Space exploration seems like an extravagance when there are so many issues that need resolving here on Earth. How can space technology help solve some of our planet’s biggest challenges? originally appeared on Quora: the place to gain and share knowledge, empowering people to learn from others and better understand the world.
Answer by Marga Hoek, Author of “Tech for Good”, on Quora:
As the new space economy develops, it increasingly overlaps with sustainability in areas such as Earth observation, energy, and communications. These developing technologies from both public and private companies may soon become a new avenue for investors interested in pursuing both sustainability and investor returns. Many sustainability-oriented projects across industries employ space-based technologies and services to contribute to sustainability efforts and the Global Goals. Among others, satellite-based Earth observation, positioning, navigation, and communication services are used in an array of sectors ranging from monitoring environmental conditions and changes to supporting search and rescue missions.
Space tech applications, such as satellite technology and space exploration, offer exciting potentials and new opportunities to assess and address climate change and sustainability on a global scale. In the coming years, these technologies could enable humankind to have a more powerful global view of climate data. Those insights, in turn, can help enable the deeper integration of sustainability considerations into investment decisions. In fact, there is a lot of evidence that sustainability may be one of the most prosperous and underappreciated subdomains of the emerging space economy. Space and sustainability efforts are increasingly predicted to align by way of innovative applications of satellite technology and the many data that space infrastructure will produce over time.
From a data perspective, satellite technology and remote sensing introduces real-time, high-frequency tracking of relevant environmental degradation. Remote sensing via satellites, particularly on a daily basis, could reduce delays in the collection and analysis of key sustainability data points that financial markets increasingly rely on. The plethora of data collected from space, and the associated geospatial analytics, could be the key to reorienting market perspectives on how to approach sustainable finance in the coming years.
Satellite communications, in particular, are increasingly relevant to global challenges. Benefits of this tech solution are widespread and span across development sectors. A few examples include improving people’s lives by helping relief agencies and first responders get information in and out of disaster zones; reducing illegal fishing and improving safety and livelihood security; and increasing connectivity to provide better access to health care providers for patients in remote and rural areas. Predicting climate patterns is an imported application in space technology for Good. Earth-imaging technology as a business proposition is gaining traction, and several space tech companies are employing the tech to capture data for effective strategies to combat imminent environmental threats.
This question originally appeared on Quora – the place to gain and share knowledge, empowering people to learn from others and better understand the world.
