Space ethics community

SGAC Ethics & Human Rights Working Group: Working group of the Space Generation Advisory Council, with the vision to identify how space technology can best contribute to the realization of the United Nations objectives on Human Rights and the Sustainable Development Goals.

This library originated from this working group.

JustSpace Alliance: The mission of the JustSpace Alliance is to advocate for a more inclusive and ethical future in space, and to harness visions of tomorrow for a more just and equitable world today.

Secure World Foundation: A private foundation dedicated to the secure and sustainable use of space for Earth. “The mission of the Secure World Foundation is to work with governments, industry, international organizations, and civil society to develop and promote ideas and actions to achieve the secure, sustainable, and peaceful uses of outer space benefiting Earth and all its peoples.”

Open Lunar Foundation: A non-profit organisation “committed to enabling peaceful, cooperative lunar settlement for the benefit of all life.” Conducts research and develops policy and commercial partnerships for the moon.

Centre for a Spacefaring Civilization: An independent think tank and research centre focused on space law and policy, particularly issues that need to be addressed in order for humanity to become a spacefaring civilization.

Space anthropology: A Medium site with a variety of contributors whose posts are about the intersections between, space, technology, sci-fi and anthropology.

Jus Ad Astra: A legal project focusing on human rights in space law and aiming to develop “a comprehensive treatise that articulates and clarifies existing international law on the role and utility of human rights in outer space.”

The Space Court Foundation: A nonprofit corporation that promotes and supports space law and policy education and the rule of law.

Astropolitics Research Portal: Run by researcher Dr. Bleddyn E. Bown. The space provides a reading list related to politics in outer space.

Eyes On The Sky: Focused on space environmentalism education, developing a mixed reality experience designed to inspire the public and legislators to preserve Near Earth Space for generations to come.

Arizona State University Interplanetary Initiative: A space center aimed at creating private-public partnerships and “driving our positive human space future for exploration by finding the key needs and filling them with interdisciplinary teams.”

Sustainable Futures Outer Space: (Founded by Land Art Collective) An open resource platform that “aims to serve as a catalyst for discussions around the environmental implications of outer space exploration.” Open to submissions.

Space For Humanity: A non-profit organisation aiming to expand access to space through a citizen astronaut program, space philosophy podcast, events, and a leadership program.

Arch Mission Foundation: A non-profit corporation designed to continuously preserve and disseminate humanity’s most important knowledge across time and space for the benefit of future civilizations, using ultra long-term data storage archives called ‘Arch Libraries.’

Beyond the Earth Foundation: An international, non-profit, decadal research initiative and educational-outreach institute, which aims to “promote social discourse on the long-term archaeological impact of our actions that will far outlast our near-future conceptualisation of ‘Earth’.”

For All Moonkind: A non-profit organization seeking to protect each of the six human lunar landing and similar sites in outer space as part of our common human heritage, with Permanent Observer status to the United Nations Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space.

The Earthling Project: A cultural, multidisciplinary project commisioned by the California- based artist in Residence Program at SETI Institute, to create collaborative compositions “”to act as symbols for our species and be messages for generations to come.”

Centre for Humans & Nature- how do we understand the cosmos as our home?: Invited contributors including space environmentalists, astronomers, novelists, and space archaeologists responding to this question.

EAGLE Action Team: Subgroup of SGAC, an interdisciplinary group of 14 young space professionals with representation from 10 countries advocating for the development of Effective and Adaptive Governance for a Lunar Ecosystem (E.A.G.L.E.), with the goal of the peaceful and sustainable development of the Moon.

UCL Centre for Outer Space Studies: promotes research and teaching related to the social study of Outer Space and our relationship to the cosmos and the planet.

Making New Worlds: A podcast series by astrophysicist Erika Nesvold exploring the ethics of human settlement in space. 

Newmoon: A podcast and blog that explores how to guide lunar settlement and development with dialogue, resolution and inclusivity.

Pod Ad Astra: A podcast series organized by the Jus Ad Astra Project. Aims to advance “the analysis, development, and adoption of human rights across outer space for the benefit of humanity.”

Celestial Citizen: “A citizen’s podcast for planning humanity’s future in space – exploring the social, political, technical, and scientific aspects of living off-Earth from the perspective of a space urban planner.”

Space Science In Context (SSIC2020) was a virtual conference hosted in May 2020.

No “Planet B” was a roundtable in November 2019. The website includes a list of suggested readings, the PDFs of which are available here.

Although not specifically related to space ethics but to the wider question of ethics and anti-colonial work in science as a whole, we would like to draw your attention to the Decolonising Science Reading List, which is created and maintained by Professor Chanda Prescod-Weinstein. The list served as an inspiration for the creation of this website.