Space is part of the Land: Moving from colonialism and space exploitation to Indigenous models of operating in Space

The colonization of outer space arguably began with the writings of Von Braun in the 1950’s and his manual for sending people to Mars as a new land to conquer. That colonialism was not novel, but follows the same history of European powers colonizing the Americas and other parts of the world and, the same recent history of nations and consortiums developing telescopes on Indigenous Lands. In the future as private actors develop a new space industry we will see the export of this colonialism to Space, to the Moon and one day even to Mars. We are already seeing this today with the development of satellite constellations, some of which are visible by the unaided eye and with the multinational Artemis Accords for lunar exploration. In this talk I will review the relation between astronomy, outer space and colonization in the past, present, and future; and I will discuss different ways to relate to outer space and space exploration through the lens of Indigenous methods and knowledges.

Dr. Hilding Neilson is an interdisciplinary scientist, working on astrophysics and on the intersection of science, astronomy, and Indigenous knowledge. As a Mi’kmaw person, he strives to embrace and integrate Indigenous knowledges and methodologies to better understand the physics of stars and the Universe and our place in it. More specifically, Dr. Neilson probes the physics of stars, from the nuclear-burning core out to the circumstellar medium where stellar winds interact with the interstellar medium to understand connections between stars and planets; stars and cosmology; and stars and us. He exploits theoretical and numerical tools to compare with observational data sets to reveal the hidden physics of stars. Dr. Neilson enjoy teaching at the undergraduate and graduate levels as well as participating in public outreach and science communication.