In its rush to join the space race, New Zealand needs to ensure it is not simply doing the bidding of a superpower like the United States, Prof Robert Patman says.
This week, NZ's first Minister of Space, Judith Collins, is talking up this country’s rapidly growing involvement in the new global race to space.
University of Otago international affairs specialist Prof Patman, however, is urging caution and wide-ranging debate to safe-guard the country’s interests.
‘‘I don't think many Kiwis would be happy if we participated in space just as, if you like, a subsidiary of a great power,’’ Prof Patman said.
Activities of companies such as NZ-US-owned Rocket Lab and Christchurch-based Dawn Aerospace have propelled NZ into the space race stratosphere. The country is third in the world, behind the US and China, for the largest number of successful vertical space rocket launches.
Rocket Lab has an $800 million contract to build satellites for US President Donald Trump’s $300 billion Golden Dome satellite defence system.
Watch full interview here
In April this year, Ms Collins told a gathering of 10,000 people at the US Space Force’s headquarters in Colorado that New Zealand was ‘‘open for business’’.
But Prof Patman, while acknowledging the potential benefits to the NZ economy, said it raised questions that need careful consideration.
‘‘As New Zealand becomes a space-faring nation, should we be transparent and should we discuss quite openly our participation in military-related projects?
‘‘And what does it mean for... our place in the world generally?’’
He said the country should be trying to build space-related links with other small and middle powers - ‘‘not simply acting as a conduit of a foreign power’’.
In the latest Global Insight episode, Prof Patman also discusses the future of international relations in an off-world context, cites the example of Antarctica for how the world could manage its affairs in outer space, and asks what it would mean for humankind if we encountered non-human intelligence.
