Topic: Private Sector Access to Outer Space
Country: Rwanda
Delegate Name: Andrew Lehman
School: Forest Hills Eastern High School
Topic page: background guide and all position papers All Rwanda position papers GLIMUN 2016 committees
The private exploration Of space is important to discuss in the UN , because setting a precedent for this issue will be crucial for the private space race. With the rise of private entities capable of designing, building, and launching their own technology into Earth orbit, it is now possible for genuine competition to drive development. Practically speaking, this should result in lower costs, higher safety, and more widely available service a trend also seen with the rise of commercial aviation. Greater access at lower cost, in particular, would mean that the benefits of satellite technology could be much more widely distributed. So the questions arise who gets what when it comes to space exploring do we really need to be involved with the private exploration or focus just on countries. As delegates we need to consider honestly who gets outer space ? How should it be organized ? How should we allow private companies priority when fellow members of the UN have not been able to launch spacecraft.
We signed the 1967 space treaty with the U.N. and that is about it. Times are tough in Rwanda they have been ever since our 1994 genocide that nearly cut the population in half but none the less divided the people of our country. We got through our hardships and currently are number 2 in Africa in terms of economics and are looking to continue our success in baby steps. The UN has only had a few minor documents signed , the larger of all was from 1967 the outer space treaty that we signed then.
Rwanda needs to seek out the USA and other resource powerhouses for a boost or kick start. We need to be guided under a wing of an ally and learn from them until at one point we can launch our own rockets self sufficiently. My plan is to sell government land to private companies to launch from Rwanda with an almost optimal climate for launch and a royalty tax to profit hopefully. Rwanda would like to eventually be able to launch people into space but we just quite aren’t there. In the next 20 years I would like to see Rwanda launch a man into space with a united nations international crew.
Main sources
CIA world factbook
UN website
Rwanda’s government website
