Conference: Social and Ethical Frontiers in Space Exploration
Kiruna, Sweden, 23-25 September 2024
A joint meeting of the European Astrobiology Institute and the Society for Social and Conceptual Issues in Astrobiology.
This meeting will bring scholars, students, politicians, journalists and other stakeholders together to discuss the ethical, political legal, societal and environmental aspects of space exploration.
The meeting is co-organised by the European Astrobiology Institute and the Society for Social and Conceptual Issues in Astrobiology.
The conference will take place at Malmfälten Adult Education Centre in Kiruna, Sweden. Kiruna is 300 km north of the arctic circle and home to the Swedish ESRANGE Space Center and Rocket Range. This promises to be a conference to remember, as it takes place during Lapland’s beautiful Indian Summer, which offers good prospectives for viewing the Northern Lights, and features tours of the Space Center and other local attractions along with an interesting and highly interdisciplinary program.
Experts from every discipline interested in exploring the many complex social and ethical questions raised by space exploration and the search for life on other planets are invited to attend the first joint meeting of the two major groups devoted to this end. We welcome submissions addressing any of the many “broader questions” in astrobiology and space exploration such as:
- Commercial activity in space
- Human colonization of other worlds
- The true nature of “life”’
- Emerging issues in space law
- Ethical questions regarding the search for extraterrestrial life and intelligence
- Balancing diverse cultural perspectives in space research
- Space Mining and ownership of space “resources”
- First Contact protocols
- “Pollution” in the context of space
- Societal and religious implications of a possible discovery of extraterrestrial life
- Fictional portrayals of space
astrobiology
