Decolonisation in the second space age

The corporate space race is rendering space increasingly ‘congested, contested, and competitive’. Governments too are upgrading their space capabilities. In Denmark, the new Danish Space Strategy promises a doubling of investment to ensure a space industry that is ‘ready for battle’. However, concerns over the environmental and sociopolitical consequences of test launches, extensive satellite programmes and ambitions to establish bases on celestial bodies have sparked growing criticism of a ’colonisation of outer space’. This policy brief reveals a growing political rift over the question of space colonisation.