Download or read book The Geopolitics of Space Exploration written by Marcello Spagnulo and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2021-04-02 with total page 161 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is the tale of the modern Space Age, detailing all the risks, rewards and rivalries that have fueled space exploration over the decades. Jump into a world of ambitious entrepreneurs and determined spacefaring nations, of secret spy satellites and espionage, of all the cooperative and competing interests vying for dominance in ways little known to the public. Written by an Italian aeronautical engineer with over thirty years of experience in government and private industry, this English translation explains how and why the game has fundamentally evolved and where it is headed next. Exploring such topics as GPS and cyberspace, the economics of private and public industry and the political motivations of emerging spacefaring powerhouses like China, this book is an engaging foray into the ongoing battle for our terrestrial home through extraterrestrial means.

Download or read book Dark Skies written by Daniel Deudney and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2020-03-02 with total page 465 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Space is again in the headlines. E-billionaires Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk are planning to colonize Mars. President Trump wants a "Space Force" to achieve "space dominance" with expensive high-tech weapons. The space and nuclear arms control regimes are threadbare and disintegrating. Would-be asteroid collision diverters, space solar energy collectors, asteroid miners, and space geo-engineers insistently promote their Earth-changing mega-projects. Given our many looming planetary catastrophes (from extreme climate change to runaway artificial superintelligence), looking beyond the earth for solutions might seem like a sound strategy for humanity. And indeed, bolstered by a global network of fervent space advocates-and seemingly rendered plausible, even inevitable, by oceans of science fiction and the wizardly of modern cinema-space beckons as a fully hopeful path for human survival and flourishing, a positive future in increasingly dark times. But despite even basic questions of feasibility, will these many space ventures really have desirable effects, as their advocates insist? In the first book to critically assess the major consequences of space activities from their origins in the 1940s to the present and beyond, Daniel Deudney argues in Dark Skies that the major result of the "Space Age" has been to increase the likelihood of global nuclear war, a fact conveniently obscured by the failure of recognize that nuclear-armed ballistic missiles are inherently space weapons. The most important practical finding of Space Age science, also rarely emphasized, is the discovery that we live on Oasis Earth, tiny and fragile, and teeming with astounding life, but surrounded by an utterly desolate and inhospitable wilderness stretching at least many trillions of miles in all directions. As he stresses, our focus must be on Earth and nowhere else. Looking to the future, Deudney provides compelling reasons why space colonization will produce new threats to human survival and not alleviate the existing ones. That is why, he argues, we should fully relinquish the quest. Mind-bending and profound, Dark Skies challenges virtually all received wisdom about the final frontier.

Download or read book The Geopolitics of Space Colonization written by Bohumil Doboš and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 2023-09-21 with total page 148 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book presents a geopolitical analysis of the upcoming human exploration of celestial bodies in the inner solar system by the major space powers. It utilizes a systemic approach to the analysis of political events in space to develop a comprehensive overview of the factors influencing planned or proposed missions to the selected objects – the Moon, Mars, and asteroids. As a result of this analysis, the book establishes forward-looking scenarios of possible developments to highlight the main fault lines of the upcoming operations beyond the currently most heavily utilized terrestrial orbits. This framework is rooted in a holistic overview of factors relevant to the mid-term settlement and mining efforts and allows us to highlight the main focal points that will determine the future power distribution inside the inner solar system. The methodology is based on the analysis of an interplay of numerous factors deemed crucial for the decision-making of the major space powers and their capacities to promote their interests in a given region. Major space powers are, for the purpose of this book, understood as those actors with a realistic ability to participate in or lead the inner solar system colonization and mining missions in the mid-term future for which scenario-making is the most suitable. Given the realities of space travel, however, smaller actors are also taken into consideration as a part of cooperative efforts which are, nonetheless, dominated by the major players or, alternatively, as possible spoilers of the efforts in several regional settings. The book thus provides an in-depth analysis of the possible futures regarding the nearing competition over the celestial bodies This book will be of much interest to students of space power and policy, geopolitics, airpower, and International Relations.

