135 cities and have implemented 294 different different conferences throughout the country, as well as 7 different other invited countries. So this was not coincidental, but was already a part of the plan all the way from the beginning, because as long as you explain to people the real aim of the big target that was put at the very front of the Then you reach out to the real target at the end. Because our very first human space mission, that wasn't executed for the sake of a single individual in the country. The country has implemented this for the sake, for the future of our youth generations that needs to be inspired. and aspire with enough source in front of them. So during all these conferences that we have been into, we had the chance to be able to reach out to more than 200,000 Turkish children so far, which is giving us the pride and happiness to see their reaction in turn. Just as you mentioned, tunnel. Back at the time, just 2 years ago, while the people were questioning if we really needed to do this mission in such a difficult time, now we are being asked when are we intending to execute the next mission. So in that manner, I think we have reached the ultimate goal, which is to inspire and let the people, that space is an indispensable part of their life. So we need to give them a chance to feel the empathy. What are the pluses? What are the gains of being in space? Even the most irrelevant— relevant person, when you explain them actually the basic things that they take as granted for the sake, for the comfort of their lives, like use using simple GPS information to navigate themselves through the big cities, or for the people who involved in the agriculture, when they know that the quality of their crops are being constantly observed by those satellites, which is a huge part of the space operations, then they get to realize that space is already a big part of their I always give this example to the children as well. Back in the '90s, when we first started to hear the name of internet, even the most irrelevant person who takes it, why would I need to be interested in internet, now cannot resist the existence of internet in their, in their palms, in their hands.

Thank you.

Now the space is going in a similar way of evolution. Not so far, just in a couple of years, we will all find ourselves in the middle of the space era.

Thanks, Nicole. I've seen many launches, but I only cry when I see a launch that humans are involved in it. So human spaceflight is inspiring, is exciting, is risky, and really brings in all the emotions. Adding to what Alper said, I think the International Space Station is a microcosmos of Earth. We were 11 people in a very, very hostile environment When it's dark, it's -160 Celsius, and when the sun is out, it's +120. There's no way out. The supplies are limited. Energy is from solar panels. The water is recycled. Sewage is recycled. So 11 people rely on each other to survive.

Yes.

to prosper, to succeed, to do the mission. And this is the best place to understand and appreciate our existence here on Earth. And this is the best example that we can use. It is a— there are astronauts since 2020 on the International Space Station from all nations working excellent together.

Thank you.

and in harmony. And why is there such a harmony on the International Space Station? Because you float. When you float, there are no sharp corners. You float, you move from side to side, everything is very— at the beginning not so elegant, but after a day or two in microgravity you can float elegantly. So there is a sense of harmony and and helping each other succeed, because the mission is very demanding.

Fantastic. Thank you all so much. And I realize we are coming to the end of our time, but before that, I wanted to just do one final question for all our panelists, so more of a fire round. If each one of you had one key message for the public, on why space matters, what would it be? So, imagine if you were trying to explain to a grandma, let's say, in Bulgaria, why she should care about space, and why is it so important for us, why she needs to support, what would your message be? Pascal, maybe we'll start with you.

I have to start?

Okay.

Well, space matters because it drives innovation, and it can solve real-world problems, so challenges which we face on Earth, and it also opens new possibilities for humanity's futures. This is the short way.

Absolutely.

Alper?

Well, I have to say that even though we are talking about the benefits of space, gravity is a gift for humankind. However, gravity is also an obstacle that is tackling us when it comes to finding solutions in the science. So we are going there temporarily to get over those challenges. So as long as you let the people know that space is really affecting the quality of their lives and potential problems that couldn't be solved throughout the years, there is a way up there in the space to be able to get over that challenge.

Thank you.

then people get to realize. So let the people know and feel the empathy and get the communication in the real effective way to let the people know about the whole benefits of the space. Thank you.

Yeah, I used to— I used to go for many outreach programs. I used to tell the students and common public only 2 things. One is, a few years back, which was luxury Today it's a way of life, like, you know, live streaming, internet, ATM, all those things. So all those things comes from— see, now we are taking for granted, all students, all children, public taking it for granted, internet facilities or live Olympics we are seeing, World Cup we are seeing, many things comes there. They are all taking for granted, but all these things comes from space.

