There are two indisputable yet oft-forgotten facts about space exploration: space belongs to no one, and you don’t need to enter space to study its immense wondrousness. For centuries, cultures across the world have stared up at the night sky and wondered what lies among the stars. Exploring space needs a keen eye, an inquiring mind, a basic understanding of any of the space sciences, and access to some of the troves of data pouring in from space every day. Knowing this, one organisation within the United Nations is quietly and resolutely expanding the frontiers to space exploration by making education, teaching, and research a key part of its focus. In the process, it has bridged the perceptual and infrastructural barriers around reaching out to space and highlighted the benefits of networking and sharing knowledge.
In 1959, the United Nations founded a small expert unit within its Secretariat to service an ad hoc Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space – the United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs (UNOOSA). Since then, UNOOSA’s scope and size have grown significantly, but its focus has remained on promoting international cooperation in the peaceful use and exploration of space and using space science and technology for sustainable economic and social development. This mission, for want of a better word, is critical if space exploration is not to be considered the reserve of the few. To this end, UNOOSA established the Basic Spaces Science Initiative (UNBSSI). Its focus: encouraging the study and uptake of astronomy, astrophysics, and space science worldwide, particularly in developing nations.
