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Summary

 

At its 87th plenary meeting, on 18 December 1978, the UN General Assembly, on the recommendation of the Special Political Committee recommended the establishment of an agency or a department of the United Nations for undertaking, coordinating and disseminating the results of research into unidentified flying objects and related phenomena.



UN General Assembly decision 33/426, 1978

Establishment of an agency or a department of the United Nations for undertaking, coordinating and disseminating the results of research into unidentified flying objects and related phenomena.


At its 87th plenary meeting, on 18 December 1978, the General Assembly, on the recommendation of the Special Political Committee adopted the following text as representing the consensus of the members of the Assembly:

  1. The General Assembly has taken note of the statements made, and draft resolutions submitted, by Grenada at the thirty-second and thirty-third sessions of the General Assembly regarding unidentified flying objects and related phenomena.

  2. the General Assembly invites interested Member States to take appropriate steps to coordinate on a national level scientific research and investigation into extraterrestrial life, including unidentified flying objects, and to inform the Secretary-General of the observations, research and evaluation of such activities.

  3. The General Assembly requests the Secretary-general to transmit the statements of the delegation of Grenada and the relevant documentation to the Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space, so that it may consider them at its session in 1979.

  4. The Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space will permit Grenada, upon its request, to present its views to the Committee at its session in 1979. The committee’s deliberation will be included in its report which will be considered by the General Assembly at its thirty-fourth session.”

 


UN Outer Space Office Background
THE UNITED NATIONS ROLE IN SPACE


The United Nations has been a forum for international discussions relating to space activities and the environment for many years. But in the last few years, like many other organizations, it has paid increasing attention to the need to protect the environment, including the space environment.


The work of the United Nations relating to space activities and the environment focuses on the promotion of international cooperation in the use of space technology for monitoring the terrestrial environmental; and working to ensure that space activities do not themselves cause damage to the space or Earth environment.


The efforts of the United Nations to promote international cooperation in space fall into two rather different categories.

  1. One is the negotiation of international political and legal agreements. For these efforts, the Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space and its Legal Subcommittee are the primary forums, and the major participants are the space powers. The developing countries with space programs, including Brazil, China and India, are playing an increasingly active role in the international policy debates, in particular with respect to the space and Earth environments.

     

  2. The second category of United Nations space activities is the provision of technical assistance to developing countries, mainly through the Program on Space Applications. This Program is overseen by the Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space, and the major participants are, of course, the developing countries. Efforts to promote the use of space technology for monitoring and protecting the terrestrial environment fall mainly into this category.

The United Nations monitoring role has focused on education and training for developing countries. The Office for Outer Space Affairs, through its Program on Space Applications, organizes short seminars, workshops and training courses and arranges for fellowships for long-term education through institutions in countries with advanced facilities.

 

Since its inception in 1970, this Program has concentrated its efforts on:

  • Remote Sensing of the Earth

  • Life Sciences

  • Space Transportation Systems

  • Planetary Exploration

  • Astronomy

The fields of planetary exploration and astronomy are commonly subsumed under the term Basic Space Science.