Space exploration is one of the grandest feats mankind has
pursued. Jimmy Carter, 39th President of the United States, sent the
following message with the Voyager spacecraft:

This Voyager spacecraft was constructed by the United States of
America. We are a community of 240 million human beings among the more
than 4 billion who inhabit the planet Earth. We human beings are still
divided into nation states, but these states are rapidly becoming a
single global civilization.

We cast this message into the cosmos. It is likely to survive a
billion years into our future, when our civilization is profoundly
altered and the surface of the Earth may be vastly changed. Of the 200
billion stars in the Milky Way galaxy, some–perhaps many–may have
inhabited planets and spacefaring civilizations. If one such
civilization intercepts Voyager and can understand these recorded
contents, here is our message:

This is a present from a small distant world, a token of our sounds,
our science, our images, our music, our thoughts, and our feelings. We
are attempting to survive our time so we may live into yours. We hope
someday, having solved the problems we face, to join a community of
galactic civilizations. This record represents our hope and our
determination, and our good will in a vast and awesome universe.

Space exploration has had immesurable impact on the connectivity
amongst citizens. The challenges of communicating to spacecraft have
driven immense amounts of research into communications protocols and
spawned generations of entrepreneurs. For instance, NASA was deeply
involved in the design of the ARPANET and its precursors, technology
which led to the internet. Andrew Viterbi, an MIT Alumnus who did lots
of Aerospace research, including designing the Viterbi algorithm which
was a method for deep space communications. Viterbi went on to found
an innovative telecommunications company Qualcomm, which is now one of
the largest companies in the world. The development of these
technologies is deeply rooted in space exploration, but greatly
enhances the communications between citizens. Space tech can’t claim
responsibility for the openness of the networks, but at least it is
responsible for its creation and rise in the first place.

These technical innovations not only improve the communication between
citizens, but also greatly improve the effectiveness of local and
national government by providing new tools for sharing information
more quickly. This can be used to great effect in everything from
coordinating responses to natural disasters to getting the pothole
down the street repaired more quickly.

The development of space technology is in a sense a perfect public
good.  Everyone in the world benefits from the innovations made from
space tech.  Space is the ultimate frontier. Innovations from space
tech include sustainable tech (such as solar panels), maker tech such
as 3-D printers, medical science, communication tech, better
insulating materials. Space also has the promise of permanently
blunting major inequality by mining resources from asteroids. This
paints space tech as a truly inclusive civic technology, because
everyone benefits from the fruits advanced scientific research bares.

Perhaps the most important public good produced by space tech is hope.
Hope that despite humanities differences and disagreements, we all
share a common goal. Up above the atmosphere, humans are able to put
all else aside and focus on the pursuit of exploration. For instance,
the International Space Station is as complex of a technical wonder as
it is a political miracle. Not only does it unite governments, but
also draws in the people of a nation to regain some faith in
government’s ability to focus on lofty, idealistic goals and achieve
miracles. By re-igniting faith in the process, space projects can
increase civic engagement. Interestingly, space projects actually must
engage the public to exist at all. The projects are expensive and make
a juicy target for politicians to cut when they are trying to balance
budgets. It takes angry Citizens who care deeply about this to raise
their voices and demand their country fund such projects. In order to
foster these dedicated citizens, space agencies must engage the public
at a deep level.

Overall, I think that it is a little bit silly to just use “space” as
a civic technology. But I think that is important to consider that mass
public scientific endeavors with lofty idealized goals make somewhat of a
perfect civic technology by not only benefiting the public good, improving
government, and communication between citizens, but also motivating public
engagement by inspiring hope.