Decolonizing Final Frontier Expansionism? A space criminological critique of ESA’s 2019 Space Resources Strategy

Ensuring energy supply security is a core interest of the modern state, which has historically entailed the colonial geographic expansion of extractive industry and political influence, if not outright control, over sites of extraction. Plans for the extraction of space resources, such as the 2019 ESA Space Resources Strategy, give insight into the increasing activity in space and the governance thereof, and how, or if, ESA diverges from or reproduces past territorially expansionist patterns of exploitation and destruction. Despite existing space law, space resource extraction is still on the frontiers of both policy-making and control. This article critically examines the Strategy through the dual lenses of critical geopolitics and emerging space criminology. It defines and applies colonialism, decolonialism, and space expansionism, showing how discourses of sustainability and innovation can conceal extractive and hegemonic practices. Drawing on both empirical examples and science fiction allegory, the article argues that ESA space resource strategizing risks reproducing the “colonial trap.” It concludes by outlining pathways toward genuinely decolonized and sustainability-oriented governance of space resources.