News
FutureSpace at IAEA RegCon 2026
On April 30, the FutureSpace team had the honour of leading the Strategic Foresight workshop “Too Late to Regulate? Nuclear Power in Outer Space in the Year 2050 - Backcasting for Regulatory Agility” at the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) International Conference on Effective Nuclear and Radiation Regulatory Systems. The session began...
Behind Closed Doors: Navigating Secrecy in the Study of Wargames – talk at SPIN Panel Session
On April 22, Nina Klimburg-Witjes and Nicolò Miotto, affiliated PhD Candidate at FutureSpace, presented at the second Panel Session organised by the Secrecy, Power, and Ignorance research Network (SPIN). Their talk, entitled "Behind Closed Doors: Navigating Secrecy in the Study of Wargames" considers how secrecy is a constitutive and performative...
Die Zukunft des Weltalls – Ö1 Radio Interview
Click here for interview | In light of the Artemis II mission, Nina Klimburg-Witjes featured as a guest in the Ö1 radio programme “Punkt Eins”, hosted by Andreas Obrecht. In their hour-long conversation, Nina discussed which geopolitical and economic developments currently shape the future of …
Der Mann im Mond – Falter article
Click here for article | Nina Klimburg-Witjes recently contributed to an article by Thomas Zauner in the Austrian magazine “Falter”, discussing the upcoming Artemis II mission to the Moon. Placing NASA’s current lunar programme in the context of current geopolitics and changing governance of outer space, the article asks what the objectives of the Artemis programme are and which motivations underlie these.
FutureSpace presents at PSL Week of the ENS Space Chair
PSL Week image (ENS Space Chair) On March 2, Nina Klimburg-Witjes presented at the first "PSL Week" organised by the Space Chair of the École Normale Supérieur in Paris. Nina's presentation of the ongoing research in the FutureSpace project engaged with the question of how to map Earth-Space relations in the European space sector, using...
FutureSpace hosts 4th annual Ethnographies of Outer Space Symposium
On September 25 and 26 2025, FutureSpace hosted the 4th annual Ethnographies of Outer Space Symposium. We thoroughly enjoyed an incredible two days of presentations, discussions, and collaboration about all things Social Studies of Outer Space (SSOS) from a wide range of academic fields. The symposium brought together scholars working at the...
FutureSpace at 18th Pan-European Conference on International Relations
At the end of August, Nina Klimburg-Witjes and Philipp Kürten were in Bologna, at the 18th Pan-European Conference on International Relations, organised by the European International Studies Association (EISA) from August 25 to August 29. At the conference, Nina co-organised the first-ever "Critical Studies of Outer Space" section, together with...
FutureSpace at 10th STS Italia Conference
From June 11 until June 13, Nina Klimburg-Witjes and Joseph Popper attended the 10th STS Italia Conference, organised around the theme "Designing, Caring and Reconfiguring". They presented two papers based on ongoing research within the FutureSpace project. The first, titled "Following the rocket around: Towards a material-temporal topography of...
Im Schatten der Sterne – wespennest
Click here for article | In an article published in the Austrian magazine “wespennest” Nina Klimburg-Witjes and Kai Strycker discuss the critical situation of space debris and the potential threats it poses to our space infrastructure. Written in an attempt to avert the general public to the concerning developments that so often happen out of sight and out of mind, the article gives a broad overview of the current predicament of orbital debris.
FutureSpace hosts Friends from the University of Amsterdam and Erasmus University Rotterdam
FutureSpace & Friends To kick off 2025 with new ideas, projects and collaborations, our brilliant colleagues Darshan Vigneswaran and Enrike van Wingerden (University of Amsterdam / Uni Rotterdam) visited us in Vienna for a wonderful workshop, in which we explored outer space futures, infrastructures, and Earth-Space governance together. How...
EASST-4S 2024: Presenting the winners of the Creative Writing Competition
This summer at the EASST-4S Science and Technology Studies Conference hosted at the University of Amsterdam Nina, together with her colleagues and friends Michela Cozza (Mälardalen University, Sweden) and Sally Wyatt (Maastricht University, Netherlands) had the difficult but inspiring task of choosing the best texts of fiction in three...
FutureSpace presents at Linköping Space Studies Institute
On Wednesday 4 December, Joseph presented ongoing research in an online seminar hosted by the Linköping Space Studies Institute. The talk was titled "Topographies of Earth-Space Relations" and shared initial findings into the making of Ariane and European space futures, the scalar narratives involved, and some first ideas for a topography of...
2024 Earth-Space Symposium on ‘Sustainability, Governance, Futures’
This November, Nina and Philipp participated at the 2024 Earth-Space Symposium on ‘Sustainability, Governance, Futures’, presenting their work on Futuring Practices and conflicting Temporalities in European Space Policy. This year was hosted by the ERC Project PLANETSTEWARDS of the Copernicus Institute of Sustainable Development at Utrecht...
WTMC Series on Teaching and Learning STS: Infrastructures Across Borders
As part of the WTMC Series on Teaching and Learning STS: Infrastructures Across Borders, Nina Klimburg-Witjes presented a talk entitled "Infrastructures of Earth-Space Relations: Following a Rocket" to PhD students from all across the Netherlands. This installment of the WTMC PhD Fall Workshop, from the 4th to the 7th November 2024, was organized...
FutureSpace at Ethnographies of Outer Space Conference
This September, Nina and Joseph participated at the annual Ethnographies of Outer Space [EOS] conference, presenting their work on topographies of Earth-space relations. This year was hosted by the ARIES team at Jagiellonian University in Krakow. It was a wonderful event and we truly enjoyed the chance to spend two days exchanging with peers in...