Hi there, JustSpace friends and followers, and welcome to 2022! It’s been a little while, so let’s dive right into the latest news on space and social justice.

News

New Board Members

First, we’d like to give a big welcome to our newest Board members: Anuradha Damale, Tanya Harrison, Nadia Khan, Savannah Mandel, and Natalie Treviño. We’re looking forward to working with them! 

Board Members… in Space!

We also extend a hearty congratulations to former JustSpace Board member Sian Proctor, who flew to space with the Inspiration4 mission in September. We talked about the ongoing debate and complex emotions surrounding civilian missions to space in our last newsletter, but one thing is clear: we are so happy for and proud of Sian!

JWST… also in Space!

NASA’s newest space telescope also launched safely late last year, and is now settling in at the L2 Lagrange point far beyond the Moon’s orbit. But the joy and relief of JWST’s successful launch and deployment was dimmed by the controversy surrounding its name. As we’ve discussed in past newsletters, the telescope’s namesake, former NASA administrator James Webb, served as Undersecretary of State during a government purge of LGBT employees, also known as the Lavender Scare, and many astronomers and space enthusiasts have advocated for a name change. But in late September, before the telescope launched, NASA announced that it would not be changing the name. According to NASA Administrator Bill Nelson, their investigation “found no evidence at this time that warrants changing the name of the James Webb Space Telescope.”

Space Debris

In November, Russia tested an anti-satellite weapon by destroying one of their own decommissioned satellites in orbit. But nothing in orbit is completely “destroyed,” and debris from the successful breakup of the satellite continued to orbit, posing enough of a threat to the International Space Station that astronauts on board temporarily withdrew into the station’s shelters. 

A month later, China reported to the United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs that China’s own space station had been forced to implement safety maneuvers to prevent collisions with two Starlink satellites. While international tensions continue to grow over these incidents, so too does the crowding in Earth’s orbital space, threatening the safety of the humans working there as well as the orbital infrastructure that supports much of our modern technology and Earth science.

Dark and Quiet Skies

Besides the threat of collisions, satellite fleets like Starlink’s also threaten astronomical science through light pollution: with thousands of satellites orbiting overhead at once, it’s becoming impossible to take a telescope image without the final image being contaminated by the bright streaks of satellites whizzing by. A portion of these satellite constellations can even be seen with the naked eye, permanently altering the night sky for skywatchers even in the darkest regions on Earth. 

To address this growing problem, the International Astronomical Union is heading up the formation of a new IAU Centre for the Protection of the Dark and Quiet Sky, which will approach the issue from several perspectives. For example, the Trailblazer project is gathering data in the form of professional and amateur astronomical observations of these satellites to get a better understanding of the scale of the problem. The Centre’s organizers are also in talks with several of the companies launching these satellite fleets, including Amazon, OneWeb, and SpaceX, to find mitigation measures that can be applied before launch.Other groups will focus on policy development and community engagement.

To Watch

On October 8, MIT Media Lab’s Space Enabled research group held the third event in their Indigenous & Anticolonial Views of Human Activity in Space series. This panel event, Mars and Beyond, featured JustSpace Board member Monica Vidaurri and discussed the “exploration of Mars, astrobiology and interactions with potentially habitable environments, and our long-term futures in space with  respect to Anticolonialism and indigenous perspectives on human activity in space.” 

In late January, the Smithsonian National Air & Space Museum hosted “Claiming Space: A Symposium on Black Futures - Past, Present, and Potential.” One of the many fantastic panels was Outer Space: Projecting Histories and Futures onto the Stars, an exploration of “the Afrofuturist interventions attempting to reimagine space and questioning the standard assumptions behind imagined futures in space.” The all-star panel included Timiebi Aganaba, Elizabeth Hamilton, Chanda Prescod-Weinstein, and Danielle Wood.  

Earlier this month, the NYC-based nonprofit 1014 hosted a virtual panel on Earth's Orbit: Threshold to the Stars, featuring a spectacular set of panelists including Fred Scharmen, Cris van Eijk, and JustSpace Board member Anuradha Damale, discussing the past and future of human activities in the Earth’s backyard.

To Read

On March 4, a discarded rocket stage is due to crash into the Moon. Originally thought to be the second stage of a Falcon 9 launched in 2015, more recent investigations have revealed that it’s more likely to be from the Chinese Chang'e 5-T1 lunar mission from 2014. This is not the first time that a piece of human-made space junk has ended up creating a new crater on our nearest neighbor, but space archeologist and JustSpace Board member Alice Gorman notes that what makes this particular impact interesting is “how it acts as a litmus test for changing public opinions about our responsibilities to the space environment.” 

Speaking of space archeology, Alice Gorman also has an exciting new project, along with Justin Walsh: an archeological study on the International Space Station itself! The team will study the ISS as carefully as an archeological dig site, analyzing a series of one-square-meter photographs of the station’s walls (taken by crew members on board) to study “how a space culture has emerged and evolved.” 

Finally, we’ve recently been enjoying JustSpace Board member Savannah Mandel’s 2021 piece, The Death of Outer Space Dreams: Hard Decisions and a War of Utopian Demands, exploring her personal struggle with the conflict between the “transcendental dreams” of human space exploration and the urgent needs here on Earth. Check it out!

Coming Soon

Last Exit: Space

On March 10, you’ll be able to catch JustSpace co-founder Lucianne Walkowicz in LAST EXIT: SPACE, a new documentary about human dreams of living in space from director Rudolph Herzog and executive producer Werner Herzog. LAST EXIT: SPACE will be available to stream on Discovery+, beginning March 10. 

South by Southwest

We’re excited to announce that JustSpace co-founder Erika Nesvold will be participating in a panel at SXSW on March 12 called Alienating Mars: Challenges of Space Colonization, inspired by a virtual panel held in March 2020 that featured our other co-founder, Lucianne Walkowicz. Along with experts in astrobiology and human space medicine, this panel will explore the physical and ethical challenges of living on Mars.

JustSpace Board member Tanya Harrison will also be participating in a SXSW panel on March 13 called Space Exploration for All: You Can Discover Space, discussing how everyone can explore space, from the comfort of their backyard or with a diverse community across the globe.

Space Science in Context

Later this year in October, Ellie Armstrong and JustSpace Board member Divya Persaud will be hosting their second Space Science in Context conference, a free virtual conference bringing together people interested in and who study outer space and/or its social contexts for an interactive event. Full registration will begin in August, but you can follow the link to learn more, register your interest, and request accessibility support!

Take Action

Last year, we opened JustSpace memberships to newsletter subscribers. Our memberships are sliding scale and non-transactional (meaning pay-what-you-can), and everyone gets the same things: If you become a member, you’ll have access to our virtual community spaces, and in the future, we’ll be able to offer in-person gatherings, our upcoming podcast and video content, writing, and more. Supporting JustSpace will help us reach our mission goals by allowing us to compensate people for their time and labor for our future projects, as well as help us cover basic costs like maintaining our website, etc.

Becoming a member is simple! Check out the details here: bit.ly/JustSpaceApply, and if you still have questions, see our FAQ: bit.ly/JustSpaceMemberFAQ (or just email us, [email protected]).

Thank you so much to all of you who have applied so far! We’re excited to have you in our growing community. We’re now ready to expand our memberships beyond newsletter subscribers, so if you’ve got friends or colleagues that you think would be interested in participating, please share the membership application info and links with them! And of course, if you haven’t had the chance to apply yet, you’re always welcome to join us.