Dissertation!

After blitzing the dissertation for over a week, I seem to be getting ahead of the workload of my 12,000 word dissertation. Currently it stands at approximately 9,000.

It's been quite an interesting topic. As a note to myself more than anything, to help me clarify my thoughts, I'm jotting down the gist of each chapter so far. Apart from the theoretical chapter. I know that bit well enough inside and out! To those reading this is a sneak preview of some of my work.

I believe the American space policy chapter depicts a superpower struggling to define the best policy to preserve its own assets. It is torn between weaponising space to protect its assets but this would likely spark an arms race... on top of soured relations with Russia and China. On the other hand, America will have to restrain itself once more from weaponisation and believe in restraint from the other sides... this worked in the Cold War with the Soviet Union. Why do some military hawks believe it won't this time, when the United States does not have a capable ideological foe?

Europe proved to be interesting too. The European Commission has practically taken over the European Space Agency and is giving it orders. Good ones too. Europe is weaning itself off of dependence on America bit by bit. Galileo sat-nav and the Common Security and Defence Policy go hand in hand.

Russia, for its part, is performing a balancing act. It is keen to get any and all countries off of GPS dependence. It is actively helping the Chinese and Indians in developing their own sat-nav systems.

America seems to be losing its superiority in space... bit by bit, as more states and actors emerge to use outer space for communication, commerce and science research. The space sector, I believe, will see the most radical change in the 21st Century, in technology, capabilities, politics, and general public understand and appreciation.