Space shall be considered as the common heritage of humankind. Therefore exploration and the use of outer space shall be carried out for the benefit and in the interest of all countries irrespective of their degree of economic or scientific development. Space shall also be the province of all humankind. This principle is reflected in the United Nations Outer Space Treaty of 1967.

In practice, however, this is a rather controversial issue. The degree of involvement of a country in the space business highly depends on its level of economic, technological and scientific development. This, in turn, strongly determines the potential benefits to the country. Similar reasoning applies to the issue of economic growth. Therefore, when considering the issues of benefit for humankind and economic growth, we need to classify countries depending on their involvement in space business. Countries shall be distinguished based on criteria like involvement in the International Space Station (ISS), availability of launch capability, existence of a space agency, or involvement in space related activities.

Consider the utilization of solar power energy. In the long run, it can provide an environmentally friendly global solution for the increasing future demand of energy. However, it should not be forgotten that the economy of many developing countries relies heavily on the exploitation of natural resources on Earth. It shows that the replacement of Earth resources by extraterrestrial resources must carefully be planned to prevent unanticipated problems.

Another example is the justification of technology advancement in terms of global benefits. For countries already involved in the space business, technological benefits may be advantageous. For uninvolved developing countries, history has shown that there is a risk that the introduction of advanced technology may harm locally provided technologies. This would further increase the gap between developing and developed countries.

However, since human space exploration will be an international endeavor, the issues of the benefits for humankind and economic growth will be at the top of the agenda. Any disadvantages for developing countries may be foreseen and prevented. Human space exploration may eventually serve as a standard or a model for decreasing the gap between developed and developing countries.

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