Space Know-How and Space Spin-Offs – Whether A Question Of Existence Or Luxury For Societies Of Developing Countries
- Paper number
IAC-07-E5.I.03
- Author
Mr. Sethu Nandakumar Menon, University of Paris XI, France
- Year
2007
- Abstract
From sputnik to the present day, Space based technology has taken several giant leaps and we are at the moment living a space age life. The very important question is to check whether the changes in the societies around the world, to the new space age life, are limited to the developed countries. This paper would be looking into the effect of space technology on societies of the developing countries. The fundamental question that would be investigated is to see whether space assisted technology have any effect on the day-to-day life of people in a developing country. The paper will be going through some of the areas that have great implication, like; distant education using communication satellite, Telemedicine, use of remote satellite to monitor environmental variations, disaster management and resources management, etc. The paper will be looking into each of the space-assisted technology in different societies around the world and will be analysing the effect it make to that society. It is interesting to see that the space spin-off technologies have made more impact on the developing country societies than their direct counter-part. On a closer look at the real use of these areas on the very basic life of people in the developing countries, it can be seen that, it is question of existence than a question of luxury. The paper ends with a note on the importance of Space activities and more importantly the spin-off technology for the very basic factors of life in the developing societies around the world.
- Abstract document