Space-oriented infrastructure, such as telescopes, rocket launch sites, and satellite dishes, often has significant environmental and social impact on surrounding communities. For example, rocket launch sites have faced significant pushback from their communities over serious environmental damage. This project seeks to develop ethical standards and guidance for responsible infrastructure siting.
Project Outputs
Ann C. Thresher, “Spaceport environmental policy in the new space era“, 2026. Science Direct- Space Policy.
Abstract: There has been a recent push by the United States federal government to streamline regulation surrounding the construction and operation of spaceports. The August 13th Executive Order, “Enabling Competition in the Commercial Space Industry”, moves these goals forward by tying commercial space operations to national security interests. In particular, the Order requires the creation of exemptions and “categorical exclusions” for commercial space exploration activities from the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA). This situation raises a tangle of complex ethical and political quandaries. On the one hand, national security is a compelling justification for some compromises in environmental integrity. But this does not mean that it should be used as a completely indefeasible ground for environmental degradation. Our goal in this piece is to elucidate the environmental impacts of spaceports, many of which are built in vulnerable areas, usually adjacent to or on environmental reserves. These regions, in turn, are critical to not only preserving endangered species, but their coastal nature means that degradation of these ecosystems can have broader impact on climate mitigation and severe weather resilience. We should not, in short, think of national security and environmental stability as mutually exclusive. We detail several mitigation strategies aimed at balancing short-term national security and long-term environmental preservation interests. In particular, we recommend standardized and streamlined environmental impact assessments that employ clearly defined metrics, a taxonomy and more detailed study of fuel emissions, increased funding for research into less environmentally damaging rocket fuel, and decommissionment and remediation planning.
Ann C. Thresher and Daniel Palumbo, “Responsible Telescope Siting: Environment, Community, and Science“, 2024. 32nd General Assembly International Union (IAUGA 2024), Capetown, South Africa.
Abstract: Telescope siting has historically relied entirely upon ensuring sites meet the technical specifications required for observation including weather, atmospheric clarity, accessibility, and cost of developing the site. However, astrophysicists have obligations beyond merely the technical. As the field is becoming increasingly aware, telescopes exist within a broader social context, and the choice of site needs to be responsive to ethical, cultural and environmental specifications just as much as technical ones. We need look no further than the ongoing conflict surrounding the Thirty-Meter Telescope on Mauna Kea or the Square Kilometre Array in South Africa to see the importance of this lesson. In recognition of these challenges, the next-generation Event Horizon Telescope (ngEHT) has founded an interdisciplinary Responsible Siting working group that is integrated into the site selection process. This talk will present a formal overview of the ethical challenges of telescope siting, as well as discuss the work being done by the responsible siting group for a proposed site in Wyoming where the ngEHT has been working with local tribes, governmental organisations, and the university of Wyoming to build mutually productive partnerships. This talk also looks at lessons we can learn from parallel scientific fields including synthetic biology, palaeontology, and conservation in order to advance a set of ethical best-practices for astronomy, and consider the fundamental philosophical challenges of building large-scale scientific experiments, particularly in areas of the world with a history of colonial, environmental, and scientific exploitation.
Ann C. Thresher and colleagues, “Key Science Goals for the Next-Generation Event Horizon Telescope“, 2023. Galaxies.
Abstract: The Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) has led to the first images of a supermassive black hole, revealing the central compact objects in the elliptical galaxy M87 and the Milky Way. Proposed upgrades to this array through the next-generation EHT (ngEHT) program would sharply improve the angular resolution, dynamic range, and temporal coverage of the existing EHT observations. These improvements will uniquely enable a wealth of transformative new discoveries related to black hole science, extending from event-horizon-scale studies of strong gravity to studies of explosive transients to the cosmological growth and influence of supermassive black holes. Here, we present the key science goals for the ngEHT and their associated instrument requirements, both of which have been formulated through a multi-year international effort involving hundreds of scientists worldwide.
Ann C. Thresher and colleagues, “Big STEM collaborations should include humanities and social science“, 2023. Nature Human Behaviour.
Ann C. Thresher and colleagues, “The humanities can help make physics greener“, 2024. Nature Reviews Physics.
