Seeds of hope, meaning and destinies of the space economy

By Vatican News

Jul 25 2023

On July 21st, a group of world experts and stakeholders gathered in the F.X. Nguyen Van Thuan Room at the Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development and on Zoom to discuss emerging digital and sociopolitical challenges related to the impact of new technologies in the domain of the space economy.

The event held in the Vatican on July 21st brought to light emerging digital and sociopolitical challenges related to the impact of new technologies in the domain of the space economy, towards new approaches to integral human development and peace. Leading world experts and relevant stakeholders offered a general scientific and sociopolitical analysis along with case studies showcasing how new technologies can be placed at the service of integral human development in the space economy domain. The event raised crucial questions regarding risks and benefits of the social development of space technologies and their impact on human beings and the earth, our common home, in light of the vision laid out by Pope Francis in Laudato Si’ and Fratelli Tutti: “we can once more broaden our vision. We have the freedom needed to limit and direct technology; we can put it at the service of another type of progress, one which is healthier, more human, more social, more integral” (Pope Francis, Encyclical Laudato Si’, 112).

In fact, “The digital age changes the perception of space, time and the body.” It generates new meta-physical worlds for which the terrestrial globe has definitively understood as “no longer an impassable border of human existence, but a threshold open to the breadth of boundless spaces and new destinies.” (Pope Paul VI in his message to cosmonauts, July 21, 1969)

A no longer coherent world

Financial crises, pandemics and wars have widely affected the entire spectrum of human activity and piqued global reflection on the structures and phenomena that govern the world. In apocalyptic terms, we could say that we no longer live in a coherent world anymore. This forces us to find coherence starting from the etymology of the word coherent in the Latin language: co-here, keep together.

Consistency, therefore, becomes the property of things that can stay together. We can conceive coherence not necessarily in just one solitary (single) sense; through His meditation,  the Holy Father has placed in such way the possibility of a word that actually speaks, but without saying something, that is, something of one, discriminating and isolating and that does not necessarily tend to mean: in short, a word that makes what it enunciates hold together, which is therefore coherent, also when it comes to opposites, that may make us free and capable of “embracing his cross finding the courage to embrace all the contradictions of the present time”.

“Why are you afraid? Have you no faith yet? Lord, your Word affects us tonight and affects us all.” (Pope Francis, “Urbi et Orbi” Blessing Extraordinary Moment pf Prayer presided over by Pope Francis, Sagrato of St Peter’s Basilica, 27 March 2020)

This gathering has its roots in the Spei Satelles, “guardian of hope,” a space mission that aims to be a sign of hope for all humanity, conceived by Mgr. Lucio Adriàn Ruiz, Secretary of the Dicastery for Communication who attended the event yesterday. Mgr. Ruiz explained that Spei Satelles, “guardian of hope,” is the name of the space mission, promoted by the Vatican’s Dicastery for Communication. The Italian Space Agency coordinated the project, Italy’s National Research Center (CNR) made the nanobook, and the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering at Turin’s Polytechnic University built the satellite, while students at the Salesian University Institute of Venice created the logo for the initiative. The IDCGE of Buenos Aires also participated in the project, while the Digital Apostolate of Turin handled the pastoral and cultural coordination of the mission.

Spei Satelles contains a nanobook, a 2x2x0.2 mm silicon slab, that departed from California’s Vanderberg base on last June 13th, on which the images, speeches and readings of the moment of prayer celebrated by Pope Francis on March 27, 2020, were imprinted by nanotechnologies, in the midst of the pandemic. In that sense, faced with the cultural and expressive variety that constitutes our way of life, it is not the occurrence of the written language that can be the lowest common denominator, but the image, an icon of general understanding. We need strong, evocative, universal, engaging gesture that calls humanity to hope and the need for it to be cultivated with concrete, material or spiritual gestures such as the one the Pope gave alone in a rain-soaked St. Peter’s Square on 27 March 2020, when humanity was facing the most acute phase of the pandemic.

Especially in consideration of the importance of the space economy for socio-economic sustainable development, this event is a continuation of the conference “Promoting Integral Human Development and Peace in the Digital Age, New Technologies in the post-covid world”, organized by the DPIHD in December 2021, and coordinated by Alessio Pecorario, Vatican Official, Cybersecurity & New Tech expert.

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