Wrapping Up

Abstract

For the mankind, the journey in space has been fascinating for last five decades. Particularly, few states have achieved significant success in the short period of time in this field. The journey that had started with a launch of a small satellite into the low earth orbit (1957 Sputnik launch) subsequently peaked to the man reaching the Moon and now humans have even ambitions of capturing asteroid and changing the track of its motion! Today, states are using space systems to undertake various kinds of activities from undertaking various business transactions to disaster management to fighting wars.

Space-faring nations have the responsibility to coordinate their efforts to launch time-bound, financially shared programmes to take up societal missions on a large scale, pooling their capabilities in launch vehicles, spacecrafts and applications. Such major cooperation will act as a great measure of security, in addition to empowering the most underprivileged, minimising communication gaps and reducing threats of conflict.

A. P. J. Abdul Kalam

*He is a former President of India and an eminent scientist, quoted in Lele A, Singh G (eds.) Space security and global cooperation. New Delhi: Academic Foundation; 2009. p. 21.