Two-hundred and thirty thousand people killed. One-and-a half million people left homeless. Two-hundred and eighty thousand buildings destroyed. A year after the magnitude 7.0 earthquake on January 12, 2010, in Haiti, the figures are still staggering. In today’s modern age, there is much that we can do to prevent such fallout from natural disasters regardless of location. We, as the international space sector, are already contributing to this prevention, but there is room for significant improvement.

I should preface this blog by saying that I am both French and American. At an international space event recently, a guy chuckled and said, “Ha! Well, that’s an ‘interesting’ combination.” What a great euphemism! Apart from being “interesting,” it is also one of the funniest cultural mash-ups, as there is hardly a pair of countries that currently analyze (another euphemism, read: ironically make fun of) each other more than France and the U.S. All that said, after growing up in California I tend to approach life primarily as an American … with perhaps two key exceptions — gastronomy and the international space sector. Let’s focus on the latter.