What a fantastic set of panellists we had for the Losing the Sky event last night. The talk was very wide-ranging and covered just about all the issues associated with the problem of mega-constellations and the pollution of the night sky. Watch the video if you missed it. You won’t find a better overview of the topic.
Read the Zoom chat between participants from the event »
Panellists and areas covered included:
Part I: Astronomical Science: Why are Astronomers worried?
Chair: Mark McCaughrean (European Space Agency)
Panelist-1: Meredith Rawls (Univ. Washington, Seattle)
Panelist-2: Sam Lawler (Univ. Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada)
Panelist-3: Michael Kramer (Max Planck Inst. for Radio Astronomy, Bonn)
Part II: Connecting the world: why are space companies building huge constellations?
Chair: Catherine Heymans (Univ. Edinburgh)
Panelist-1: Ruth Pritchard-Kelly (Oneweb)
Panelist-2: Amy Mehlman (Viasat)
Part III: Environment and Culture: What is our right to the sky? Should we care?
Chair: Jarita Holbrook (Univ. Edinburgh)
Panelist-1: Timiebi Aganaba (Arizona State University)
Panelist-2: Brian Eno (Musician and environmental campaigner)
Panelist-3: Aparna Venkatesan (University of San Francisco)
Part IV: Space Junk: Does the growth of space debris really threaten everybody’s use of space?
Chair: Jonathan McDowell (Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics)
Panelist-1: Moriba Jah (Univ. Texas at Austin)
Panelist-2: Alan Thompson (Skyrora)
Panelist-3: Hugh Lewis (Univ. Southampton)
Part V: Space Law: who has the say on who is allowed to do what, and should it change?
Chair: Katherine Courtney (KCourtney Business Innovation and Strategy)
Panelist-1: Chris Newman (Univ. Northumbria)
Panelist-2: Stefano Gallozzi (Italian National Institute of Astrophysics)
Panelist-3: Brian Weeden (Secure World Foundation)
Panelist-4: Niklas Hedman (United Nations Office of Outer Space Affairs)
For more information see Andy Lawrence’s website.