EA - Announcing the Space Futures Initiative by Carson Ezell

Link to original articleWelcome to The Nonlinear Library, where we use Text-to-Speech software to convert the best writing from the Rationalist and EA communities into audio. This is: Announcing the Space Futures Initiative, published by Carson Ezell on September 12, 2022 on The Effective Altruism Forum. We are excited to announce the Space Futures Initiative, which has a mission of conducting research, promoting education, and engaging in outreach to improve the long-term future in outer space for humanity and our descendants. We believe sharing longtermist ideas within the space community and developing scalable space governance frameworks are currently neglected areas. Conducting these activities requires engagement between the longtermist community, space policy community, space industry, scientific community, and beyond. The Space Futures Initiative aims to engage students and academic researchers, produce valuable long-term space futures research, and collaborate with key stakeholders to discuss and implement plans to improve long-term space futures. The ongoing proliferation of space activities has outpaced our ability to develop appropriate norms and governance structures for a sustainable future in outer space. Furthermore, transformative technologies in the relatively near future might allow leading space actors to significantly influence humanity’s long-term trajectory. As a result, right now might be an important opportunity to positively impact long-term space governance frameworks and norms. The Space Futures Initiative is intended to be a collaboration among effective altruists, longtermists, astrophysicists, aerospace engineers, legal scholars, social scientists, philosophers, and others interested in long-term space futures. While our primary focus is conducting research, we also interface with key stakeholders in dialogue on outer space, including the commercial sector and advocacy organizations in policy making hubs. We are appreciative of our early supporters and excited about further collaboration with organizations including the Center for Space Governance and Simon Institute for Longterm Governance. Our directors are Madeleine Chang, Carson Ezell, and Olaf Willner. Our initial activities include the following: Developing an initial research agenda and research papers Hosting discussion groups at Harvard and MIT based on an upcoming curriculum for space governance and space futures Supporting academic research projects related to space technologies, space governance, and space ethics We are also excited to collaborate with more organizations and individuals interested in our mission. The following are specific ways in which you may be able to provide support or get involved: Send us an academic research proposal related to space futures that you would be interested in pursuing further, or express interest in conducting research with us Support space governance and space futures researchers who can contribute to answering questions on our research agenda within other research programs (e.g. CERI, SERI, CHERI, etc.) Let us know that you are willing to mentor an undergraduate or graduate student on a space governance/space futures research project Express interest in hosting a space governance discussion group within your university or local EA group, using our upcoming curriculum or other space futures related materials Send us ideas for new considerations within space futures that might merit further research, or criticisms of priorities within our current research agenda Send an email to [email protected], [email protected], or [email protected] to express interest, or share other ideas and feedback Thanks for listening. To help us out with The Nonlinear Library or to learn more, please visit nonlinear.org.