The Geopolitics of Space Exploration

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.

PART 1: The 20th century
1.       The Space Race: Moon dust
This chapter deals with the origin of the Apollo mission; it provides insights on the political reasons for the USA/Russia Space Race of the 60’s with an eye to the propaganda from each nation
2.       Rocket Science: missiles and globalization
This chapter deals with the political and technical issue related to the development of Space Launchers worldwide since the 60’s: it provides political and historical insights on the reasons why launchers are strategic with a great number of examples
3.       Star Wars: the movie we have never seen in the cinema
This chapter deals with the Cold War in Space: US programs such as Corona and Echelon are described as well as the Russian counterparts
4.       Rocket Man: from the Space Shuttle to the International Space Station
This chapter deals with the political and historical origins of the Shuttle and ISS, namely the Dyna Soar and the MOL: their evolution is linked to the political path of the Space Race evolution through the 60’s up to the 90’s.
5.       GPS: the Copernican revolution of the modern era
This chapter deals with historic recall of mankind search for the Time Control: from the ancients to GPS the search for a maritime clock up to the radio transmission is linked to the GPS. Also, the European troubled Galileo project is politically analysed.
PART 2: The 21st century
6.       Space Tecnopolitics between Myth and Realpolitik
This chapter deals with a geopolitical and historical comparison of XX century Space activities in USA, Russia, China, Europe, Israel, India and Japan (the main spacefaring nations) providing a forecast of their evolution in XXI century linked to the global geopolitical evolutions
7.       Space Economy: a business on the launch pad
This chapter deals with the so-called Space Economy: Space mining, Space based solar power, IoT and global telecommunications…. activities from Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos and others are analysed eyeing what they could look like in the next future
8.       Battlestar Galattica: the future battlefield
This chapter deals with the current and future weaponization in Space: US, Russia and China weapons (hypersonic, laser, jammers, micro-sats) are described and forecast on their evolutions is provided
9.       Man on Mars: next stop?
This chapter deals with the dream of landing a man on Mars: the technical aspects which make this unfeasible are deeply detailed as well as the political reasons.

Marcello Spagnulo is an aeronautical engineer. He has worked for thirty years in the space sector both in private industries and in government agencies, in Italy and abroad (Holland, France, Guyana). He has held various managerial positions in strategy and planning, business development, program management and aerospace engineering. Since 2009, he has published three books related to space, two of which published with Springer.