STS scholarship on outer space covers a wide range of ideas: from understanding organisational sociology of such space mission teams, to economic and political dimensions driving the development of space sciences and technologies, to resistance to normative assumptions about access and rights to the cosmos, to the imaginaries created, sustained and resisted about outer space. Our project in Space Science in Context (SSiC) is to specifically connect such STS themes and issues in research about outer space with non-STS audiences, particularly with those working and researching in planetary and space sciences. SSiC also returns concerns and work of practising researchers and workers to the social studies of outer space communities. We (the authors: Divya Persaud, Ellie Armstrong) as the conference organisers come from these two different disciplinary backgrounds. Our praxis of organising this event is a model for the kinds of engagements and work that can take place between STS scholars and scientists. In this text we explain first what SSiC is as an event and who attends, and secondly we reflect on transformations we see in the matters of concern for the community through SSiC 2023 specifically. For more reflections on our own working practice that makes the events happen, you can read our five reflections on co-organising Space Science in Context 2023, or listen to us reflect on how SSiC 2020 tackled space science and space colonialism as much as it modelled disability activism and access in academia.
SSiC 2023 was funded by both the EASST Fund and the Royal Astronomical Society’s Meetings Grant.
Note: all data in this report are sourced from the SSiC 2023 registrations and feedback forms.
What is Space Science in Context?
We began organising SSiC 2020 in January 2020, planning the event as a virtual conference engaging planetary scientists with science & technology studies (STS) and other scholars, and supported through the UCL Researcher-Led Initiative Award. Our intention was to sculpt a space that would offer accessibility in many modes—flexibility built into the schedule, closed-captioning and transcription of content, and small honoraria for all speakers. We therefore decided to structure the conference after the “flipped classroom,” with pre-prepared content in advance of the live event such that attendees could engage with the content in their own time and at their own pace.
The conference was held in May 2020. We reached 450 registrants and, in lieu of a registration fee, raised £1000 for a COVID-19 relief fund. Our global contributors included 12 invited speakers and 30+ e-poster presenters from a range of disciplines exploring themes related to space and society. We hosted three themed panels: Decolonising Space; Computing, Technology, and Space; and Space and Society. The pre-recorded component of the event was held digitally and remains online for future access, with the live component hosted over Microsoft Teams on 12 May 2020. Since that first conference, we have run SSiC again in January 2023 (which we primarily discuss in this article) and October 2024. All the material from these three events remain online on our conference website, spacescienceincontext.com.
The ethos of SSiC 2023
Two core goals drove the organisation of SSiC 2023: first, interdisciplinary community building, and second, access and equity.
Interdisciplinary community building: In organising SSiC 2020, we had identified a disconnect between STS work on space, and the space humanities more broadly, and STEM practitioners in the space sciences, as well as a lack of scholarly opportunities for those who research that may exist at the boundaries between these two disciplines. We sought to address this issue through a community-building approach to SSiC, building speaker panels that platformed research across the boundary between the two disciplines, structuring the conference schedule to promote cross-pollination of ideas and themes, and advertising across networks.
SSiC 2023’s speaker roster brought with them important questions facing those of us engaging with outer space from many different perspectives—from the pervasiveness of debris to the interrelation of military and commercial communities; and from community practices that support minoritised communities including Black researchers in the USA, and LGBTQ+ communities around the world, to unpacking histories of space engagement in Kenya and India. Participants commented that this gave them a ‘broader picture of the impacts of space science’, and that for participants hearing more about ‘human impacts [gave them] more confidence to talk about those issues’.
Access and equity: Each time we run SSiC we make a strong commitment to accessibility—the benefits of which we detail further later in this text—recognising that many disabled and/or neurodivergent people are limited by ableist academic conferencing. The success of our approach to equity and access in 2020 heavily had relied on an ethos of accessibility and safety. In planning SSiC 2023, our second goal was therefore to centre equity in planning and facilitating a diverse, accessible event. We developed our existing virtual environment access guidance and policy for the speakers’, poster presenters’ media for the event, and everyone’s conduct, in consultation with an accessibility expert. The 2023 conference once again employed a flipped-classroom model, with pre-recorded talks and e-posters hosted online in advance (along with an option to submit questions in advance as well) and discussions at the live event and on social media. We continued to deliver closed-captioning and transcription of pre-recorded invited talks; a website compliant with Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG 2.1); and access guidelines and resources for the e-poster authors. Based on responses from SSiC 2020 and from the requests in the pre-registration form for SSiC 2023, we provided live human stenography (CART) in all the main sessions, and for one of the poster rooms during each slot.
