Outer Space Cultural Heritage Segmentation Research Initiative 

Cultural traditions and identity are inextricably connected to our past, present and future – all in which, in a plethora of cultures over millennia, humans have sought to understand and explore the universe, building upon our collective knowledge, advancing our technological capacities and increasing our physical and emotional ability to adapt longer and farther beyond Earth. It is through this cultural mechanism, “one of the mainsprings of development,” galvanized by compounding individual cultural heritage segments that we have created outer space cultural heritage (“OSCH”) – any element of which is innately composed of successive segments that “[c]reati[vely] draw[] on the roots of cultural tradition, but [have] flourishe[d] in contact with other cultures.”

By acknowledging and establishing a place in the harmonization of space law and cultural heritage law for the irrefutable contributions of those cultural heritage segments by a plethora of cultures over human history, the law can not only mitigate perceived disparities in national contributions to human space exploration, but it can recognize legal standing with a wider diversity of States to participate in negotiating rules to regulate OSCH and to participate in its safeguarding. This legal premise seeks to recognize the contribution to space exploration that communities or individuals existing, or that historically existed, within their modern territories have made, and may make. The For All Moonkind Outer Space Cultural Heritage Segmentation Research Initiative compiles the empirical basis for those contributions.

– Dr. MM Losier – Lead, For All Moonkind Heritage Council