Countering the threat of space pollution: awareness raising via sustainability narratives

Abstract This paper engages with the conference themes of community engagement and awareness raising, through proposing narratives which provide alternative stories to the belief in unrestricted technological development. The plan to launch up to 400,000 satellites into Earth orbit is an example of unregulated corporate capitalism: many private corporations and governments are encouraging rapid growth of the space sector without sufficient consideration of broader and potentially consequences for Earth and space environments or the interests and welfare of the wider community. My question in this paper is how far sustainability narratives from the humanities and social sciences can assist in the attempts to limit pollution of the sky and near-Earth environment.