Yes.

So without space today, if space is not there, space activities are not there, our life will become a standstill. This message I used to put among the common public. That's all.

So before I give my answer, I asked the AI to answer that question and look what he answered. It answered, it answered honestly. Imagine a computer answering. Honestly, space exploration is the most exhilarating endeavor imaginable, which is amazing. My answer would be the universe has much more to offer than we can ever imagine.

And I think that really leads us to a perfect close. So with that, Thank you. With that, I mentioned in my introduction that I felt that we were at a crossroad to really start making space more, one, accessible, two, comprehensible and relatable, especially for the youth. I'm hoping that we are one step closer to making that, especially after this panel. With that, I'd like to thank our esteemed panelists for their contributions, and thank you also for your

Thank you very much, Nicole, and all the panelists.

May I ask you also for a group picture here? Thank you. Once again, a big thanks to our speakers for panel 2, and now finally Finally, we are coming to our 3rd panel, focusing on how to embrace emerging countries in the global space endeavor. And for this one, of course, I would like to ask our moderator, uh, Dr. Aarti Hollamaini, Director of the United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs, to come to the stage, and also our—

Thank you.

So, please come on up— come up on stage already. The discussion which we will see now will highlight the importance of integrating emerging countries, or should I better say emerging space countries, into the global space ecosystem. And the panel will emphasize capacity building, knowledge sharing, and collaborative projects, and will be addressing challenges and opportunities for new spacefaring nations. And it is my great pleasure to hand over to the moderator, Dr. Arti Hollamäini.

Thank you, Thank you so much, Christian. Good afternoon, everybody. Thanks for taking the time to stay for this symposium. It's my pleasure to moderate it, and I thank IAF sincerely for having invited me to do so. The subject of this symposium is how to embrace developing countries or emerging countries in the global space endeavor. You know, when we sit here in the UN in these kind of fora, it looks easy. Everyone has a voice, everyone has a role to play, except that there are many states who are not in COPUAS yet. Often because they think that without a satellite or without a space agency, there's no point. But also because some countries are simply too small to find the resources to cover this topic. These countries miss out not only on opportunities that come from engaging with other nations, but fundamentally, they do not hear about the vital solutions that can address so many of their national national challenges. So, with this panel, we want to tease out what can we do through this committee more broadly to ensure that developing countries can benefit from space solutions and have a voice in space governance. So, against that background, it is my pleasure to be joined by His Excellency Jorge Schenckle Arenales— excuse my pronunciation—

It's okay.

The Ambassador of the Republic of Guatemala. Michal Brychner, Director of the Slovak Space Office and IAF VP for Global Membership Development and Financial Matters. Sergio Marchisio, Professor at Sapienza University in Rome and Chairman of the European Centre for Space Law. Asanda Nitsana, in charge of Space and Stakeholder Liaison at SANSA in South Africa. And Lisa Vitale, interim CEO and Director for IAC 2025 from the Space Industry Association of Australia. Thank you so much for joining me. And let's get started with a round of questions. My first question is for you, Your Excellency, Jorge, if I may.

Please do.

