Astronomy and the Billionaire Space Race

In February 2024, hundreds of pounds of potentially lethal debris from a SpaceX Crew Dragon trunk from a private astronaut mission fell on farmland near Regina, Saskatchewan. Dr. Samantha Lawler of the University of Regina has been studying the degradation of the night sky due to thousands of new commercial satellites over the past six years and was stunned to learn that space debris fell so close to her home. This talk begins with the story of SpaceX employees driving a rented U-Haul truck to an isolated grain farm to be greeted by an astronomer and a dozen of Saskatchewan's finest local journalists. By the end of the talk, we'll cover international space law, atmospheric pollution due to launches and reentries, and how thousands of new commercial satellites are already changing casual stargazing, astrophotography, and astronomy research alike

Speaker: Samantha Lawler, Campion College and University of Regnia, Saskatchewan, Canada

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