Download or read book Securing Outer Space written by Natalie Bormann and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2009-01-30 with total page 472 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The challenges that space poses for political theory are profound. Yet until now, the exploration and utilization of space has generally reflected – but not challenged – the political patterns and impulses which characterized twentieth-century politics and International Relations. This edited volume analyses a number of controversial policies, and contentious strategies which have promoted space activities under the rubric of exploration and innovation, militarization and weaponization, colonization and commercialization. It places these policies and strategies in broader theoretical perspective in two key ways. Firstly, it engages in a reading of the discourses of space activities: exposing their meaning-producing practices; uncovering the narratives which convey certain space strategies as desirable, inevitable and seamless. Secondly, the essays suggest ways of understanding, and critically engaging with, the effects of particular space policies. The essays here seek to ‘bring back space’ into the realm of International Relations discourse, from which it has been largely removed, marginalized and silenced. The various chapters do this by highlighting how activities in outer space are always connected to earth-bound practices and performances of the every day. Securing Outer Space will be of great interest to students of space power, critical security studies and IR theory.

Download or read book War in Space written by Bowen Bleddyn E. Bowen and published by Edinburgh University Press. This book was released on 2020-06-18 with total page 323 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Applying strategic theory to outer space and drawing out the implications for international relationsOffers a definitive and original vision of space warfare that theorises often-overlooked aspects of contemporary space activities based in the discipline of Strategic Studies. This original research draws out the implications of spacepower for wider debate in grand strategy and IR.Applies the theory in a topical and contentious area within contemporary grand strategy - anti-access and area-denial warfare in the Taiwan Strait between China and America.Key principles are summarised in seven propositions to make the key take-aways of theory applicable and memorable for researchers and practitioners.This book presents a theory of spacepower and considers the implications of space technology on strategy and international relations. The spectre of space warfare stalks the major powers as outer space increasingly defines geopolitical and military competition. As satellites have become essential for modern warfare, strategists are asking whether the next major war will begin or be decided in outer space. Only strategic theory can explore the decisiveness and effects of war in space upon `grand strategy' and international relations. The author applies the wisdom of military strategy to outer space, and presents a compelling new vision of Earth orbit as a coastline, rather than an open ocean or an extension of airspace as many have assumed. Rooted in the classical military works of Clausewitz, Mahan, and Castex to name a few, this book presents comprehensive principles for strategic thought about space that explain the pervasive and inescapable influence of spacepower on strategy and the changing military balance of the 21st century.

Download or read book Global Population written by Alison Bashford and published by Columbia University Press. This book was released on 2014-02-11 with total page 482 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Concern about the size of the world’s population did not begin with the Baby Boomers. Overpopulation as a conceptual problem originated after World War I and was understood as an issue with far-reaching ecological, agricultural, economic, and geopolitical consequences. This study traces the idea of a world population problem as it developed from the 1920s through the 1950s, long before the late-1960s notion of a postwar “population bomb.” Drawing on international conference transcripts, the volume reconstructs the twentieth-century discourse on population as an international issue concerned with migration, colonial expansion, sovereignty, and globalization. It connects the genealogy of population discourse to the rise of economically and demographically defined global regions, the characterization of “civilizations” with different standards of living, global attitudes toward “development,” and first- and third-world designations.

Download or read book Space Forces written by Fred Scharmen and published by Verso Books. This book was released on 2021-11-02 with total page 273 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The radical history of space exploration from the Russian Cosmists to Elon Musk Many societies have imagined going to live in space. What they want to do once they get up there - whether conquering the unknown, establishing space "colonies," privatising the moon's resources - reveals more than expected. In this fascinating radical history of space exploration, Fred Scharmen shows that often science and fiction have combined in the imagined dreams of life in outer space, but these visions have real implications for life back on earth. For the Russian Cosmists of the 1890s space was a place to pursue human perfection away from the Earth. For others, such as Wernher Von Braun, it was an engineering task that combined, in the Space Race, the Cold War, and during World War II, with destructive geopolitics. Arthur C. Clark in his speculative books offered an alternative vision of wonder that is indifferent to human interaction. Meanwhile NASA planned and managed the space station like an earthbound corporation. Today, the market has arrived into outer space and exploration is the plaything of superrich technology billionaires, who plan to privatise the mineral wealth for themselves. Are other worlds really possible? Bringing these figures and ideas together reveals a completely different story of our relationship with outer space, as well as the dangers of our current direction of extractive capitalism and colonisation.