Guatemala launched its very first satellite, Quetzal-1, with UNOOSA through our Access to Space for All program. program while not yet being a member of COPUS. So I wanted to ask you, how did you make the case back home in your capital on the benefits of joining COPUS, and what suggestions might you have on making the case to countries who haven't maybe benefited in this way? Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Director, and good afternoon to my dear panelists. It is a very short but very striking story because the paradox was that science preceded politics. That is, a professor of a university got engaged in the question of what if, what if we designed a satellite? And it started from scratch, it really did. And this is where cooperation comes in and it shows its value because out of that cooperation given by certain people in COPUOS, we were not yet members, but certainly by the academic community and the scientific community, people were actually able to build design first and then build a satellite. The design was given a prize in 2017. The issue started in 2014 without any prior knowledge or even studies on astrophysics or spatial— in the spatial field. So it was literally from scratch. So it was very challenging, but more than that, it was quite an adventure. Without the intellectual curiosity of this professor, the studies wouldn't have been done. And with that, I would say again, underscore the value of cooperation. COPUS did provide some advice, but certainly we are indebted to basically the Japanese Space Agency, which saw the design of our Quetzal-1 satellite as viable, and it was sent to space and it worked actually. But also we did receive the support of the UK Space Agency and the Würzburg Universität. So we are very happy for that because that cooperation has proven invaluable not only to entice new students to get involved in this area, but they were really— now it wasn't a faculty, it wasn't a special Studies area, and now there's more than 50 candidates vying for this program. Of course, these people at the Universidad del Valle are already engaged in a second satellite design and manufacture. And I must say that 70% of the first satellite was made back home from scratch, from nothing. So it was quite a milestone in securing something that wasn't never happening before. People thought, particularly in the academic spheres, that that was not viable in our country, and it is because cooperation makes it viable. So again, science became before politics, but now that we were embarked in there, we came to COPUUS and you provided also some valuable support, and timing was of the essence because with your aid we managed to actually send the satellite to space and it worked. And now this is a very successful story, but it was out of nowhere. Suddenly we were in the space business. And this, of course, also has not only academic benefits but the prospect of more entrepreneurial possibilities. And otherwise, we'll see how this goes. So, Madam Director, I thank you again for taking a good look at our Thank you so much.

That's actually a really inspiring story made short. Wow, thank you for sharing that. I didn't know that myself. So my next question is for Michael, if I may. Michael, you do a great job in convincing countries to join the IAF and participate in the IAC. Given your experience, how can we convince more countries to join COPUOS and sign up to the existing international space treaties?

No, in fact, I think that the best way to convince these countries is not to be convincing them, and this is actually what we are really doing. So we are not per se convincing countries that they should be joining IAF and they should be coming to IAC. What we do is is that we show them a way how getting involved in the global space community can contribute their goals and their missions. So, for example, within my portfolio, we are launching currently 2 new initiatives. One is called the IF Envoy Initiative, which is exactly focusing on the countries which are at this point unrepresented or underrepresented in the global space community and IAF in particular. And our target here is not to be selling them the membership. Our target is to understand the current state of their space ecosystem development, to— together with people that are regionally based and they understand really the specifics of the country, because each country has a very specific maturity of the sector, they have very specific needs, very specific motivation factors, very specific potential sources for building up some capacities and capabilities. So, together with these local experts, we are focusing on these countries to understand what they need in their current status of space ecosystem development and how we can connect them with the global space space community and how that can help them in succeeding in their mission. Here we are working with the regional subcommittees of IAF, which are 5, basically covering all the Earth. In the coming months, we will be designing a specific approach to selected countries in each of these regions. There is approximately a dozen dozen of these countries. So, we have some high hopes for this initiative. And what we hope to achieve is to really have a good understanding what these countries could use from the global space community that can help them get the next steps in their sector development. And eventually, of course, this might motivate them to join the IAF and join the formal community. but that's not the primary goal. The second initiative that we are building is called Space: The Big Picture. Here we are focusing on the, what we could call, less traditional space stakeholders. As we all know, space community is getting more and more diverse every year. It's already a long time not just about big agencies and scientific missions, and about huge budgets necessarily, only allowing large stakeholders being involved. So the space sector is democratizing, and it's also creating new markets that are motivating new types of stakeholders, including the big tech companies, the financial institutions, the adjacent industries, and large users of satellite data, or organizations that are focused on safety or security. So, understanding and taking this into account, we want to connect the traditional space community with these less traditional stakeholders to give them the voice in the community, to take their needs and specifics into account, and to also use a lot of the potential they have both on technical or financial side for the benefit of space community. So, this was already mentioned in one of the previous panels that space sector has this disease of being too looking into itself. So, we want to change this with the Space: The Big Picture initiative and open up the space ecosystem to the 21st century space ecosystem that is really diverse and has a lot of stakeholders that are benefiting from space technology. technologies are affecting them. So, to your question, what the UN can do, I think that the best way to have new countries being involved in COPUOS and signing the treaties is actually not to be asking them or not to be having them, inviting them per se, but helping them build up their capacities and capabilities, build up the ecosystem So they are internally motivated and they understand the necessity of becoming COPOLs because they eventually will understand the necessity to be part as they grow, as they get more involved internationally.