Many of our participants noted that these provisions were important to them, and we share one evocative piece of feedback here in full:
This is the first conference (and honestly only the 3rd event) I’ve felt fully able to participate in since becoming disabled. I have felt so disconnected from this academic community and it truly means the world to be able to engage with these thoughts, ideas and most of all PEOPLE again.
18–26% of the UK/EU/US is disabled, compared with ~7% of UK academics; however, 24% of respondents in SSiC 2023 declared that they were disabled and/or neurodivergent, and 96% of attendees who gave feedback reported that their access needs had been met. Particularly, as one participant noted, our system of ‘talks provided ahead of time, meant that I actually had the energy to be present and pay attention during the discussions’.
We were particularly interested in supporting junior scholars (within 10 years of terminal degree) into inclusive communities oriented around outer space, which we took three-fold measures to achieve. Firstly, we ensured that our speakers skewed towards Early Career (with 11 out of 12 invited speakers as ECR) and paid them an honorarium to reflect their time and effort. Secondly, many of those who made the conference possible were ECR: four paid moderators, an accessibility consultant, and an ECR-led captioning and transcription company. This gave a sense of ownership to more junior contributors and paying them valued their time commitments. Finally, we made sure that the conference policy was clear about the treatment of junior colleagues to ensure that those most likely to experience harassment were not excluded from building community.
Composition of attendees to SSiC 2023
In reprising the event in 2023, we remained a fully virtual conference and carried these two pillars strong in our organising, advertising, and production of the event. We continued to engage our core audience of space scientists and STS scholars, but sought to expand further to non-academics, such as teachers and undergraduate students, as well as a further breadth of disciplines, such as Earth science and architecture. As such, we sought funding from both STS and physical science societies in order to make the conference legible to attendees from different communities as a cross-disciplinary space that would speak to their interests. With 13 invited speakers again who spanned the world, we hosted three panels at SSiC 2023: on Space, Technology and Dual-Use; Environment and Space Science; and Labour and Space. We also supported 22 e-poster presenters whose contributions once again covered a range of themes on space and society. The live event was hosted over Zoom on January 26, 2023.
We had 418 participants, from 52 countries (Fig 1) register for the conference, including our speakers. Like SSiC 2020, when we had a diverse range of people register and attend the events, SSiC 2023 reached a broad community. Our success in our commitment to bringing together people is clear in who attended—45% early-career researchers (ECRs); 43% non-academic—who came from vastly different disciplinary backgrounds is most keenly represented in the range of institutions that people noted they worked with in the registration. In addition to many STS departments at European and Global Universities, SSiC had participants coming from scientific and space research facilities—all of which can be seen as both publics and interlocutors for STS researchers. We had participants from a range of high-profile museums around the world, including Porto Planetarium—Ciência Viva Center, Portugal; and global government agencies, such as Korean Astronomy & Space Science Institute. Many learned society members joined our conference, for example from The Geological Society, as well as journalists who have by-lines at leading international publications, like WIRED. We also reached engaged publics from schools, outreach coordinators like the Afrikagera Geological Center in Tanzania, and astronomy clubs in countries including Romania, Morocco, and India. We also drew government scientists and educators from research centres like the National Institute for Astrophysics in Italy or working observatories, Observatorio Astronómico de la UNAN-MANAGUA, Nicaragua as well as those based at companies and nonprofits from across the world.
