Recent Events

It’s been hard to find the time and energy to think about space over the past few months, when so much on Earth is demanding our attention. How can we think ahead to our future in space when people are dying today? But in every conversation about pandemic mitigation, or police abolition, or even space exploration, there is an echo of the same question: Who is that future for? 

Rally in Grand Army Plaza after the death of George Floyd, May 30 2020

For many of us, the future we’re most looking forward to is “After the Pandemic Is Over”. But who will get to see that future? A Black American is five times more likely to be killed by the virus than a white American, and Indigenous and Hispanic Americans are similarly overrepresented in U.S. death rates. In a time when humanity has never been more scientifically and technologically prepared to battle a pandemic, why is the chance to live to see tomorrow so unevenly distributed?

The coronavirus pandemic is not the only public health emergency killing Americans. A Black American is three times more likely to be killed by police than a white American. In June, massive protests sparked by the murder of George Floyd by police spread from Minneapolis across the U.S. and the world. Protestors demand police accountability, defunding, abolition. But most of all, they demand recognition of a simple truth: Black Lives Matter. Black futures matter.

Image of Alisha B. Wormsley’s There Are Black People in the Future billboard on display in Detroit, as part of the Manifest Destiny exhibition curated by JustSpace Board member Ingrid LaFleur

In May, in the midst of all this death and turmoil, NASA launched two astronauts to the International Space Station in a SpaceX Dragon capsule for the first time. The launch was hailed as a major step forward for the private space industry, and a return of launch capabilities to the U.S. The photos from the ISS after the successful docking with Dragon show hugs and smiles exchanged between the three-person ISS crew and the two astronauts from Dragon. All five are white men. Who is the future for?

To Read

Many journalists have recently commented on the uncomfortable juxtaposition of the pandemic, the protests, and the Dragon capsule launch:

• Ingrid Burrington interviewed JustSpace founders Erika Nesvold and Lucianne Walkowicz for Engadget to ask “Is going to space truly essential during a pandemic?” 

• Miriam Kramer talked to Lucianne Walkowicz about “What space means right now” for Axios.

• Loren Grush, writing for The Verge, argued that “A rocket launch can’t unite us until the space world acknowledges our divisions”.

• And Marina Koren described “The False Hope of an American Rocket Launch” in The Atlantic.

JustSpace in Action

On June 10th, a global day of action was called to address anti-Black racism in STEM and academia via two coordinated strikes: #Strike4BlackLives and #ShutDownSTEM/#ShutDownAcademia. These efforts, driven by Particles for Justice and a multi-identity, intersectional coalition of STEM professionals (including JustSpace co-founder Lucianne Walkowicz), respectively, asked that all “business as usual” in STEM and academia cease for a day-- no meetings, no research, etc.-- and that white and non-Black People of Color instead devote this day to making plans to combat anti-Black racism in their spheres. For Black academics and STEM professionals, this day was offered as a moment of rest, a day to prioritize their own needs ahead of the constant barrage of institutional and personal requests for them to advocate for their own humanity. These efforts achieved broad participation across the globe, with major publications such as Nature and Physics Today, along with the arXiv preprint server, and numerous institutions halting their usual activities. 

What plans emerge from this day of action are yet to be seen-- certainly, no single day can eradicate hundreds of years of oppression-- but the broad adoption of this call to action shows that the STEM and academic communities recognize that they do not exist outside of the structures of white supremacy, and must take urgent steps to dismantle these systems now. 

From Our Board

• June 16th was the 57th anniversary of Valentina Tereshkova’s first launch into space. In honor of Tereshkova, the first woman in space, JustSpace Board member Alice Gorman wrote a piece arguing that “Almost 90% of astronauts have been men. But the future of space may be female”.

• Founder of the The Afrofuture Strategies Institute and JustSpace Board member Ingrid LaFleur’s thought-provoking series “What Does The Afrofuture Say?” is available to watch on Youtube, and you can also tune into future episodes here.

• Dive deep into the world of bodies, control, and artificial intelligence with this essay by JustSpace Board member Damien Patrick Williams, “Master and Servant: Disciplinarity and the Implications of AI and Cyborg Identity”.

• As educational institutions consider how they might reopen in the fall during the ongoing COVID-19 epidemic, JustSpace Board member Jarah Moesch shared this thread on disability community concerns and best practices for reopening

• And finally, if you need a moment to recenter yourself, JustSpace Board member Michael Oman-Reagan created this 25 min guided meditation on Cosmic Interbeing.