Space powers or aspirant space powers like India, China and Turkey long framed their space ambitions as purely developmental. But they’re now jostling among themselves and with pioneer space-farers like the US to beat each other to the Moon or Mars. This is as much for the sake of national power and prestige as it is to boost development.
Where does this leave Africa? Is outer space the next terrain of a new Cold War-style proxy contest for allegiance and influence in which African countries will again be pawns in a power game — or be left behind? Should African countries join the race to stake a claim in what some analysts see as a new age of extra-terrestrial colonisation?