The Many Fields Contributing to Space Ethics
Anthropologists, archeologists, artists... and that's just the "A"s
The other week I had the opportunity to visit Duquesne University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, to give a talk on space environmental ethics to the Biology Department. My wonderful hosts took me to the Moonshot Museum, a nonprofit space museum that shares a building with the aerospace company Astrobotic. You can look through a window in the Moonshot Museum and get a nice view of Astrobotic’s cleanroom, where they were building two different lunar landers at the time of my visit:
But my favorite part of the Moonshot Museum is their emphasis on the idea that anyone can contribute to the future of human space exploration. And they don’t just mean that anyone can become a rocket scientist— they mean that space exploration needs more than just scientists and engineers. Their interactive exhibits include art design challenges and guided debates on space law and ethics in addition to the usual mini lunar rovers and maps of the Moon’s surface.
I love this message, because like space science and human space exploration, there are so many different ways that people approach the work of space ethics, from a huge variety of backgrounds and disciplines. It’s one of the things I love about space ethics as a field, that it’s new enough (at least, as a named field— people have been thinking about space ethics since before humans went to space) that the disciplinary gatekeeping hasn’t set in yet, and contributions flow in from surprising directions. Visiting the Moonshot Museum immediately brought to mind all of the people I’ve met whose research and work involve space but who approach it from unexpected (to me) areas of expertise.
For example, there are space lawyers! I’ve been talking to and working with space lawyers for several years now, but I’m frequently reminded that plenty of people are still startled to learn that “space law” is an established field that’s been around for some time. Space lawyers work as consultants, activists, researchers, policymakers, and more. Law professor Michelle Hanlon, for example, directs the Center for Air and Space Law at the University of Mississippi School of Law, and she’s also co-founded a nonprofit called For All Moonkind that advocates for the protection of cultural heritage sites in space. AJ Link teaches space law and policy at the Howard University School of Law and works on a number of really fascinating projects involving space, inclusion, and justice, like AstroAccess and Jud Ad Astra (not to mention serving on the board of my nonprofit, the JustSpace Alliance). Another space lawyer on my board right now is Alissa Haddaji, who teaches space law at Harvard, directs a multidisciplinary space research hub called The Space Consortium, and works with the United Nations on planetary defense.
I’ve also had the pleasure of working with several space anthropologists and archeologists, who examine how humans interact with space (and with each other in space). York University professor Kathryn Denning, for example, studies social and ethical aspects of not just human space exploration but also SETI and astrobiology. I’ve had absolutely fascinating conversations with Deana Weibel, an anthropologist at Grand Valley State University who studies the intersection between religion and space. And Alice Gorman, an archeology professor at Flinders University, is currently co-leading the International Space Station Archaeological Project with fellow space archaeologist Justin Walsh (among her many, many other projects).
And these are just a handful of the people I can name off the top of my head! I’ve also had the pleasure of collaborating with architects, HR managers, urban planners, criminologists, educators, linguists, and a frankly startling number of artists, all working in some aspect of space ethics. So even as organizations like the Moonshot Museum (or The Open University, who are hosting a virtual talk this Friday called “You don’t need to be an Astronaut to work in space!”) continue to spread the word about the huge variety of careers related to space exploration, let’s keep the doors to space ethics wide open, too. We’ll need just as many different perspectives and voices working together on the ethical challenges we face in space as the technical ones.
Other News
Back in July, I traveled to Montreal for the 8th Interstellar Symposium, hosted at McGill University. The recorded video from my two panels is now available online:
Interstellar Travel: Are We Ready?
How would you select a crew for the first interstellar mission?
I had a great conversation with David Priess of the well-named Chatter podcast last week: Governing Space Settlements Ethically with Erika Nesvold.
My interview with the Danish-language podcast RumSnak also just came out. My interview was in English, but the rest of the episode is in Danish: Hvordan sikrer vi en retfærdig fremtid blandt stjernerne? [How do we ensure a just future among the stars?]
Finally, you may recall that I attended a workshop at NASA Headquarters earlier this year on Artemis & Ethics (I’ve mentioned it once or twice). The report for that workshop is now out, if you’d like to learn more: Artemis, Ethics and Society: Synthesis from a Workshop.
Interesting post and story. Concerning “Space Ethics”, I was just wondering if there's been any discussion surrounding Elon Musk's and SpaceX's capture of low-earth orbit and how his ubiquitous Starlink satellites continue to degrade the night sky to the point where ground-based astronomy is facing an existential threat? Keep up the great work!
I refer you to a recent post of ours here: https://open.substack.com/pub/astronomyforchange/p/just-when-you-thought-it-couldnt?r=292os&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web