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Caltech

DIX Planetary Science Seminar

Tuesday, February 18, 2025
4:00pm to 5:00pm
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Arms 155 (Robert P. Sharp Lecture Hall)
Histories of Waste and Want in Earth's Planetary Periphery
Lisa Ruth Rand, Assistant Professor, Department of History, Caltech,

Artificial satellites currently support a multitude of technological and scientific systems on the ground below. They also circle the planet alongside a co-located system of waste, including everything from spent rocket bodies and defunct satellites to errant screws and flecks of paint. In the early years of the Space Age, the difference between space craft and space waste could be as flexible and open to interpretation as the design of early satellites themselves, which ranged in form from Sputnik 1's polished orb to giant, inflatable "satelloons" to globe-circling belts of copper dipoles. Depending on an individual's politics and priorities the same object could be a valuable satellite or dangerous discard—and sometimes both at once. As the number of artificial objects around the planet proliferated, at a range of orbital altitudes and inclinations, scientific and mainstream communities around the world confronted new realities of environmental risk beyond the atmosphere. Debates over how sustainably share a global environment that remained deeply stratified in access imbued early efforts to establish international governance of outer space. By the 1970s, the first-come-first-served occupation of a particularly valuable orbital regime spurred developing nations to challenge an inequitable status quo, and in doing so prompted a reimagining of the planetary boundaries of Earth itself.

For more information, please contact Samantha Baker by email at samanthabaker@caltech.edu.