Political Ecology in the Extreme: Asteroid Activism and the Making of an Environmental Solar System

This case study examines how, in a post-Cold War context, aerospace and astronautics practices and policies are becoming more comprehensively attached to national and international environmental politics. This is evident in the emergence of a dual identity for Near Earth Objects (asteroids and comets with orbits that bring them close to the Earth); they are astronomical as well as environmental objects that are considered to be threats as well as exploitable natural resources. The paper investigates two results of this dual categorization: 1) activist efforts to extend environmental governance beyond the terrestrial and 2) new technoscientific perceptions of the solar system as a heliospheric ecology.