Politics of outer space
The politics of outer space includes space treaties, law in space, international cooperation and conflict in space exploration, and the hypothetical political impact of any contact with extraterrestrial intelligence.
Astropolitics, also known as astropolitik, has its foundations in geopolitics and is a theory that is used for space in its broadest sense. Astropolitics is often studied as an aspect of the security studies and international relations subfields of political science. This includes the role of space exploration in diplomacy as well as the military uses of satellites, for example, for surveillance or cyber warfare.
An important aspect of the geopolitics of space is the prevention of a military threat to Earth from outer space.
International cooperation on space projects has resulted in the creation of new national space agencies. By 2005 there were 35 national civilian space agencies.