Download or read book Welcome to My Country written by Laklak Burarrwanga and published by Allen & Unwin. This book was released on 2013-08-01 with total page 223 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Come and spend some time with us at Bawaka. Get a taste of what it is like at different times of the year, and listen to our stories. Laklak Burarrwanga and family invite you to their Country, centred on a beautiful beach in Arnhem Land. Its crystal waters are full of fish, turtle, crab and stingray, to hunt; the land behind has bush fruits, pandanus for weaving, wood for spears, all kinds of useful things. This country is also rich with meaning. 'We can go anywhere and see a river, hill, tree, rock telling a story.' Here too is Laklak's own history, from her long walk across Arnhem Land as a child to her people's fight for land rights and for a say in their children's schooling. She and her family stand tall, a proud and successful Indigenous community. In the Yolngu world, we have a library in the land. You can't destroy it. If you burn it, it grows again. The land is full of more knowledge than you can imagine. 'Welcome to My Country is a beautifully warm, inviting experience. As soon as I read 'When the moon goes past you can see its reflection (in the water) like the inside of your heart', I knew this would be a very special read. Being immersed in an 'experience' is the way I would describe this book. It is an enticing journey into the heart of Yolngu life, in all its wonder across the physical, artistic and spiritual world. I love the conversational style - we walk, talk and sit down with family on every page. Lovely.' - Ros Moriarty, author of Listening to Country

Download or read book Scramble for the Skies written by Namrata Goswami and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2020-10-06 with total page 465 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: With a focus on China, the United States, and India, this book examines the economic ambitions of the second space race. The authors argue that space ambitions are informed by a combination of factors, including available resources, capability, elite preferences, and talent pool. The authors demonstrate how these influences affect the development of national space programs as well as policy and law.

Download or read book Limiting Outer Space written by Alexander C.T. Geppert and published by Springer. This book was released on 2018-04-18 with total page 375 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Limiting Outer Space propels the historicization of outer space by focusing on the Post-Apollo period. After the moon landings, disillusionment set in. Outer space, no longer considered the inevitable destination of human expansion, lost much of its popular appeal, cultural significance and political urgency. With the rapid waning of the worldwide Apollo frenzy, the optimism of the Space Age gave way to an era of space fatigue and planetized limits. Bringing together the history of European astroculture and American-Soviet spaceflight with scholarship on the 1970s, this cutting-edge volume examines the reconfiguration of space imaginaries from a multiplicity of disciplinary perspectives. Rather than invoking oft-repeated narratives of Cold War rivalry and an escalating Space Race, Limiting Outer Space breaks new ground by exploring a hitherto underrated and understudied decade, the Post-Apollo period.

Download or read book Space Settlements written by Fred Scharmen and published by . This book was released on 2019 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the summer of 1975, NASA brought together a team of physicists, engineers, and space scientists--along with architects, urban planners, and artists--to design large-scale space habitats for millions of people. Space Settlements examines these plans for life in space as serious architectural and spatial proposals.proposals.

Download or read book Leaving Earth written by Robert Zimmerman and published by eBookIt.com. This book was released on 2019-02-14 with total page 839 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this definitive account of the quest to establish a human presence in lifeless outer space, award-winning space historian Robert Zimmerman reveals the great global gamesmanship between Soviet and American political leaders that drove the space efforts of both following the Apollo lunar landings in the 1960s and 1970s. Beaten to the Moon by their Cold War enemies, the Russians were intent on being first to the planets. They knew that to reach other worlds they needed to learn how to build interplanetary spaceships, and believed that manned space stations held the greatest promise for making that possible. Thus, from the very moment they realized they had lost the race to the Moon, the Soviet government worked feverishly to build a viable space station program - one that would dwarf the American efforts and allow the Russians to claim the vast territories of space as their own. Like the race between the tortoise and the hare, the ponderously bureaucratic Soviet Union actually managed to overtake the United States in this space station race. Their efforts - sometimes resulting in terrifying near death exploits - not only put them far ahead of NASA, it also served to reshape their own society, helping to change it from a communist dictatorship to a freer and more capitalist society. At the same time, the American space program at NASA was also evolving, but not for the better. In fact, in many ways the two programs - and nations - were slowly but inexorably trading places. Drawing on his vast store of knowledge about space travel and modern history, as well as hundreds of interviews with cosmonauts, astronauts, and scientists, Zimmerman has superbly captured the exciting story of space travel in the last half of the twentieth century. "Leaving Earth" tells that story, and is required reading for space and history enthusiasts alike who wish to understand the context of the space exploration renaissance taking place now, in the twenty-first century.

