-        How has the role of the state changed in experienced space-faring nations, what role does it currently play, and how essential are these roles? This first question aims to study both the shifting configurations of state actors in space programs over time and what new and perhaps less-obvious roles they will play in a changing paradigm. Working on the hypothesis that state funding has declined while the importance of state regulation and legislation has increased in the lead-up to contemporary space technology, I want to understand the factors that brought this change about and what it means for the viability of the next era of space technology, social spaceflight in particular. Many suggest say state roles will retain primacy for the immediate future – is this the case?

-        How viable are grassroots 3.0 movements with minimal/no state involvement, and what different types and configurations exist? This second question aims to assess social spaceflight projects by both how much state involvement they contain and what form this involvement takes. This follows on from the first question by assessing the varying benefits different configurations of state involvement can lend and aims to understand what kinds of involvements only states can offer; what kinds can be gained from other sources; which of these are essential and which optional to a space project’s success; and therefore analyse the continuing or eroding importance of state contributions.

-        Can such movements give democratic legitimacy and/or public engagement to space technology as a whole when states cannot? The third question relates to the outcomes of social spaceflight projects. This will study the importance of social spaceflight as explicitly ‘particularly’ and to what extent it can lend spaceflight a new democratic legitimacy from its grassroots origins and a new kind of public engagement with space technology when it is explicitly the general populace such projects are created by and aim to involve. Lastly, given the complexity of the technologies involved, it will assess to what extent space technology can ever be construed as an accessible public good.