Thank you. Very pragmatic advice. Great to hear your insight from the IAC perspective and how you do it. Thanks for sharing. Let me turn my attention to Sergio. Sergio, the space sector is moving at such a fast pace, and we need to ensure that every country benefits. Now, from a legal and policy perspective, what, in your view, can every developing country do to harness the power and benefits that space brings? What, what do countries need to hear?

Thank you, Director, for this question.

Thank you.

Thank you for this question, which is at the border between policy and law. The first one was much more legal about treaties, but I would say that the key words of our question— your question are 3. The first one is benefit, the second one is inclusion, and the third one is partnership. That to get the benefits from space activities, emerging countries should rely on partners— a partnership approach, which means that they can gain benefit through projects that are jointly identified and developed from the outset, based also on their priorities and on mutual assessments. Initiatives in key areas should be jointly agreed upon by countries of developed and emerging, and the guidance is given by some texts that have been adopted in these rooms. I mean, apart from the treaties, the UN Space Treaty, also the Declaration of Principles Principles on International Cooperation in the Exploration and Use of Outer Space for the Benefit and the Interest of All Countries of 1966, which is not so much mentioned in general because it's quite very, very broadly worded.

It is.

Probably it lacks a certain degree of pragmatism, as you told us. It's too much general. We should think how to resuscitate this, this declaration and take it again into consideration in order to update it and to adapt it to the new situation of space. And then other kind of I think, for instance, for direct experience of the Artemis Accords group, and one of the guiding principles is the benefit principle, which is inscribed in the preamble of the Artemis Accords. And I think it is important because, as we know, the benefit is very much difficult to be implemented in practice. It is one of the key notions in the space law because it is the first article of Outer Space Treaty of 1967, but in general it is not easy to go in detail what it means and how to implement it in practice. But I think that if we use partnership approach, inclusion, which is a notion very dear to the IAF because IAF is fostering inclusivity through initiatives to promote equal access to space activities and playing a role also in facilitating legal and policy dialogue among developed and emerging countries. Apart from COPOS, of course, which remain the main forum for discussing this kind of issue. But I think that cooperation is really the most important word in this regard.

Thank you, and my apologies to the interpreters. I'm going to go off script for a moment. Sergio, you mentioned the declaration, the Benefits Declaration, which has been controversial over the But can you say a little bit more around this? Because I think countries, especially in the Global South, this is very important to them. But, you know, can you say something more about it?

Well, in the past, I have a long experience of the COPOS work because I've been here since the beginning of the— the end of the '90s. 1997, I first time put my body inside this room as a member of the Italian delegation. And there was— there were some states emerging at the time that said, we didn't participate in the discussion of the Declaration. We see that it is too much oriented towards— Human rights. A balance between the different needs, the need for cooperation of emerging countries, but at the same time issues of protecting property rights, etc., which are more commercial-oriented and developed-oriented. But I think that it is, even if it is very general, in its terms. The Declaration still has a great value because it encompasses all the main directions that cooperation can assume. In practice, it will be multilateral cooperation, it will be— it can be bilateral cooperation, it could be regional cooperation, it can be private cooperation among states and private entities, but at the same time among countries of different level of development. So I think that it should be re-elaborated in a way, reinterpreted, adapting to our new environment, space environment. But it is still important.

Thank you very much.

And last, you should remember that it was adopted one year before the moon landing. Yeah? So it's before the last— treaty, no, on the UN treaty.

Thank you. Asanda, if I can come to you and turn our attention to Africa. South Africa is a very important spacefaring nation, and as you know, one of UNOOSA's strategic pillars is to focus on developing countries and have a dedicated Africa strategy. What is the most important thing that needs to happen, in your view, to ensure that developing nations and African countries can truly be part of the global space endeavor?

