Space 4.0 – a common, democratic European space, part 3

Building a common, democratic European space is not only a huge economic, industrial and social undertaking. This is a very complex civilizational and political undertaking, of a global nature, but generated in our European space giga-region coordinated by ESA and strongly coupled with the American space giga-region of NASA. Policies for the implementation of common democratic space over other giga-regions are slightly different, so the globalization of the idea of space development is politically and economically highly hybrid. Various space giga-regions are more or less politically and economically susceptible to cooperation and acceptance of certain general principles as a lasting common denominator. In the NASA and ESA giga-regions we have the slogans NewSpace and Space 4.0, which we call together as OpenSpace. A very strong common basis of these giga-regions, but also of China and India, is the emphasis on developing and strengthening the private space sector. It is about the creation, strengthening and development of large companies capable of producing rockets, transport systems for people and goods, as well as numerous SME sector companies that can provide a significant variety of space infrastructure services. The development of space and satellite technologies in Europe is very uneven. Only a few countries have their own infrastructure of a self-sustaining space eco-system. The idea of Space 4.0 includes equalizing space opportunities in Europe. To become globally competitive, Europe must carefully implement its policy of equalizing the development of space technologies in its territory. A version of this paper in Polish was published in Elektronika Monthly by SEP.