Nearly 100 countries now have an interest and some level of capability in space, says Kevin O’Connell, Trump’s former Director of Space Commerce.
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00:00In the past when people talked about the space race it was largely the US and
00:04Russia, Soviet Union I guess at that time, and and then China came in into the
00:09picture but now we have many more initiatives, Europe, India, Japan and
00:12others. Give me a sense of how many, because you mentioned it a little earlier
00:16about people coming in from other countries, how many nations have space
00:19programs now? So I think the last time we looked there were almost a hundred
00:22countries that had some kind of a capability in space and you know you see
00:26the United States, China, Japan, Europe being some of the larger participants in
00:34space but you also see countries now exploring this. This is another place
00:38where countries are very excited about what can be done with the space economy.
00:43Years ago I did a had an interview with a senior minister and he was very
00:47excited about space and he said to me you know Kevin I'm gonna have for my
00:50country I'm gonna have a launch capability and a sensing capability and
00:54a navigation and I said respectfully minister no you're not because you can't
00:59afford it actually but what we are seeing is we're seeing countries
01:03starting to focus on what space can actually do for them in terms of
01:07connecting people on earth, in terms of bringing education to people that could
01:11not have it historically, in terms of understanding how we're making use of
01:15resources on the planet. These are compellingly important.