Okay, thank you very much, Ati. I think first and foremost, each of the developing countries need to have clear visions. Then their ambitions need to be very clear. Now, with regards to Africa, we can all appreciate the work that Africa has done with regards to the African Space Agency, the formulation of the African Space Council. But we need to note that member states have not yet met. They have not sat. So no discussion can preempt the conclusions of the sitting of member states. Now, um, that being said, Africa longs to be self-reliant. Africa wants her own space infrastructure. Africa wants to be able to develop her own technologies. Africa needs her own data Africa needs her own positions on matters. Now, as much as we may need all this, currently we don't have— we don't yet have that. And the one space where we can learn is on data, but this data is so, so expensive, you know. It really— it's saddening because it's, it's one step towards Africa's development, but it is such a hindrance because even just convincing, um, you know, decision makers on the money that we spend on data. Now, if the global community is so concerned about Africa, can we do something about this data that is so— like, we call it data It is so expensive. It takes us a step back. Now, if people really are for Africa's development, then let them show it by this first step of data, because that's what's not there for us, at least, to move forward. Thank you.

Thank you. A clear answer, as I expected. Indeed, UNUSAID is trying to address this challenge of unblocking the access to especially high-resolution data, which is necessary to empower people at the local level to take action. Thank you very much for that. Lisa, let me turn my attention to you. Australia already hosted IAC in 2017. and you will host it again this year. The vast array of technologies and solutions that are presented by industry at this event is so impressive, but what benefits do developing countries gain from attending these kind of large international events?

Thank you, Aarti, for the question. I think I'd like to split that into 2, if I may, because one is about what do countries get as a benefit if they're hosting an IAC, which we really saw in Australia, and then what do developing countries get when they attend. So, what we saw when we hosted in Adelaide in 2017 was a complete shift in our Australian space industry. We were able to announce the Australian Space Agency, which is extremely exciting. So, that was our legacy from the event. Thank you. Event, we were able to grow the number of space businesses in the country, and we were able to get a lot of international attention on our Australian space industry. So I think for any emerging space countries who are thinking about hosting an IAC, it really does bring benefits, and we've seen that with other countries who've hosted since. It's also an opportunity to engage public, engage politicians, and everything that we've spoken about across all of the panels so far, so definitely highly recommend it. And I am looking forward to the legacy that we will leave behind after IAC 2025 as well. In terms of actually attending the event, many of the parts of an IAC have already been mentioned. One of my favorite parts, which I'm most excited about, is the members and ministers of parliament meeting, which will bring together members and ministers of parliament from all across the world, including for our IAC in the Indo-Pacific region. So we're very excited for countries to be able to attend that. It will be a first for many, particularly from the Indo-Pacific region, who've never attended an IAC. So we're really looking forward to discussing topics such as TBC— we still need to confirm— but potentially disaster and risk management, smart cities and health, and other topics which affect so many different countries. So it's a really fantastic opportunity for governments across the world to get together, to share information, and to work together on common challenges. And I think just in terms of countries themselves attending, obviously it's, it's world-class research they will get access to. We've spoken about partnerships that are there, so many opportunities to connect with space industry with the most advanced tech to understand what's going on in a very short space of time. So highly recommend it from either a hosting perspective and/or an attendance perspective.

Thank you. I've never heard an event unpacked intellectually like that, so it's good to have it broken down to actually define concrete benefits. I thought that was very valuable. Thank you very much. Michael, can I come back to you?

Thank you.

Uh, the Slovak Space Office is relatively young, and, you know, even though this, this panel, we assume it's about developing countries, there's also emerging space, uh, countries within the European Union, for example. Um, so we meet many developing country experts who value space, but they can't necessarily convince their governments to make it priority. So how did you convince your policymakers that this was worth investing in?

