Outer space as environment

Prompted by the growing crisis surrounding space debris, the continued development of technologies for the extraction of space resources and scientific and ethical concerns over the ‘contamination’ of the outer space, this project explores the new, arguably paradoxical, conceptualisation of outer space as a human environment and the social and political implications of this.

Project aims

  • To synthesise a broad range of texts in which outer space is understood as an environment

  • To outline the social and political consequences of understanding outer space as an environment

  • To explore the lessons of terrestrial environmental sociology for the study of outer space

Project timescales

January 2017-January 2018

Research team 

James Ormrod

Output 

Ormrod, J.S. (forthcoming) ‘Cosmic sentiments: The universe and new frontiers to environmental imaginations’ [working title] in Legun, K. et al (eds) The Cambridge Handbook of Environmental Sociology, CUP