Throughout the five episodes of Resourceful, we have had a chance to exchange with scientists, entrepreneurs and engineers, but we had not involved the regulatory experts into the conversation yet.

In this sixth episode, Steven Freeland, professor at Western Sydney University and Bond University, and Vice-Chair, United Nations COPUOS Working Group on Legal Aspects of Space Resource Activities and Antonino Salmeri from Lunar Policy Platform are joining the conversation, telling us more about the big regulatory questions that arise when we ⁠make great ⁠plans for space exploration.

Listen until the end to discover some links with previous episodes and understand how everything comes together. Spoiler alert: we will be looking back at the first episode where we explored the Antarctica model together with Katherine Joy.

Sources: www.esric.lu/news-media/podcasts

A small nation on the global map: Luxembourg plays a central role in the field of space. With the creation of the Luxembourg Space Agency in 2018, and then, in 2020, the inauguration of the first research and innovation centre focused on space resources - ESRIC, the small Grand Duchy is no longer renowned only for its financial services and European institutions.

Furthermore, Luxembourg is hosting the event of reference that has recently concluded its sixth edition: Space Resources Week. This year’s conference brought together the community comprised of key actors from academia, research, space agencies, industry, as well as the UN Expert Group on Outer Space Affairs (UNOOSA).

In this episode of Resourceful, we have invited Dr Kathryn Hadler, Director of ESRIC to tell us more about the outcomes of this conference.

Sources: www.esric.lu/news-media/podcasts

It is estimated that the lunar economy will reach a total of €170 billion of cumulative market value and lead to the creation of close to 2 million jobs in the next 15-20 years. The next decade could be marked by over 400 lunar missions, making the Moon a new priority for space agencies and commercial actors. 

To demystify this topic, in the fourth episode of Resourceful, we have invited Kyle Acierno from OffWorld and Estelle Godard from Promus Ventures to share some insights on what the future of business in space looks like. 

Sources: www.esric.lu/news-media/podcasts

We have surrounded our planet Earth with spacecraft that make our daily lives easier to navigate, help us tackle the impact of climate change, as well as answer vital scientific questions. Today we are launching 10 times more than we did 10 years ago and even if there is a lot of space in space, it is all becoming a bit cluttered.

Right now we are only talking about satellites and space stations, but with more and more missions to the Moon underway – estimated at 400 by 2030, we will become increasingly challenged as a society to rethink our footprint in space and switch to a circular mindset. On earth, electronic waste is foreseen to reach 75 million tons by 2030, but what about the trash that is currently floating above our heads?

For this third episode of our mini-series, we have asked Sabrina Andiappane from Clearspace and Bernd Weiss from Lulea University of Technology to clear the air for us and explain what kind of solutions they envision for a circular future of space.

With humanity’s desire and need to accomplish more in space, the question of sustainability arises. How can space exploration become less reliant on earth’s resources, and on public funding, and flourish in the context of a future in-space economy?

In this second episode of Resourceful we have invited two experts to tell us more about sustainability in space. Daniel Faber, the CEO and co-founder of ⁠Orbit Fab⁠ will uncover the mysteries of refueling in space, while Najwa Naimy, responsible for vehicle design and product strategy at the ⁠Exploration Company⁠, will help us understand more about the importance of opening space up to non-traditional players and designing solutions that are reusable and versatile. 

References and sources:

https://www.esric.lu/news-media/podcasts

The integration of in-situ use of space resources has the potential to completely revolutionise the way space exploration is being conducted. In the long term, it can decrease the costs associated with space flights, it can make our activities in space cleaner and bring circularity into the space equation.

In the first episode of the series, we would like to understand more about what space resources are and the potential they have in making space exploration a cleaner and more sustainable activity. We have asked Katherine Joy, professor of Earth Sciences at the University of Manchester to share her experience as a planetary scientist, as a space enthusiast and as someone who has been to one of the most remote places in the world to conduct science.

This series is brought to by the European Space Resources Innovation Centre (ESRIC) supported by the Luxembourg National Research Fund (FNR). It is produced in collaboration with SciLux.

References and sources:

Shackleton, Ernest (1911). The Heart of the Antarctic. London

Famous space missions:

Curiosity: www.planetary.org/space-missions/curiosity

Perseverance: mars.nasa.gov/mars2020/

Endurance: endurance22.org/history-of-endurance

Sound effects: www.freesound.org

E.H. Shackelton intervention: UCSB Cylinder Archive: www.library.ucsb.edu/OBJID/Cylinder1859

Sounds from the Apollo 11 post-landing: history.nasa.gov/alsj/a11/a11.postland.html