This is a very good question and it always depends on the specific country because the historic heritage, the specifics of talent pool or strategy are always very different, but when we break it down, it's basically always about the combination between the motivation factors and the possibilities that each country is have. And I think that mostly among politicians there are 2 reservations that need to be broken. First reservation is that we have nothing to gain by that, and the second is we have nothing to offer. The first reservation basically says about the lack of understanding and knowledge about what space technology brings in practice. There is still quite widespread belief that it's just purely research area that is, of course, very important but cannot bring us anything tangible today, or if it can bring something tangible even for economy, it will be in decades from now but not now. And this is obviously not true, we all know it, but people outside the space community, they often don't, and politicians often don't. The reservation about we have nothing to offer is usually, especially in emerging space countries and smaller countries, related to the understanding or, again, assumption that a country needs to be huge to do space research and/or to build a space ecosystem and space economy, and that either you build your own rockets or you do nothing. But again, not true. There is a huge, huge spectrum of activities that can be done. So I cannot say that we fully made our politicians understanding all this, but we are on a good track certainly. And in our case, the combination of these 2 factors is following. So when it comes to the motivation factors, again, depending on each country, but 3 key topics or 3 key selling points that we are now mostly using when talking with politicians are that space technology is creating new opportunities for industry, and in specific countries which are emerging space countries within developed economies, which is the case, for example, in many European countries, in our case, it also creates new opportunities for existing tech sectors, which is important because they then you can also get the big companies in traditional terrestrial sectors like machinery, electronics, software development. You can get them on board, which is always important. Secondly, it provides very important resources. When talking about resources in space, we might think about drilling on asteroids, but today it's the data and it's the signal. Valuable resources, again, for many terrestrial sectors. sectors, from transportation, logistics, weather monitoring, or disaster risk management, et cetera. We could mention many areas here. Third, last but not least, it's about talent. There is no sector in the world that would be such a good magnet for STEM. Eventually, not all the young talents will end up in space. They end up in nuclear energy, in data science, etc. Many of them, however, are initially motivated by space. Some of them end up in space, some of them in other sectors, but all in tech areas because they were once motivated by space. So we have this combination, the new possibilities for traditional sectors, the very important data and the talent motivation. And when it comes to the potential, we understood that in our case, as a country which is emerging space ecosystem in developed economy, we have the huge advantage of being able to combine the young talent, the young entrepreneurs and startups, with a long heritage of space-related R&D, more than 50 years of satellite payload R&D.

Thank you.

body, and with this highly advantageous combination and sector mix that we have with strong electronics, machinery, and software development. But I believe that each country has some set of advantage points for space economy. Thanks to the fact how broad it is, each country has something to offer, and I think that the UN, the ENOSA and COPUOS are amazing tools for the global space community to get the government stakeholders involved, just as the IAF is an amazing tool to get this broader community from a variety of stakeholders involved.

Thank you. Thank you, Michael. That was, that was really good. I want to bring Jorge back in on the same point. So, Michael talked about using the potential of the space economy, the potential use of space applications, and the best trigger for STEM as an incentive for the government to get behind it. You actually came to it from the scientific aspect, which then went to the international cooperation, etc., a very different set of motivations. Can you comment on what Michael said? What is your thoughts on this?

Well, certainly that it was very well phrased when you said possibilities and motivation. And I think motivation was the one that really kicked in this project because, again, let me underscore, this came from scratch. There was no technical— local technical knowledge. There was no studies. There was nothing. And it was the motivation and the intellectual curiosity of this professor who made it happen slowly and surely. And probably the biggest challenge was to get the economics of it. That's really expensive, particularly for a country that is fighting even with poverty as we speak in this age and time. But the issue was because of motivation, the students actually became a new generation of people interested in space investigation. That's really a motivation that never— it wasn't existent. And it was because this guy was really a driving force. And of course, COPUS is a forum where we can get networking, know who is who, who can contribute to our project and how. And this is how things happen. You have to piece the puzzle. And this is a place where we can do it.

Thank you. I'm going to jump back to Asanda now. Leapfrogging off of what we have just heard, how do we convince African nations who have multiple competing priorities from food security, poverty, all the way to disaster preparedness on the other hand, how do we convince African nations to make use of space and embrace it like we heard from our 2 speakers just now?

