Portugal participates in Expo’s Space Week
Expo’s Space Week took off on Sunday, 17 October, with a World Majlis session co-organized by Portugal and Italy, with international experts calling for multilateral collaboration and regulatory frameworks for space exploration.
The panellists in the discussion, ‘Using Space for the Benefit of all Humanity’ agreed that space exploration – and satellites in particular – had brought incredible benefits to humanity. Among the participants were Ricardo Conde, President of Portugal Space (Portuguese Space Agency) and Miguel Belló, CEO of the Atlantic International Research (AIR) Centre.
Ricardo Conde underlined the need for concerted international efforts among stakeholders from all countries to create regulatory frameworks to bring order to space, so that safety is given top priority and the benefits of exploration are felt equally by everyone. “If we look at what we have done with our land and our oceans, and what we are doing today in outer space, it becomes cleat that we need to be aligned in regards to knowledge and policies, to be able to take care of this common good that is Space. There can be no space exploration without some kind of regulation”, he said.
Drawing attention to what needs to change in the space sector, Miguel Belló stressed that governments and companies must engage citizens in matters of space exploration: “We cannot understand the human life today without Space, and we need to transmit that to people. Once everyone is engaged, we’ll be in a better position to deal with those issues”.
The World Majlis also featured the participation of Sergei Krikalev, Executive Director for Human Space Flights, State Space Corporation ‘Roscosmos’ of Russia and former cosmonaut; Michèle Lavagna, Professor in Flight Mechanics at Politecnico di Milano, Italy; and Ibrahim Al Qasim Space Science Advisor at the UAE Space Agency. Steven Freeland, Professor of International Law at Western Sydney University, Australia, and Mathias Link, Director – International Affairs and Space Resources at the Luxemburg Space Agency, participated virtually.