Outer Space Consulting
Keeping social and environmental goals in the space exploration and exploitation formula
Outer Space Consulting
Keeping social and environmental goals in the space exploration and exploitation formula
Keeping social and environmental goals in the space exploration and exploitation formula
Keeping social and environmental goals in the space exploration and exploitation formula
Human activities in outer space are no longer science fiction, and the rates of our exploration and use of space are rapidly accelerating. It's time to apply lessons learned here on Earth to this new environment.
Offering expertise in developing novel and practical approaches to address the social, ethical, and environmental issues that will emerge with our use of outer space. Some potentials include:
Offering expertise in developing novel and practical approaches to address the social, ethical, and environmental issues that will emerge with our use of outer space. Some potentials include:
I hope this website will be both provocative and liberating. If you find the information, articles and other postings useful, please let me know and alert others to this site.
William R. Kramer
The video-conference was held December 14-17, 2020. (Check SSOCIA's website for details about the organization: SSOCIA.com.) A14-minute video introduction to my paper (concerning the potential for adverse extraterrestrial environmental impacts and potential ways to minimize them) is available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tKCXQO04Qds
In response to Covid-19, ISU held an on-line "Interactive Space Program" in the summer of 2020 in lieu of their usual Summer Space Program. I assisted by moderating a lively discussion with about 20 participants on "pets in space." It quickly shifted its focus from our familiar pets to a discussion of the bioethics of using animals in space experiments, the social aspects of human relationships with other life, and how that might affect long-term and multigenerational space voyaging. I will be providing a workshop on the need for extraterrestrial environmental impact assessments (again, virtually) in January 2021 for the Southern Hemisphere Space Studies Program. Proposals were submitted for SSP21 (hopefully to be held in Grenada, Spain) for workshops and lectures.
My mentor and good friend, Dr. Jim Dator of the Hawaii Research Center for Futures Studies, affirms, “Outer Space provides us the opportunity to reinvent EVERYTHING!” One of our biggest challenges as we move into this century of outer space is to not squander those opportunities. We must not repeat past mistakes just because they have become routine, convenient and expected -- just because we, as a multitude of cultures and histories, have always done things that way. That theme provides a foundation for most of my thoughts and writing about outer space exploration and exploitation. It's certainly applicable to the social sciences in areas such as governance design, geopolitics, international relations, and even law, intellectual property and patenting. But it also applies to biology -- It is becoming increasingly apparent that we will be evolving physically as well as psychologically to adapt to new environments in space. As we continue to extend our reach, reinvention will, perhaps, apply to physics, as well.
In short, be inventive! If the world was starting all over again, how might humans have made wiser choices for the centuries to come? We are taking the first steps at starting new worlds, and we CAN reinvent everything! Space is not only an opportunity to do that, it's necessary if we expect to be successful.
This 1-hour informal interview on ThinkTech Hawaii from 2014 touches on my personal and professional background and interests. Note: No, I did not think that contact with ET would happen in 2014 -- but it's a great tag! ThinkTech devised that title.
After inviting me to be an advisor to the Georgetown University Space Initiative, Jennifer Wahl, Brian Britt and I discussed a range of bioethical and related issues associated with space exploration and exploitation. August 2020.
The following is a list of "works in progress," ideas, critiques, and analyses for future publications. Potentials for future papers include:
Meetings, conferences, and similar notices of interest:
Links to other sites and other work that is pertinent to outer space issues.
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