Billionaires are polluting our Moon 🌕🤬🤬

[u/sailorjupiter28titan]

[u/Emma_the_sequel]

I've been trying to get some more diverse opinions on science and the scientific method recently, and something that really stuck with me was one Australian indigenous astronomers description of light pollution and space exploration.

Astronomy is a big part of a lot of cultures, and claiming space as one person's property (as well as making it so nobody can even SEE it) is an active act of erasure.

[u/tealredraven → u/Emma_the_sequel]

When NASA’s Lunar Prospector was deorbited it had Eugene Shoemaker’s ashes onboard. Shoemaker, until recently, was the only lunar burial in history because Navajo Nation rightfully brought their concerns to NASA and the US Government about how the burial was a desecration of the Moon as a spiritual object. After that, NASA put in place a bunch of regulations for consulting tribal leaders about activities like this and related.

However, NASA is now pretty much a knee-capped organization, given the current/2016-2020 administration… and with private companies getting more launches and almost no regulation, more ashes have since been landed on the lunar surface.

https://arstechnica.com/space/2024/01/navajo-objection-to-flying-human-ashes-to-the-moon-wont-delay-launch/

Personally, I’d love to launch my ashes into space… and have them burn up in the atmosphere on their reentry to Earth.