Why sending a Native American into space is a big deal – WBUR News

Outer space has been grabbing headlines over the past few months. The James Webb Space Telescope continues to wow astronomers and the masses alike withunparalleled images ofdistant galaxies, stellar nurseries,Neptunes ringsand more.

A couple of weeks ago, NASAs Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) altered an asteroids trajectory byslamming a spacecraft into it,a feat that,in theory, could help humanity avoid the fate of the dinosaurs. Even the thrice-delayedlaunch of NASAs Artemis I, which will eventually take a crew to the moon, continues tomakefront-page news.

However, another cosmic achievement has been eclipsed by these flashier feats: On Oct. 5,Nicole Mann, a registered member of theWailaki tribe, became the first Indigenous woman to go to space.

Spaceexplorationhasalwaysbeen marked by firsts: the first person or country in space, on the moon, and someday, on Mars. There are countless practical and symbolic reasons representation matters in space, just as it doeseverywhere else, particularly for Indigenous people.

Agencies, organizations and companies that spearhead space programs and interests have always been dominated by wealthy white men. John Glenntestified in front of a Congressional subcommitteethatwomen shouldnt participate in NASAs astronaut program. The naming of the James Webb Space Telescope hasgenerated much controversybecause ofWebbs participationin theLavender Scare, when the U.S. government tried to identify and jettison any employees who werent demonstrably heterosexual. The first all-female spacewalk happened just three years ago, andonly after a debacle involving a lack of spacesuitssized for non-male crew members.

Diversity and representation in NASAs astronaut classes, as well as in other astronaut programs around the world,are slowly improving. But not quickly enough.

The existence of overwhelmingly white, male crews and space tourists suggests false homogeneity on Earth and perpetuates destructive power dynamics. Private space companies run by rich, white men imply that space is accessible only to certain people if they just work and save up.

The dominance of space ventures by the white and wealthy also paves the way forcosmic capitalism. The finders-keepers and frontier mentality prioritizes exploration, not for the sake of knowledge or even of species survival, but rather, for power. But space,like Earth,is not a commodity and shouldnt be treated as such.

Indigenous people have lost far too much on Earth already, and we need to prevent that from happening in space, too. Problematic rhetoric around manifest destiny, pushing the space frontier or colonizing celestial bodiesperpetuates those ideologies and behaviors. Quantifying how muchNative Americanshavelost is impossible; what is entirely possible, however, is disrupting these patterns before they reach the stars.

Most of us don't think much about the cosmos except when we glimpse the occasional eclipse or shooting star.However, thats not the case for Indigenous communities, whose connection to the cosmos is spiritual, cultural and practical. These communities use the stars to navigate,celebrate holidays dictated by the position of the planets, and incorporate constellations intoreligious and spiritual practices. Space X currently has over2,300 Starlink satellites orbiting Earth(with some 30,000 more on deck), whichdisrupt ground-based astronomyand create a gap between Indigenous communities and the natural elements that have guided their customs for centuries.

Indigenous communities have also had to fight to retain land that offers superlative access to the sky. The controversy about the plannedThirty Meter Telescopeon Hawaiis Maunakea mountain is one recent example. Maunakea, an inactive volcano with a sacred summit used for prayer, already accommodates13independent observatories, each of which is committed to sustainability andstewardship. The Thirty Meter Telescope would be far larger than the existing observatories, and most problematically, its plans didnt involve local Indigenous communities or consider the impact its construction would have on them.

Fortunately, the National Science Foundation isassessing the environmental impactsof the telescopes construction, and the Environmental Protection Agencyrecommended that the Foundation find an alternative sitethat wouldnt have such negative impacts on the lives of native people.

Still, the clear implication is that Native American land is ripe for theft, especially in the name of "progress." Powerful white people still get to decide which Indigenous beliefs, values, practices and property to respect and which tobulldozefor their own use.

A team of astronomers concernedabout the impacts of such developments suggests treating space asanancestral global commonsthat contains the heritage and future of humanitys scientific and cultural practices.That legacy, as well as the present and future, should be accessible toall people. In corporate terms, all of us are shareholders and stakeholders in the sky and in space, and that paradigm should guide decisions about who does what in space, why and at what cost to whom.

In this context, its hard to overstate the significance of the first Native American woman in space. Mann, commander of theCREW-5 mission, is the second Native American in space (20 years ago,John Harrington, of theChickasaw Nationbecame the first). She will live on theInternational Space Stationfor up to six months, where she and the other astronauts will conduct research on the effects of microgravity on the human body and other processes essential to life off-Earth.

This missionpavesthe way forArtemis, which aims to send astronauts back to the moon and eventually to Mars. One of thegoals of the Artemis mission is to put thefirst female and the first person of color on the moon some 50 years after Neil Armstrong set foot there. Whoever NASA selects will, like Mann, serve as inspiration for generations,and as a reminder that cycles can be broken. As we think about the future, we can choose not to repeat the mistakes of the past.

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Why sending a Native American into space is a big deal - WBUR News