Space Junkies: Interplanetary Hoarding in Heliotrope Journal
March 13, 2024
As part of the research project Outer Space and the City: Cohabitation Strategies with Interplanetary Infrastructures of Telecommunications (SSHRC, 2021–2023), Marie-Pier Boucher and Alice Jarry publish Space Junkies: Interplanetary Hoarding in Heliotrope
As part of the research project Outer Space and the City: Cohabitation Strategies with Interplanetary Infrastructures of Telecommunications (SSHRC, 2021–2023), Marie-Pier Boucher and Alice Jarry publish Space Junkies: Interplanetary Hoarding in Heliotrope
Image: Guillaume Pascale
Outer Space and the City: Cohabitation Strategies with Interplanetary Infrastructures of Telecommunications (SSHRC, 2021–2024, University of Toronto/Concordia University) examines the role that telecommunications infrastructures play in shaping urbanization processes (Graham and Marvin, 1996, 2001). The project engages with the city not as a theatre for space exploration but rather as a concrete point of intervention. Embedded within the city in the form of mission control rooms, data centres, satellite dishes and cell phone towers, interplanetary infrastructures of telecommunications condition, monitor, activate, enable, and foreclose specific material, social, and technological modes of urban life.
In September 2022, members of the research team made a brief ethnographic foray into the International Astronautical Congress (IAC) in Paris. Hosted by the International Astronautical Federation, the Congress is divided into conferences, plenaries, and technical sessions. It also features a “space fair” with hundreds of booths representing various industry stakeholders: space agencies, commercial companies, universities, research centres, individual startups/NewSpacers, and NGOs.
In September 2022, members of the research team made a brief ethnographic foray into the International Astronautical Congress (IAC) in Paris. Hosted by the International Astronautical Federation, the Congress is divided into conferences, plenaries, and technical sessions. It also features a “space fair” with hundreds of booths representing various industry stakeholders: space agencies, commercial companies, universities, research centres, individual startups/NewSpacers, and NGOs.
In 2022, the IAC decided to go green and announced its plan to reduce greenhouse gas emissions before and during the Congress. This translated into a series of pragmatic measures: no more cold water in the water fountains, eco-responsible communication practices, and compostable dishware, among others. Paradoxically, both before and during the congress, attendees received at least one promotional email per day; the carbon footprint of an email is between 0.03g and 26g CO2e (Berners-Lee, 2020). The 174 IAC Paris space fair booths also gave international visitors various goodies, including stickers, tote bags, pamphlets, stress balls, car fresheners, space food, water bottles, key chains, t-shirts, and gummies. Within the context of the IAC, “going green” highlights a series of paradoxes that underline the similarities and disparities of waste production on Earth and waste generated by space exploration activities.... read more
