Spaceports: Places, Promises, Politics

Event details

The term ‘spaceport’ first appeared in the published literature in 1962 to describe the Cape Canaveral facility that NASA had built for the US human spaceflight programme. Today, there are 22 spaceports in operation. There is governmental and commercial interest in developing new spaceports, with the promise that they will allow states to gain a share in the global space economy that is projected to generate more than a trillion US dollars in revenue by 2040 (Institute for Defence Analyses, 2020).

Spaceports exemplify Macdonald’s observation that outer space is ‘produced in and through Earthly regimes of power’ (Macdonald 2007: 610). Given this, a number of scholars have studied their emergence and significance in relation to colonialism (Redfield 2002), futures (Saamler and Lynch 2021), political objectives (Beery 2012) and innovation policies (Vidmar 2020).

The development of spaceports prompts a number of critical questions:

• Who is driving this investment in spaceports?
• What visions and expectations of future economic benefits are held and articulated by governments, local communities, and industry?
• What forms of asset creation and economic rent seeking are being pursued in spaceport economies?
• What role are spaceports playing in the construction of new knowledge economies and in state policies to foster national competitiveness?
• How is investment in spaceports linked to other initiatives in STEM education and workforce upskilling?
• In what kinds of cultural imaginaries do spaceports feature?
• What have been the effects so far of spaceports on local economies and communities where they are situated?
• How do contemporary spaceports differ from those established in earlier periods?
• How should we conceptualise and interrogate these developments from social science perspectives?

This two-day symposium will provide an opportunity for scholars and others to explore these questions and more. The event will provide an opportunity to give short talks to share your research interests or ongoing projects with other researchers working in this area.

We plan for the first day to be organised around a series of short talks given to a mixed audience of academics and policy and industry representatives.

The second day will focus on academic networking and capacity building, with time set aside to explore opportunities for collaboration, such as a journal special issue, conference panels, future follow-up events and grant applications.

This symposium is organised by Dr Eleanor Armstrong (University of Stockholm), Dr Alex Taylor (University of Exeter), Dr Richard Tutton (University of York) and Dr Matjaz Vidmar (University of Edinburgh)

If you are interested in joining this symposium, please contact Richard Tutton at richard.tutton@york.ac.uk.