Event Details

Dr Mia Bennett from the University of Washington (Seattle, USA) will present in this research seminar. This seminar is hybrid (in-person in LUMS LT19 and online via Teams- Meeting ID: 340 827 865 122 0 / Passcode: rD7aE9TN).

Abstract: A rush is underway to build spaceports across the Arctic and sub-Arctic. These infrastructures are intended to support the commercial satellite sector and launch satellites into polar orbits. Since Earth-observing satellites pass more over the polar regions than anywhere else, the Arctic bears a disproportionate burden of the construction of spaceports and ground stations, whose antennas downlink data from overpassing satellites. Spaceports are being built in northern Norway (Andøya) and northern Sweden (Kiruna/Esrange), while seven spaceports are proposed in the Arctic’s “nearest neighbor,” the UK, which seeks to be the global leader in spaceports by 2030. Arctic spaceports are remote and often build near or on rural and Indigenous lands. This distinguishes them from traditional “portal infrastructures” like maritime ports and airports, which are built in urban hubs to connect people. Spaceports are instead being constructed to move objects from Earth into orbit. Governments and investors alike are promoting them as transformational infrastructures that will upskill economies and rocket countries into the New Space Age, which commercial actors dominate. Yet the little-used Pacific Spaceport Complex, which opened on Kodiak Island, Alaska in 1998, offers sobering lessons in the realities of spaceport development and impacts on local communities. Current plans to expand operations – notably, without the construction of any additional accommodation – face local pushback due to frustration with launch-related road and beach closures, explosions, and pollution. In this talk, I will compare the off-Earth mobilities that spaceports promise versus the terrestrial ones they uproot.

Bio: Dr. Mia Bennett is an associate professor in the Department of Geography at the University of Washington (Seattle, USA). Her research focuses on the geopolitics of infrastructure development in frontier spaces, namely the Arctic and orbital space. With colleagues, she has led the development of the field of critical remote sensing. Bennett is founder and editor of the blog Cryopolitics and associate editor of the journals Political Geography and Polar Geography. Her research has been supported by the U.S. National Science Foundation, Fulbright Program, British Academy, Regional Studies Association, and Gates Cambridge Scholarship. She is co-author with Klaus Dodds of a forthcoming book, Unfrozen: The Fight for the Future of the Arctic (Yale University Press).