This geographic range was also reflected in our attendee demographics. As all demographic categories are socially and culturally contingent, we tried to use broad geographical categories – see Table 1) to make these as relevant as possible to a community from around the world, and offered the option to select multiple descriptions to report on their own identities. We also asked about gender identity at registration, and 52% identified as female, 38% as male. 18% identified as trans* and/or non-binary and/or Two Spirit (please note participants could select multiple options in the form for this option). This is in contrast to findings that 30% of the space workforce identify as women in a UN Space4Women report of 2024; and a UK survey in 2023 recently finding that 29% of the workforce were women and 1% as trans*; or a 2019 OECD report showing that as low as 20% were women in the space industry in Europe and North America; demonstrating we are reaching an audience underserved more generally in space events. In the registration, 40% of people identified as LGBQ+ when asked about their sexuality.
| Description of demographic in survey | Percentage of registrants who identified (possible to select multiple in registration) |
| African/African Diaspora (including Black) | 15% |
| Asian / Asian Diaspora | 20% |
| Indigenous/Indigenous Diaspora | 3% |
| Latin American/Latin American Diaspora | 7% |
| West Asian/West Asian Diaspora | 3% |
| white/European | 60% |
Fig. 1. A map of registrants for SSiC 2023.
Reflections from from SSiC 2023
Here, we reflect on four key themes: Access and Code of Conduct; Building and Doing Cross-Disciplinary Communities; Seeing Space as Part of Larger Sociotechnical Systems; and Pluralising the publics of outer space.
Access and CoC: Our effort to build accessibility into our infrastructure from the ground up has reshaped who can participate in conversations as SSiC, both on the basis of (dis)ability, and geographical location. This commitment not only shapes who can participate in the field, but what concerns are raised and acted upon. You can read more about how we have been thinking about redefining the scientific conference to be more inclusive and the steps to take, beyond the ones we have described above, towards making this a reality in your own STS events.
Further we worked to foster a safe environment for sensitive topics and interdisciplinary learning, regardless of academic background, protected characteristic(s), or access needs, and to do that safety had to be at the forefront of planning and executing the conference. In 2020, we developed a Code of Conduct to which all people participating in SSiC have to agree in order to participate, and to which they are held within the conference space. The SSiC Code of Conduct has since been utilised widely—within STS, for example, at the 2020 6S Virtual Workshop; but also beyond, for example, shaping the 2021 Virtual NASA Exploration Forum and European Lunar Symposium Code of Conduct. We continue to see these as vital parts of infrastructuring an equitable STS field, and encourage all organisers to think about how the mission of their events informs access and conduct expectations in spaces they create.
Building cross-disciplinary communities: Our conference infrastructure that embodied our commitment to community building beyond those who would typically think of themselves as “STS” scholars shaped both who was giving the talks as well as who was attending; and allowed participants to be ‘potentially recasting [their] own research’ through new approaches and ideas in this space of multiplicity. This brought together perspectives that were distinctly STS in nature but came from non-traditional sources: for example, foregrounding the knowledge and contributions of communities that organised to support minoritised researchers and social movements to challenge military influences in outer space, which gave, as one participant reflected:
a sense of what people in kindred fields are working on makes the work feel more vibrant generally. Opens new avenues of inquiry and possibility of future collaborations.
Conversely, by focusing on a range of different disciplinary ways to think about outer space, SSiC helped to scope out some of the parameters of the emerging field of social studies of outer space by giving a sense of the ‘larger concerns that appear in the research of several people’ and itself helping outsiders to the field make sense of ‘outer space as a sub-discipline, …[and] what its particular topics are’.
Seeing space as part of larger sociotechnical systems: Talks across our three panels engaged with questions of climate justice, decolonisation, militarism, and other wider systems. This introduced many participants to ideas of how outer space operates within existing sociotechnical systems like biopolitics and governance, infrastructure and development, or justice, ethics and colonialism in ways that were new to some of those attending:
It was the first discussion I had heard from within the space sector about the ethical issues of engaging with space exploration as an arm of the military
Instead of just thinking of outer space as rovers on Mars, space telescopes like Hubble, or the Big Bang, SSiC brought STS focuses on the entanglements of outer space down to Earth within our everyday lives. Themes such as remote sensing, dual use of space technologies, or ongoing campaigns by climate activist groups were shared with new audiences through this event, allowing participants unfamiliar with thinking about science and technology in society in these ways to see for themselves a ‘much broader picture of the impacts of space science as well as [getting] tangible information and resources that [they could] share.’
