OPS-Alaska and Space Projects Group/Okushi Architects, Mito, Japan

[Abstract] The authors report on the concepts and issues underpinning what they term space-based information transfer systems (SBITS), that seek to connect global audiences through web interfaces with real-time images of lunar landscapes, video and displays monitoring a variety of astronaut activity from within the International Space Station, and other such schemes. The underlying assumption with such efforts is: If personal computer technology and applications have been commercializable, then their infrastructure and processes applied to space will be commercializable. However, many obstacles have emerged regarding the funding of such schemes, the actual scope of the technological infrastructure required to mount the systems, questions about intrusion on astronaut crews ’ privacy, confidentiality, personal space, and workload. Regardless of their current “doability ” status, these schemes are a convergence of various sub-taxonomies of space: cyberspace, outer space, personal space, public space, and cultural space. This report takes the astrosociological approach in examining the key issues concerning SBITS schemes. If resources were to emerge and the technology were to develop to enact SBITS schemes, spin-off benefits of casual outer space information transfer on Earth may have considerable social impact. Web link infrastructures aboard or near the International Space Station, or even further afield, could serve as interactive nexuses between astronauts and a diversity of persons on the Earth. The authors discuss a rang