Okay.

I think convincing any nation on space would need obviously decision makers, right? Us convincing decision makers. But in Africa's case, I'd like to believe that Africans can see from other African nations. I think Africans get inspired by development within other African nations.

Yes.

And therefore, we need to find a way to really motivate intra-Africa collaboration, because that is what will make sense to Africans, and that is what will make sense to decision-makers in Africa, because Africa's ills are all the same. You talk to the same problems. Therefore, when you have the people that understand the problem, solving the problem, then it makes better sense. So we need to really encourage intra-Africa collaboration.

Thank you.

I just want to dive a little bit deeper there. I mean, yeah, we have the African Space Agency, the African Space Council, so a new impetus, a new momentum, but you already had the African Union and you had, you know, the space dialogue going on there.

What new—

what will be new? What will change with the new momentum that we see now that will drive greater inter-Africa collaboration?

Okay.

Over the years, a number of African nations have built space capability. Now that has to be recognized, that has to be acknowledged. And it is with that capability that we can build upon after Africa. Nations like South Africa, like Nigeria, we've built— we have a number of capabilities. We have rich capabilities in space. And so when we take stock of the development thus far, we are able then to allow Africans to develop other Africans and therefore develop Africa. Thank you.

Thank you very much. And Sergio, I'm going to come back to you now. Underlying everything that we've heard, we have the Outer Space Treaty, that reaffirms that space really is for the benefit of all. But how do you defend that in front of developing countries when in reality space activities are limited to a few spacefaring nations?

Thank you, Harti, for this challenging question, because you pointed out a sort of contradiction between what is written in Article 1 one of the Outer Space Treaty, and on the other side, the reality of things that show that the most powerful space countries can afford missions, projects, etc., while the others cannot because they do not have the same human capabilities and technological capabilities. But I think, first of all, that this is a contradiction that we find in many sectors. If you look at different sectors from space, you will find the same, that there are some general principles and then realities that sometimes are very distant from the, from the general principles. But I think that we should think in terms of of benefits which are direct and benefits which are also indirect, because of course not all emerging countries are so lucky to be in touch and in contact and in cooperation within frameworks that can really assist them in growing their capabilities and their technological skills. But I would say that why this principle was put at the top of the 9 principles that already in 1963 were adopted by the General Assembly of the United Nations in the Declaration of Principles, of Legal Principles, and it was put at the top saying that the exploration and use of outer space are for the benefit of all countries. Sometimes we say this space is for the benefit— more precisely, Article— the declaration in Article 1 of the Outer Space Treaty are worded in terms of use and exploration. This is what should be at the roots of the principle of benefit. Then we had this principle applied in several sectors. Of course, it is easier to have it applied within multilateral schemes of cooperation rather than in other kind of cooperation, more in the institutional sector than in the private sector, probably. But I don't think that it is impossible to take care of it even in more pragmatic terms, in more detailed terms, within activities that, as we have now, are public and private mixed, etc. Think about an issue which is at the core of our work in the legal subcommittee of COPOL, namely the Space Resources Framework we are dealing with. We are trying to design this framework, general framework for all the space activities having as their aim the exploitation and use of our space resource, natural space resources. Well, I think that sharing the benefits arising out from the utilization of space resources can be spelled out because there are a lot of benefits that even if you think in terms of private exploitation, that should in any case be carried out within the authorization of a state and within the framework of some public mission, should I say, think about the enabling, facilitating, and promoting and fostering the development of space science, the technology, development of technology, the applications of technology, the access and exchange of information as it is happening currently even in this room because this morning I heard very, very interesting technical presentation about projects on the moon of different countries which have as the object the use of— potential use of natural resources, the incentivization of joint ventures that can be used, the exchange of expertise among states always on mutually acceptable basis and terms. When we discussed— I remember I was member of this— probably you have heard about it— the EIGE Working Group on the Space Resources Utilization, and we were thinking about the building blocks. We tried also to have a list of possible benefits, and there was also at the end one indication of a possible international fund for this kind of activity. I mean, this can be a very, very inspirational but difficult objective. So I think that there are many possibilities of trying to develop. In any case, in my mind, it should be in the framework of each and one project that to regard space activities, because it is one of the main and at the roots of space policy and law. And I would say for each space project that you carry out, you should have a benefit indicator, at least saying what is the benefit for all countries deriving from the project.

