A space tourism destination: environmental, geopolitical and tourism branding considerations for New Zealand as a ‘launch state’

Abstract

Favourable media coverage and the New Zealand space agency’s focus on commercial opportunities, positioned within the Ministry of Business Innovation & Employment that is also responsible for tourism, provides a basis for a developing space tourism industry. There are many possible environmental, cultural, and geo-political consequences to being a space launch state with implications for tourism, sustainability, and tourism branding. The ‘100% PURE NEW ZEALAND’ tourism brand in use since 1999 has received on-going criticism from various sources in response to reports of wide-spread environmental degradation in New Zealand, dairy farm conversions causing nitrate run-off and contamination of waterways, and New Zealand’s comparatively high per-capita level of greenhouse gas emissions. The establishment of commercial space launch operations, and the ancillary industrial and service facilities required, opens a new dimension of environmental hazard for New Zealand that has not been considered in the space launch legislation, or any other existing legislation, for regulating the environmental impact of rocket powered high altitude and space vehicles.

This paper will examine the environmental, cultural, geopolitical and regulatory issues for New Zealand as a space launch state, and the likely implications for sustainable tourism, tourism branding, and New Zealand as a space tourism destination.

Keywords:

• New Zealand
• space tourism
• environmental hazard
• sustainability
• tourism branding

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1 Freeland (2014, p.52-53) alleges DARPA’s Alaskan HAARP array (High Frequency Active Auroral Research Program) was utilised for weather manipulation and focusing High Frequency energy for military applications, referred to in a 1999 report of the EU Parliament as ‘development and deployment of electromagnetic weaponry’ (p.61). Lockheed Martin advertise their THADD (Terminal High Altitude Area Defence) Weapon System and SBIRS (Space Based Infrared Surveillance) systems on their own webpages and in media releases.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Malcolm Scott

Malcolm is the undergraduate academic advisor for the UC Business School and is currently completing a thesis on the subject of the psychosocial impacts of climate change and geoengineering. His research interests are the social impacts of climate change, eco-anxiety, geoengineering and environmental regulation and legislation.