The Future of the Global Village: Vision from the Outer Space Perspective

Abstract

How may space assets be put to the peaceful, sustainable, eco-harmonic and nonviolent uses of civilization? New developments in tele-services and tele-education, the prospects of bringing efficient tele-services to the nations and peoples of planet Earth, organizational and financial aspects of regional and global space systems using innovative technologies as well as debates on the benefits and dangers of space technology, both for individuals and society, make sense only in a detailed conceptual framework of the future of our civilization.

What will be the initial ground rules of behavior, philosophical outlooks, predominant political doctrines, moral and ethical norms of the inhabitants of the Global Village who will further improve and continue to use space technology in their everyday lives? The answers to this and similar questions, which put together the past, the present and the future of the world community, will to a large extent determine the trends of development of space technology, which will serve the needs of Humankind in the foreseeable future.

This paper is a tentative effort to put forward a system of philosophic outlooks, worldviews, and political and socio-economic rationales, which could be used as roadmaps for national and international efforts, aimed at the development and practical use of space technology for the benefit of hopefully more equitable, humane, progressive and sustainable civilization that the image from space conjures up. New paradigms of scientific knowledge and political action, which are being accepted by the heads of governments and the wider public in the course of making Humankind “space conscious” of the call for a change of the obsolete perceptions, correction of the evident mistakes of the past and careful planning of future actions of the world community. Future developments of space technology in general and tele-services in particular will be determined by the hard choices that Humankind will make in search of a new philosophy, political and security regimes, economic relations, cultural norms and moral beliefs, shared by the majority of states and nations.