Download or read book Lost in Space written by Rob Kitchin and published by A&C Black. This book was released on 2005-12-23 with total page 224 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Science fiction - one of the most popular literary, cinematic and televisual genres - has received increasing academic attention in recent years. For many theorists science fiction opens up a space in which the here-and-now can be made strange or remade; where virtual reality and cyborg are no longer gimmicks or predictions, but new spaces and subjects. Lost in space brings together an international collection of authors to explore the diverse geographies of spaceexploring imagination, nature, scale, geopolitics, modernity, time, identity, the body, power relations and the representation of space. The essays explore the writings of a broad selection of writers, including J.G.Ballard, Frank Herbert, Marge Piercy, Kim Stanley Robinson, Mary Shelley and Neal Stephenson, and films from Bladerunner to Dark City, The Fly, The Invisible Man and Metropolis.

Download or read book Environmental Geopolitics written by Shannon O'Lear and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2018-03-12 with total page 217 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This thought-provoking and clearly argued text provides a critical geopolitical lens for understanding global environment politics. A subfield of political geography, environmental geopolitics examines how environmental themes are used to support geopolitical arguments and physical realities of power and place. Shannon O’Lear considers common, problematic traits of such familiar but widely misunderstood narratives about human-environment relationships. Mainstream themes about human-environment relationships include narratives about presumed connections between human population trends and resource scarcity; ways in which conflict and violence are linked to resource use or environmental degradation; climate security; and the application of science to solve environmental problems. O’Lear questions these narratives, arguing that the role or meaning of the environment is rarely specified, humans’ role in these situations tends to be considered selectively, and little attention is paid to spatial dimensions of human-environment relationships. She shows that how we tend to think about environmental concerns often obscure value judgments and constrain more dynamic approaches to human-environment relationships. Environmental geopolitics demonstrates how we can question familiar assumptions to generate more just and creative approaches to our many relationships with the environment.

Download or read book Popular Culture Geopolitics and Identity written by Jason Dittmer and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2019-03-19 with total page 249 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Now in a thoroughly revised edition, this innovative and engaging text surveys the field of popular geopolitics, exploring the relationship between popular culture and international relations from a geographical perspective. Jason Dittmer and Daniel Bos connect global issues with the questions of identity and subjectivity that we feel as individuals, arguing that who we think we are influences how we understand the world. Building on the strengths of the first edition, each chapter focuses on a specific theme—such as representation, audience, and affect—by explaining the concept and then outlining some of the emerging debates that have revolved around it. New and updated case studies—including heritage and social media—help illustrate the significance of the concepts and capture the ways popular culture shapes our understandings of geopolitics within everyday life. Students will enjoy the text's accessibility and colorful examples, and instructors will appreciate the way the book brings together a diverse, multidisciplinary literature and makes it understandable and relevant.

Download or read book Cultural Perspectives Geopolitics Energy Security of Eurasia written by Mahir Ibrahimov and published by . This book was released on 2017 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Sea Power written by Admiral James Stavridis, USN and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2018-06-05 with total page 386 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From one of the most admired admirals of his generation—and the only admiral to serve as Supreme Allied Commander at NATO—comes a remarkable voyage through all of the world’s most important bodies of water, providing the story of naval power as a driver of human history and a crucial element in our current geopolitical path. From the time of the Greeks and the Persians clashing in the Mediterranean, sea power has determined world power. To an extent that is often underappreciated, it still does. No one understands this better than Admiral Jim Stavridis. In Sea Power, Admiral Stavridis takes us with him on a tour of the world’s oceans from the admiral’s chair, showing us how the geography of the oceans has shaped the destiny of nations, and how naval power has in a real sense made the world we live in today, and will shape the world we live in tomorrow. Not least, Sea Power is marvelous naval history, giving us fresh insight into great naval engagements from the battles of Salamis and Lepanto through to Trafalgar, the Battle of the Atlantic, and submarine conflicts of the Cold War. It is also a keen-eyed reckoning with the likely sites of our next major naval conflicts, particularly the Arctic Ocean, Eastern Mediterranean, and the South China Sea. Finally, Sea Power steps back to take a holistic view of the plagues to our oceans that are best seen that way, from piracy to pollution. When most of us look at a globe, we focus on the shape of the of the seven continents. Admiral Stavridis sees the shapes of the seven seas. After reading Sea Power, you will too. Not since Alfred Thayer Mahan’s legendary The Influence of Sea Power upon History have we had such a powerful reckoning with this vital subject.