Evenduring times of conflicton the ground, space has historically been an arena of collaboration among nations.
But I believe that the future may be different.
Despite tensions on the ground, bothacted carefully to avoid causing crisesand evencooperated on a number of projectsin space.
Asmore countriesdeveloped their own space agencies, several international collaborative groups emerged.
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These multinational ventures were primarily focused on scientific collaboration and data exchange.
In the past five years, several new space blocs have emerged with various levels of space capabilities.
Two recent space blocs theArtemis Accordsand theSino-Russian lunar agreement are an example of such competition.
Race to the Moon
TheArtemis Accordswere launched in October 2020.
They are led by the U.S. and currently include 18 country members.
This joint Sino-Russian mission also aims to eventually build aMoon base and place a space stationin lunar orbit.
Any nation can join the Artemis Accords.
One example is theAsia-Pacific Space Cooperation Organization, which was formed in 2005.
Led by China, itincludesBangladesh, Iran, Mongolia, Pakistan, Peru, Thailand and Turkey.
Countries that use the system could become dependent on China, as is thecase of Iran.
As a result, some scholars see a future of space cooperation defined byshared commercial interests.
The dominance of states over companies in space affairs has been starkly exemplified through the Ukraine crisis.
As a result of state-imposed sanctions, many commercial space companies havestopped collaboratingwith Russia.
There are many benefits when nations come together and form space blocs.
Space is hard, so pooling resources, manpower and know-how makes sense.
However, such a system also comes with inherent dangers.
History offers many examples showing that the more rigid alliances become,the more likelyconflict is to ensue.