Pluralising the publics of outer space: Publics, created around media available, of outer space are hegemonically shorthanded as people who are inspired by outer space—beautiful images of the world and the wonders of knowing more deeply about the cosmos we live in. In developing SSiC, we worked to contextualise improvements and scientific advances that are more readily reported with their interrelations with the wider systems such as environmental justice, space debris, community-building and retention in STEM fields, and Indigenous Land Sovereignty; we helped bring create a new public that is focused on thinking otherwise about space science:
The talks and poster presentations I listened to brought me perspectives on the impact of space science research in our society…I’ll definitely have that in mind when writing/talking about the future of space sciences and its impact in our day-to-day life.
The work we highlighted in both SSiC 2020 and 2023 echoed a shift within the scientific media over the same period at large to showcasing different sides of space industries including greater reporting of things like sexual harassment in NewSpace companies, the occupation of sacred Indigenous spaces by TMT, or questions about memorialising problematic members of space history in JWST. We understand SSiC as part of this trend that challenges uncritical celebration of “objective science” with publics and practitioners, as well as a venue that foregrounds real attention to the material realities of doing such transformative work by inviting speakers making these changes in the world. Excitingly participants saw this too—and felt like this was something they could take away with them:
The panellists were great at drawing connections across disciplines, and gave me a lot of topics I could bring in my own discussions with people outside my discipline and people who aren’t scientists.
We also saw increased sign ups from people who identified themselves as amateur astronomers, or people who participated a teachers or leaders in informal astronomy contexts—communities who might ordinarily be seen as the target audience of more ‘traditional’ science communication about outer space but who are, in fact, interested in these wider social systems that surround, support, and interrelate to what we might conventionally think of as space research.
Conclusions from the event
As we prepare for, and host, SSiC 2024, one thing we are most excited about is the way that building this community has continued over time—where participants come to share and develop ideas, perspectives, and conversations, event after event building a space together to rethink how outer space is situated in global social contexts. In the words of one attendee:
The experience will certainly provide inspiration for my future science education and outreach projects. An example is the educational resource I presented in my poster, which was (at least in part) inspired by discussions and insight from SSiC 2020, on the impact of giant astronomical infrastructure on the territories they occupy and the people who inhabit or use these territories for a very long time.
This process of building ideas and approaches through the SSiC community, demonstrates the kinds of iterative changes to both the STS and non-STS communities that have been made possible through the sequence of Space Science in Context conferences. We are thrilled to have seen how our efforts to centre minoritised voices across disciplines, and to build an equitable and accessible community of care and ideas is beginning to see changes in the actions and research undertaken by and presented to the wider community.
Acknowledgements:
We are deeply indebted to the wonderful relationship we have with Academic Audio Transcription, who have provided the transcription and captioning for speaker videos, and Ai-Media who provided CART for SSiC 2023. We further thank Zahra Khan for writing our poster guidelines, and our four moderators: Connor, Erika, Bhargavi, and Leslie. We also thank our thirteen speakers and twenty-two poster authors for their outstanding contributions that made the content of the conference. We would not have been able to host the conference without the support of the European Association for the Studies of Science and Technology’s EASST Fund 2023 and the Royal Astronomical Society’s Meetings Fund 2023; and the support of our institutions at the time, Stockholm University and JPL/University of Glasgow.
If you’d like to learn more about Space Science in Context 2020, 2023, or 2024, please visit our website and request access to the content through the contact form: spacescienceincontext.com.
Divya (top) and Ellie (bottom) on Zoom after our online conference January 2023. With the permissions of Ellie and Divya.
Image description: The image is two zoom screens, one on top of each other. On the top image is Divya, against a background of a Mars valley. Divya has cropped dark hair wears over-ear headphones and a black shirt. Ellie is in her office with books and pictures on the shelves behind her. She has pink hair, a black shirt, and round glasses. Both are smiling as they are happy to be finished with the whole day event!
Author biographies
Dr. Divya M. Persaud and Dr Eleanor S Armstrong are asking you to do what you can today to interrupt genocide, dismantle settler colonialism, and free Palestine. As you draw breath, draw on the bravery of students and scholars who came before us; the scientists in universities that no longer exist, our fellow human beings who stare up at the same stars to which we have committed our lives and research. Confront the apparatus that make us co-conspirators in this death-making project. Be renewed in knowing of those who will follow.
Instagram: @spacescienceincontext
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