Selling space

Fresh from their packed-out Cannes Lions session, Space Isn’t The Future - It’s Your Brief, feted physicist Brian Cox and astronaut Sian Leo Proctor met the Lions Daily News to challenge one of the creative industry’s biggest blind spots: the assumption that space is a distant subject reserved for astronauts, billionaires and science fiction.

They were joined by fellow panelist Aarti Holla-Maini, director of the United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs, and event convenor Sergio Fernandez de Cordova, executive

chairman of Pvblic Foundation, to discuss how space has already become essential to 21st-century global infrastructure, shaping everything from agriculture and education to communications, climate monitoring and economic growth.

De Cordova said the timing of the session feels significant — in light of the recent Artemis mission and Elon Musk’s SpaceX IPO. “Everybody’s talking about space,” he said.

“But nobody really understands the fabric that underpins it. What does it actually take to change policy? How do you unlock the benefits and make sure that African women can be part of this, or people from small islands in the Pacific?”

Cox believes one of the greatest misconceptions is that space is still viewed as “a luxury arena. But actually, it’s not. We’re not just talking about space toys or space tourism. It’s agriculture. It’s food supply. It’s everything.”

Cox, who expressed his frustration at the lack of public investment in space-related innovation, has no doubt we are “at the beginning of the new Industrial Revolution in space,” he said. “And there’s an opportunity to do it better than in the past.”

Aarti Holla-Maini, director of the United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs, believes the commercial world has yet to recognise how closely its own ambitions align with space applications. She spotlighted the real-world applications associated with data.

“The potential for new companies to do things with space data is phenomenal,” she said, pointing to applications ranging from water management to agriculture. Commercial spacecraft pilot, artist and Star Trek lover Sian Leo Proctor said she returned from orbit with a changed perspective.

“We live on a waterworld. We are united by one sky and one ocean,” she said. “It connects us all.”

She championed the idea of ‘Earthlight’ — the understanding that humanity shares a single home. “Maybe if we start talking the fact we live in an Earthlight world, people will feel more connected to our planet and want to do something with it,” she said.

For Proctor, the mission is no longer reaching space. “I’d been chasing space my entire life, and I thought that was the goal,” she said. “But what I realised is that that is not the goal. The goal is what you do with that opportunity when you come back.”

Cox shares that belief, arguing that politicians might take space more seriously if they were required to visit space. “Every single astronaut that I’ve spoken to has said it changed their perspective,” he said. “It should be compulsory for politicians.”