Presentation short abstract

Reflecting on ethnographic fieldwork in Scottish and Scandinavian spaceports, the paper proposes an astro-political ecology to explain the causal connections between the environmental impacts of human activities in space with libertarian economics and anarcho-capitalist modes of governance.

Presentation long abstract

New Space (or NewSpace) describes the broad range of primarily US and European entrepreneurs and industry advocates leveraging rapidly falling costs in computing and materials to enable less established corporations (or ‘start-ups’) to successfully design and build space vehicles and habitats independently of NASA. Reflecting on Europe's emerging spaceports in the Scottish Highlands and Islands and northern Scandinavia, the paper proposes an astro-political ecology to explain the causal connections between the environmental impacts of human activities in space with libertarian ideologies and anarcho-capitalist governance.