News of the new space race has been abundant on both mainstream news and social media over the last year. While Billionaire Space Race content and “to the moon“ memes have entertained audiences, there’s a deeper context to unpack with regard to the relationship between aerospace technology and social justice issues.

Three interdisciplinary panelists will explore what's motivating these new developments and bring historical context to their present-day political, environmental, and cultural implications. What are the ethics of Space Studies? Will the widening aeronautics industry reproduce the fraught labor issues of Silicon Valley? Beyond the fun of playing out sci-fi fantasies in real time, are we also activating the tropes of colonialism and xenophobia associated with space travel and development narratives?

Panelists:

Timiebi Aganaba-Jeanty, Asst Prof, School for the Future of Innovation in Society and the Sandra Day O'Connor College of Law; Founder, Space Governance Lab and Project Lead, Space Advisory at the Interplanetary Initiative, Arizona State University

Frederick Scharmen, Assoc Professor, School of Architecture and Planning, Morgan State University; Author of Space Forces: A Critical History of Life in Outer Space (Verso, 2021)

Danielle R. Wood, Asst Prof of Research in Education, Program in Media Arts & Sciences and Department of Aeronautics & Astronautics; Director: Space Enabled Research Group, MIT Media Lab; Faculty Advisor: African and African Diaspora Studies, MIT

Moderator: Marisa Olson, Executive Director, Digital Studies Institute, University of Michigan