Title: The Evolutionary Boundaries and Business-Economic Dynamics of the "New" Space Economy
Speaker: Prof. Anthony P. D'Costa, Honorary Professorial Fellow, University of Melbourne, Australia
Date: 28 January 2026
Time: 2.30 pm
Venue: Room 510, Academic Complex (West)
Abstract:
The lunar landing by ISRO with Chandrayaan 3 in 2023 and the bringing back of a carbon-rich sample also in 2023 from Bennu, an asteroid that is 4.5 billion years old by NASA are recent examples of space projects undertaken by governments in search for scientific that also promises benefits for humanity. Less known are the subtle yet visible shifts taking place in the wider space sector with private business participation, thus giving rise to a "new" space economy (NSE). There is considerable research on the dynamics of different industries and sectors analyzing the technological, economic, business, institutional, and policy dimensions. How relevant are these for NSE? In this exploratory work, informed by the recently published The Oxford Handbook of the New Space Economy, https://global.oup.com/academic/product/the-oxford-handbook-of-the-new-space-economy-9780198881049?cc=it&lang=en#.
This presentation briefly addresses first, what is NSE, second, identifies and disaggregates some of the key forces behind NSE and its growing importance to the economy, and third, offers a basic understanding of the anticipated social and economic development implications of the wider evolving space economy. It concludes with some ethical dilemmas associated with extraterrestrial activities in outer space.
Speaker Bio:
Anthony P. D'Costa is an Honorary Professorial Fellow, University of Melbourne. He has taught at the University of Washington, National University of Singapore, Copenhagen Business School, University of Melbourne, and the University of Alabama in Huntsville. He has fourteen books to his credit and is widely published in the areas of the political economy of development in India and East Asian industrialization, globalization, and economic development. He has been a recipient of numerous fellowships, including Fulbright-Hays; American Institute of Indian Studies; Abe of the Japan Foundation; UNU-WIDER, Helsinki; Korea Foundation; and POSCO at the East West Center, Honolulu.
His most recent publication is The Oxford Handbook of the New Space Economy (2025), while his 14th book Indian Business, Economic Development, and the Jobs Dilemma in the Twenty-first Century will be also published by Oxford University Press in 2026