Conceptualizing Space Actors: State and Power in Space

Abstract

This chapter sets forth a comprehensive, cross-disciplinary conceptual framework aimed at a dynamic comparison of space actors, taking into account their technical, industrial and political characteristics as well as the trajectories that bring them in or take them out of ‘the club’ of space powers. It contends that space power is a form of state power. It also argues that to acquire the status of space power, a state must possess a certain degree of spacepower, a multidimensional concept comprising two main attributes: capacity and autonomy. Autonomy refers to the state’s ability to formulate space-related interests of its own and devise national space strategies independent from or against the will of divergent interests both foreign and domestic. Capacity relates to the state’s ability to pursue those interests and implement its strategies in the political, diplomatic, military, economic, or social realms. The combination of these two dimensions results in a multi-fold typology of space actors, which consists of space powers, emerging space nations, and spacefaring nations. The latter group is then further divided into three distinct subgroups: skilled spacefaring nations, self-reliant spacefaring nations, and primed spacefaring nations.