TEACHING SPACE POLITICS AND POLICY - AN OVERVIEW AND EVALUATION OF STUDENT ATTITUDES

The late professor Carl Sagan viewed space exploration as important fo r 'species survival' and human evolution. Despite his admonition, few universities offer undergraduate courses in space studies. This paper articulates a compelling rationale for offering an undergraduate cours e in space politics and policy, and illustrates how this course is str uctured and taught at Colorado State University. The pedagogy involved in such a course, including relevant literature, classroom projects, and group discussion activities, is presented and discussed. Course im pacts on student thinking about support for space exploration and deve lopment of space are evaluated through class surveys. (C) 1998 Elsevie r Science Ltd. All rights reserved.