For too long, colonial language has dominated space exploration. There is a better way – Space.com

For too long, colonial language has dominated space exploration. There is a better way

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By William Grant, Art Cotterell, published 23 hours ago

How we talk about space exploration shapes the futures we imagine and build.

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This article was originally published at The Conversation. The publication contributed the article to Space.com’s Expert Voices: Op-Ed & Insights.

At an internal staff briefing last week, acting NASA Administrator Sean Duffy declared the United States has a “manifest destiny to the stars,” linking this to the need to win the “space race.”

This rhetoric is not new – it directly echoes US President Donald Trump‘s inaugural address from earlier this year. You may like

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The phrasing invokes US nationalism that’s historically been used to justify colonial expansion and empire-building.

Language matters. How we talk about space exploration shapes the futures we imagine and build. As two space governance specialists working together – one non-Indigenous, one Indigenous – we see an urgent need for a different way to view space.

An Indigenous-inspired lens can help us envision and build a future with stewardship and shared responsibility, not competition and conquest.

We’re still talking about the ‘space race’

That space is a “race” has become a common, and sometimes contested, refrain. The US and China are leading missions to the moon’s south pole, each looking to land on prime sites where they could establish bases and access scarce resources such as water ice and light, essential for staying on the lunar surface for longer periods of time.

Continue/Read Original Article: https://www.space.com/space-exploration/for-too-long-colonial-language-has-dominated-space-exploration-there-is-a-better-way