["Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management, EarlyView. ", "\nABSTRACT\nThis paper develops a stochastic dynamic model of terrestrial resource use with an ecological threshold and delayed, uncertain returns from space exploration. We distinguish between sustainability‐oriented space investments, which enhance resource regeneration, and exploration investments, which generate environmental externalities and uncertain future gains. We identify a mechanism through which the prospect of future discoveries reduces the shadow value of terrestrial resources, inducing higher extraction and lower sustainability investment. When exploration is sufficiently intense, discovery is delayed and uncertain, environmental externalities are significant, and global effects are not fully internalized, a sustainability trap may emerge in which the resource stock declines even above the ecological threshold. We extend the model to a multi‐country setting with first‐mover advantages and show that weak international coordination leads to excessive exploration and over‐extraction. A calibrated numerical exercise illustrates the magnitude of these distortions. The results suggest that space exploration may exacerbate resource depletion under specific conditions, highlighting the need for coordinated governance of extraction and exploration activities.\n"]