Thank you. Thank you. An important reminder of the multilateral commitment going all the way back to 1963. Thank you very much. We're going to wrap up with a question to Lisa. Turning the tables, Lisa, we've been talking about incentives for developing countries, emerging spacefaring nations. Let's go back to industry. What incentive is there for industry to engage with developing countries, for example, at IAC?

Thank you very much. Um, industry engaging with developing countries will enable it to grow. So if industry is able to partner early with emerging countries and help them develop out their space ecosystems, they too will grow. So it's a fantastic opportunity to not only help grow the space ecosystem of that country, but to grow their own company as well. I think the, the great opportunity at IAC is to see the mix, to be able to share that information, and it's a really fantastic opportunity. Like I said, at this year's IAC in Sydney, we're really focusing on the Indo-Pacific region, so we're really hoping to grow that entire region with many different countries that will have never been to an IAC before. Um, one thing which we're finding as well is in Australia, so, um, our, our focus is on mining, with 14% of our GDP is actually based on mining. So as a country, we're actually able to offer a lot in the mining and resources space to the space community. There are many other countries in the Indo-Pacific region, for example, which have incredible capabilities in many other sectors that the space industry can leverage, um, and there are many unique solutions that they can work on together. So, a fantastic opportunity for collaboration, for growth, for industry, and we really look forward to bringing that together at IAC.

Thank you.

Thank you very much. Uh, I think that was a very interesting discussion. We are almost out of time, so So, I will close by saying that, you know, UNOSAI is constantly on a mission to promote the value of COPUAS membership, uh, and of space solutions. Uh, we often tell countries, you don't need to have a space agency or a satellite, uh, as, as Michael, you said, in order to, uh, have a voice in space governance or to, to benefit from space solutions. Um, so that's a message we are, we are dedicated to delivering.

Thank you.

Dedicated in passing. We also have a dedicated outreach campaign, despite your advice, Michael, underway to invite new members to join. But we're doing that by showing the impact and the value of joining. We do need countries in this room to act as champions and to clearly vocalize why COPUS is more than just about reading statements. It's really about the side meetings, the diplomacy. As Sergey mentioned, the value of the presentations that you, you know, information sharing and everything that you can learn, but also very much about all the networking and the engagements that ultimately result in new partnerships being forged. This needs to be a priority for all of us and for this committee, and I'd like to close by inviting all the delegations delegations to please be more proactive in your bilateral and regional engagements to help us grow COPUS and to ensure that every country has a voice and benefits from the knowledge and the information that is shared through this invaluable platform. So with that, I would like to ask you to join me in thanking our esteemed panelists for their valuable insights, and thanks once again to IAF for hosting this event.

Thank you.

Thank you very much, Aarti, for this outstanding moderation. And may I ask you also to do a group picture for this panel?

Yes.

Dear friends and colleagues, as we come to the close of this year's IAF Symposium, I want to extend my deepest gratitude to all of our panelists and moderators for the valuable contribution to discussions of today. We have explored critical questions on how to engage policymakers, secure public support, and foster global cooperation in space. And these are all issues that are more relevant than ever today. Today's symposium has reinforced the importance of working together to shape an inclusive and sustainable space future. This conversation does not end here. Space is not just about technology. It is about people, policies, and partnerships. At the IEF, we take pride in being the platform that connects all space people and specifically also beyond. And I encourage you to continue these important discussions at our upcoming events, the Global Space Exploration Conference, GEX 2025, in May in New Daily India, where we'll delve deeper into the future of space exploration. And also, of course, the next International Astronautical Congress, IC 2025, in Sydney, Australia, under the inspiring theme of Sustainable Space, Resilient Earth. I thank you all for your participation to be here, and I see you at our IEF events. Thank you.