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Paper short abstract

Analyzing defunct space technologies and their materialities in the long run, this paper questions them being qualified as ‘space pollution’. It shows that such a ‘pollution’ is more terrestrial and multifaceted than orbital congestion and explores the relationship between outer space and ‘nature’.

Paper long abstract

Technical objets are usually understood in terms of their uses. They can also be thought according to their ‘modes of existence’ [Simondon 1958], which implies looking at them in their materialities, ahead of and after their functioning. I suggest analyzing space technologies when they don’t work anymore, and the relationships they institute – as debris, waves, particles – with the environment, the human world, and other artifacts.

Such a perspective may provide insights about the relations between ‘nature’ and ‘technology’, as well as about the relations between Earth and outer space. Indeed, even when a technical object (e.g. a satellite) is defunct, it doesn’t cease interacting with the (near) space environment. Nor has it ceased its relationships to Earth, as shown by atmospheric reentries, landings and splashdowns.

In this paper, I’d like to ask two questions.

1) Space debris can be seen as a risk for the continuity of space activities, due to orbital congestion. Drawing on recent research in geophysics, I’ll show that the problem is in fact more complicated, more terrestrial than one may think at first glance: it is multifaceted, implying multiple timescales and involving values that can conflict with each others.

2) The phrase ‘space pollution’ is used to qualify space debris, whereas the term ‘nature’ is usually not applied to outer space. This paradox brings me to analyze the concept of ‘pollution’ [Liboiron 2024] in the case of space debris, and how it can have a heuristic value regarding the concepts of nature and ecology.