Transplanetary Ecologies Reading Group

Continuous human presence in Low Earth Orbit, increasing expansion of techno-scientific infrastructures beyond Earth, and the extractivist ambitions of the commercial 'New Space' sector call for a reconsideration of the conventional analytical frameworks used to describe emergent (extra)terrestrial political, ecological, and social processes. The Transplanetary Ecologies reading group will interrogate this emerging paradigm, asking questions such as: how do the various infrastructures of space science exact their own ecological tolls? How do contemporary configurations of (neo)colonial power, engendered by progress-oriented visions of contemporary space industries, shape our understanding of extraterrestrial environments? What forms of (trans)planetary ecologies are needed to account for the imaginaries, materialities and entanglements brought about by space science? What do increasing calls for space sustainability mean in practice? 

Over the academic year 2023/2024 we will gather to discuss these questions and more. Our reading group is open to all, irrespective of your level of space related knowledge! 

Our next session considers women's labour and the Apollo Guidance Computer, and will take place on zoom on Wednesday, 25th October 2023 at 4pm UK time. Our text this month will be 

• “Indigenous Circuits: Navajo Women and the Racialization of Early Electronic Manufacture”(2014)  by Lisa Nakamura (this text covers the production of Fairchild chips crucial for the Apollo Guidance Computer). 
• Short video about how software for the Apollo Guidance Computer was woven by master weavers https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P12r8DKHsak

Nakamura's article can be found online–if you have any difficulty finding it, please email the reading group conveners Makar: makar.tereshin.21@ucl.ac.uk and Rachel: rachel.hill.21@ucl.ac.uk for assistance. Please email us for the zoom link.

Additional resources related to gendered labour, spaceflight and computation:

• '“Hidden Figures: The American Dream and the Untold Story of the Black Women Who Helped Win the Space Race” by Margot Lee Shetterly (book).' 
• “Making Core Memory: Design Inquiry into Gendered Legacies of Engineering and Craftwork” (talk on youtube here) 
• See work of artist Varvara Keidan Shavrova here
• “Radical Fiber: Threads Connecting Art and Science” (2022) Exhibition here
• “Making Core Memory: Design Inquiry into Gendered Legacies of Engineering and Craftwork” by Daniela K. Rosner et al Article here
• “A Voice of Process: Re-Presencing the Gendered Labour of Apollo Innovation” by Samatha Shorey et al (2019) Article here. 
• “The Computer Pays Its Debt: Women, Textiles, and Technology, 1965-1985” (2020) Exhibition here