ESHS/HSS Annual Meeting

From Outer Earth to Outer Space: EU Research in Antarctica on Climate Change and Bioastronautics

• In Event: Space, Science, and Imagined Futures

English Abstract

European Union agencies have long been interested in possible futures for humanity on Earth and beyond. Since 2002, the European Space Agency (ESA) has conducted a Long-Term Medical Survey, originally developed in the 1980s, on crewmembers overwintering at the EU-Funded, Franco-Italian Concordia station in Antarctica, established primarily to study climate change. The Space Agency’s interest in researchers living high on Antarctica’s Dome C lies in its need for physiological data from humans in extreme environments to prepare for human life in outer space. This chapter examines the ESA’s use of Concordia as a deep space proxy to uncover its visions for human futures beyond Earth. Consequently, by drawing on archival materials from the Historical Archives of the European Union and by studying the ESA’s work in Antarctica through a history of science approach, this paper connects research on climate change and its consequences on Earth to programs for space exploration and future space settlement in the European imagination.

Author

• Grace Ballor, Bocconi University