Scramble for the Skies: The Great Power Competition To Control the Resources of Outer Space
VIEW EVENT DETAILSWith Namrata Goswami and Brian Israel
On Wednesday, March 16, 2022 from 5:00 p.m. - 6:00 p.m. Pacific, Asia Society Northern California will host a virtual keynote address with Dr. Namrata Goswami on her coauthored book Scramble for the Skies: The Great Power Competition to Control the Resources of Outer Space. Brian Israel, who teaches Space Law at Berkeley Law and serves as Associate General Counsel for International Law at NASA, will moderate this discussion.
With a focus on China, the United States, and India, this book examines the economic ambitions of the second space race, arguing that space ambitions are informed by a combination of factors, including available resources, capability, elite preferences, and talent pool. These influences affect the development of national space programs as well as policy and law. Learn more and purchase the book here.
Registration is free for Asia Society Members.
The public program will be followed by a VIP Reception from 6:00 p.m. - 6:30 p.m. Pacific. The VIP Reception is a special benefit for Groundbreaker and Innovator Members and is a private and off-the-record discussion with direct access to our speakers. Groundbreaker and Innovator Members will receive a link to join the VIP Reception the week of our program. To become a Groundbreaker or Innovator Member, visit here.
AGENDA
Date: Wednesday, March 16, 2022 from 5:00 p.m. - 6:00 p.m. Pacific
5:00 p.m. Program Begins
6:00 p.m. Program Concludes
6:00 p.m. VIP Reception for Groundbreaker and Innovator Members with Direct Access to Speakers
6:30 p.m. VIP Reception Concludes
Link to join virtually via Zoom will be emailed the day before and an hour before the program is scheduled to begin by Rexille Uy, Director of Programs ([email protected]). This will be a webinar program; attendees will not appear on camera and will participate via the Q&A box.
SPEAKERS
Dr. Namrata Goswami is an independent scholar on space policy and Great Power Politics. Recently, she has been invited to teach at the Thunderbird School of Global Management, Arizona State University for their Executive Masters in Global Management, Space course. She is a consultant for Space Fund Intelligence. She was subject matter expert in international affairs with Futures Laboratory, Alabama and guest lecturer, India Today Class, Emory University. She worked as Research Fellow at MP-Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses, New Delhi; a visiting Fellow at Peace Research Institute, Oslo, Norway; La Trobe University, Melbourne, Australia; University of Heidelberg, Germany; Jennings-Randolph Senior Fellow, United States Institute of Peace; and was a Fulbright Senior Fellowship Awardee. She was awarded the Minerva grant by Office of the U.S. Secretary of Defense to study great power competition in outer space. In April 2019, Dr. Goswami testified before the U.S-China Economic and Security Review Commission on China’s space program. Her co-authored book, Scramble for the Skies: The Great Power Competition to Control the Resources of Outer Space was published 2020 by Lexington Press; Rowman and Littlefield. Her book The Naga Ethnic Movement for a Separate Homeland was published 2020 by Oxford University Press.
Brian Israel, a graduate of Berkeley Law in 2009, has served as a State Department official, General Counsel of a venture-backed space company, and Co-founder of a technology startup.
From 2009 to 2017 Brian served in the U.S. State Department’s Office of the Legal Adviser, with stints representing the United States in international arbitrations and litigation, negotiating and implementing international agreements, “engineering” international cooperation in the Arctic, outer space, and other cold, dark places, and advising the Department’s East Asia and Pacific Bureau. Brian served as head of the United States delegation to the United Nations space law body (2012-16), and co-chair of the Arctic Council’s Task Force on Arctic Marine Cooperation, an intergovernmental process to design and negotiate a governance framework for the Arctic Ocean (2015-17).
Brian served as General Counsel and Secretary of Planetary Resources, a pioneering space exploration company, from May 2017 through its acquisition by ConsenSys, a blockchain venture studio, in October of 2018. Following the acquisition, Brian co-founded ConsenSys Space, a startup developing open source platforms for global public participation in space endeavors. Brian presently serves as Associate General Counsel for International Law at NASA and teaches Space Law at Berkeley Law.