What is the "space community"?

Hal Fulton


I sometimes use the word "space community" as if it were a well-defined term whose meaning we all agreed on. That isn't really the case, of course. Let me offer my own definition.

First of all, there are the people whose lives and careers are tightly bound to spaceflight and related activities. This includes the astronauts, certain scientists and engineers, and others. It includes contractors who work for NASA, JPL, and many other such entities. Presumably it includes the numerous individuals who help keep these organizations running: The secretaries, managers, artists, web designers, writers, and more.

I would argue that it includes many others who manage the infrastructure of such organizations: The truck drivers, custodians, cafeteria workers, security personnel, and many others. Some of these might not consider themselves "space people" at all; if not, perhaps they are not. It is certainly possible to work for an organization while remaining uninterested in its mission (or even disapproving).

But the entities such as NASA and ESA are not the only large groups that deal with space. There are also the "aerospace" companies such as Boeing, Lockheed, and Northrup Grumman. (As an aside, I dislike the term aerospace, as I find that it usually means something like "95% aero, 5% space.")

Then we have the obvious space companies, usually much smaller than NASA or Boeing, but very much growing in significance and influence. I am thinking here of SpaceX, Blue Origin, Virgin Galactic, Firefly, and a host of others. It's hard to imagine a definition of "space community" that does not include these companies and their employees.

But we still aren't finished, not by a long shot. There are the larger space advocacy groups such as the National Space Society, the Planetary Society, the Mars Society, and many others. It becomes a challenge to determine whether such a group is large or medium or small. I won't address that here. Some are not member-based at all, but many (or most) do have members. Let it suffice to say this: The space community includes all of the organizations themselves as well as the individuals who belong and/or volunteer.

Beyond that, there are many who may be space advocates in more quiet and unobtrusive ways. There are many people (how many, we may never know) who talk to their neighbors and coworkers about space but may never have joined any group.

There are also teachers at every level who tell their students about space every chance they get. As I come from a family of teachers, these people are especially important in my view.

Even then, we have not identified all the people comprising the space community. There are fans or enthusiasts who tend to keep their interest to themselves (understandable in many ways).

Where do you draw the lines between enthusiasts, activists, advocates, and professionals? It doesn't really matter. My real point here is that there are varying degrees of commitment to spaceflight. In fact, we could argue that there are those who are overtly uninterested or even hostile to the idea of space... and yet, through their use of GPS and other technologies, they are unwitting beneficiaries of space technology and participants in the space economy.

So I view the "space community" as a series of concentric circles, with the most committed nearer the center. But the outermost circle of all includes essentially everyone, whether they may admit it or not. We all, after all, are passengers on Spaceship Earth. Someday space may have the more or less universal acceptance that electricity has. I, for one, look forward to that day.