Alain Dupas (1945-2022) was a French astrophysicist and specialist in space policy. Holding a doctorate in the physical sciences, in the mid-1970s he was a lecturer (maître-assistant) at Paris XI University (Orsay) and wrote the space column for the magazine La Recherche. For more than twenty years he served as a project officer at CNES, working on the long-range planning of space systems and programmes, and later as an associate researcher at George Washington University's Space Policy Institute and aerospace adviser to the EBRD. In 2005 he co-founded the European Astronaut Club with Jean-Pierre Haigneré. A recognized observer of the geopolitics of space, he wrote many books, among them La lutte pour l'espace (1977), La saga de l'espace (1986) and Une autre histoire de l'espace (1999).