Toward mutual accountability in the nonterrestrial realms

1975 ◽  
Vol 29 (3) ◽  
pp. 877-892 ◽  
Author(s):  
Seyom Brown ◽  
Larry L. Fabian

The inherited international regimes for the ocean, outer space, and the weather-based largely on the principles of open access and free use-are inappropriate to the emerging needs in these realms for efficient and equitable allocation of resources and for conflict management. Neither a substantially greater exercise by national governments of management authority, nor a marginalist approach to increasing the authority of functionally-specific international institutions will suffice. A major commitment to expand and strengthen processes of international accountability among the users of these realms is required. Institutional targets for the mid-1980s should include a comprehensive ocean authority; an outer space projects agency; a global weather and climate organization; and an international scientific commission on global resources and ecologies. Transitional strategies, of a marginal and functionally-specific nature, however, will be required in the meantime, directed toward internationalizing information on the nonterrestrial realms, drawing the relevant actors into consultative arrangements, and limiting current unilateralist trends.

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael P. Oman-Reagan

In this anthropological account of the “interstellar” – the vast expanses of outer space between the stars – I take interstellar travel as an object of ethnographic study. First, I examine three interstellar space projects: NASA’s Voyager 1 spacecraft; 100 Year Starship’s manifesto on their quest to travel to another star; and SETI’s search for life in the universe. Finally, I turn to corresponding examples of interstellar travel in speculative fiction.In 2013, NASA announced a transmission from the Voyager 1 spacecraft as the “sound of interstellar space” and marked it as crossing a boundary into the “space between stars.” Organizations like 100 Year Starship and the Interstellar Message Composition program at SETI describe interstellar travel in terms of spacecraft, listening for signals, and active transmission. Fiction and science also co-render humans into interstellar scale via speculative technologies like artificial intelligence, instantaneous travel across the universe by “folding space,” and the “generation ship,” in which generations of crewmembers live and die during a multi-year voyage to another star.This ethnography of interstellar ontologies across multiple sites and scales builds on feminist science studies (Haraway), recent work on abstractions as scientific things (Helmreich), and the concept of hyperobjects – non-human entities that are massively distributed in time and space (Morton). As interstellar space moves between abstraction, text, place, and object, I find that it unfolds to reveal a constellation of potentially inhabited worlds inscribed by both scientists and speculative fiction; what was remote, insensate, and desolate becomes intimate, poetic, inhabited.Keywords: Science; Speculative Fiction; Object-Oriented Ontology; Deconstruction; SpacePlease cite as:Oman-Reagan, Michael P. 2015. “Unfolding the Space Between Stars: Anthropology of the Interstellar.” SocArXiv, Open Science Framework. Manuscript, submitted February 4, 2017. osf.io/preprints/socarxiv/r4ghb/A version of this paper was presented as:Oman-Reagan, Michael P. 2015. Unfolding the Space Between Stars: Anthropology of the Interstellar. Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Anthropological Association, Denver, November 21.


2016 ◽  
Vol 113 (40) ◽  
pp. 11255-11260 ◽  
Author(s):  
Amanda N. Sferruzzi-Perri ◽  
Jorge López-Tello ◽  
Abigail L. Fowden ◽  
Miguel Constancia

Pregnancy success and life-long health depend on a cooperative interaction between the mother and the fetus in the allocation of resources. As the site of materno-fetal nutrient transfer, the placenta is central to this interplay; however, the relative importance of the maternal versus fetal genotypes in modifying the allocation of resources to the fetus is unknown. Using genetic inactivation of the growth and metabolism regulator, Pik3ca (encoding PIK3CA also known as p110α, α/+), we examined the interplay between the maternal genome and the fetal genome on placental phenotype in litters of mixed genotype generated through reciprocal crosses of WT and α/+ mice. We demonstrate that placental growth and structure were impaired and associated with reduced growth of α/+ fetuses. Despite its defective development, the α/+ placenta adapted functionally to increase the supply of maternal glucose and amino acid to the fetus. The specific nature of these changes, however, depended on whether the mother was α/+ or WT and related to alterations in endocrine and metabolic profile induced by maternal p110α deficiency. Our findings thus show that the maternal genotype and environment programs placental growth and function and identify the placenta as critical in integrating both intrinsic and extrinsic signals governing materno-fetal resource allocation.


1980 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 32-35
Author(s):  
Marilyn A. Altobello ◽  
Joseph E. Diamond

Outer space would appear to be a natural resource whose use is characterized by open access and a minimum of congestion externalities. However, over the past two decades, there has been an increase in demand for the limited number of “orbital slots” for communications satellites, and over-crowding has become a problem in space. Recent studies commissioned by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (Gamble et al., 1979 and Gabriszeski et al., 1979) concluded that demand for communications satellite circuits will increase many-fold between 1982 and the end of this century. This projected increase in demand is the result of the growing number of non-military uses for satellite activities such as weather and climate data collection and remote-sensing of the earth's resources. Another is simply the growing number of nations with interests and capabilities in advanced space technology. To illustrate, membership in the International Telecommunications Satellite Organization, (Intelsat), the organization responsible for coordinating global telephone and television relays, has grown from 14 nations in 1964 to 101 in 1980.


Author(s):  
V. V. VOROBIOV ◽  
O.S. SHYLO

Problem statement. Humanity is inching closer to the technical possibility of establishing outer space settlements on the Moon. The space club nations have joined their potential or move ahead with their own space exploration efforts to work on outer space projects of Lunar habitats. The new Moon Race has begun with its first stage of architectural design played out on Earth. The Internet resources and research publications in printed journals suggest different approaches to lunar settlement designs, which can be explained by extreme surface conditions and configurations of the Moon, as well as various goals and objectives set by the states seeking to gain a foothold on our nearest neighbor in space. In cooperation with other nations, Ukraine participates in the exploration of the Moon. However, the global expert comunity has not yet come up with clear and unambiguous concepts of the typology of the organizational architecture for lunar settlements. The goal of this paper is to give insight into the typology of objective timeless approaches to the architectural organization of lunar settlements. Conclusions. Colonisation of other planets, as an immediate objective of the humankind, will begin with the exploration of the Moon, where various adaptation methods could be developed relevant to the conditions of other worlds. Nevetherless, there are some common objective factors affecting the settlements of pioneers from Earth. Thus, the need for identifying and systematising an objective typology of approaches to the architectural organization of lunar settlements as a condition for the subsequent colonisation of more distant planets has become important.


Author(s):  
T. E. Mitchell ◽  
M. R. Pascucci ◽  
R. A. Youngman

1. Introduction. Studies of radiation damage in ceramics are of interest not only from a fundamental point of view but also because it is important to understand the behavior of ceramics in various practical radiation enyironments- fission and fusion reactors, nuclear waste storage media, ion-implantation devices, outer space, etc. A great deal of work has been done on the spectroscopy of point defects and small defect clusters in ceramics, but relatively little has been performed on defect agglomeration using transmission electron microscopy (TEM) in the same kind of detail that has been so successful in metals. This article will assess our present understanding of radiation damage in ceramics with illustrations using results obtained from the authors' work.


The Analyst ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 145 (1) ◽  
pp. 122-131 ◽  
Author(s):  
Wanda V. Fernandez ◽  
Rocío T. Tosello ◽  
José L. Fernández

Gas diffusion electrodes based on nanoporous alumina membranes electrocatalyze hydrogen oxidation at high diffusion-limiting current densities with fast response times.


2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Debidatta Aurobinda Mahapatra
Keyword(s):  

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