ROB KRAWCZYK

PhD Student

Research Title: Singapore in Space: Traces and Trajectories of an Emergent Astropolitics
Research Group: Politics, Economies And Space (PEAS)
Thesis Advisor: Prof James D. Sidaway
Thesis Co-Advisor: Assoc Prof Woon Chih Yuan

Within the geographies of outer space, space conferences have formed an important site for scholars to critically examine how security discourses, geopolitical alignments, and visions of extraterrestrial order are produced and historically staged. In February 2026, at an inaugural “Space Summit” within the Singapore Airshow, Singapore would announce the formation of the National Space Agency of Singapore (NSAS). This PhD research investigates space summits and exhibitions in Singapore as key elite sites for framing and trajectorialising outer space narratives by staging (inter)national histories of space technology, cooperation, and ‘space heritage’ linking wider spaces, sites, and industries.

The project aims to explore the ways in which “Singapore in space” and the National Space Agency of Singapore are being narrated by different groups, in ways that might be considered an emergent astropolitics beyond the leading (post-)cold war space powers, and forms of sovereign autonomy-making and resistance within the expanded (extra)terrestrial canvas. The project plans to conduct ethnography and archival research, and draws on the fields of space history, popular geopolitics, and postcolonial Science and Technology Studies to contribute a new case study to the geographies of outer space sub-field within political geography.

Rob holds a BA in Geography from the University of Oxford and MAs in Research Architecture from Goldsmiths, University of London, and Politics and International Relations from the Yenching Academy of Peking University. Before NUS, he worked as a Research Assistant at Forensic Architecture and at PwC in London. He is interested in filmmaking and enjoys cycling around Singapore.