Increasing Space Participation: Reviewing Two Years of Public Engagement within The Spring Institute for Forests on the Moon

The United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) stress the importance of making space accessible to all, yet significant barriers remain, particularly for non-spacefaring nations and underrepresented disciplines. The Spring Institute for Forests on the Moon has set targets to reach these communities through educational outreach, focusing on non-spacefaring countries and non-engineering disciplines. This is primarily achieved through yearly hackathons held across an expanding number of continental regions. This study seeks to answer the question: How effective are Spring’s outreach initiatives in engaging underrepresented communities in space science? To assess this, we conducted a data analysis of participant demographics, retention rates, and engagement across our hackathon events over the past two years. Our findings indicate a growing diversity in participants, with increased representation from non-spacefaring nations and various non-engineering fields. However, despite these gains, challenges persist in scientific collaboration per se. We identified cultural barriers and knowledge gaps as key obstacles to broadening participation in space-related initiatives. In response, we present in this paper new initiatives to bridge these gaps including a moving museum to offer general space and ecology knowledge closer to targeted communities and a citizen science effort to engage global audiences in meaningful scientific contributions. These initiatives, still in their early stages are aimed at strengthening future outreach efforts and fostering more inclusive engagement in space exploration.