CCA Annual Keynote Lecture - The Satellite Coast: Vandenberg Space Force Base, SpaceX, and Relations of Infrastructural Adjacency
This research project examines the material effects of intensified commercial satellite launching from Vandenberg Space Force Base on the central coast of California. The “satellite coast” is conceptualized as a zone of technological, economic, and socio-cultural activity where agriculture, aerospace, and prison industries converge on the unceded lands of Indigenous Chumash communities–a zone inhabited by generations of fishermen, fruit pickers, and ranchers, military personnel and space engineers, housing developers and incarcerated persons. It is a zone of skyward trajectories, speculative futures, and broken promises. Drawing on preliminary fieldwork, the presentation will explore conditions faced by communities who work and live adjacent to launch complexes, including environmental and public health-related concerns caused by noise and emissions, impacts on cultural resources and spiritual practices of communities indigenous to the area, and socio-economic effects on nearby towns. The research is focused on understanding the localized effects of global satellite constellations that are owned and operated by companies such as SpaceX, Blue Origins, and Telesat/Lightspeed.