A lack of awareness of the value of space among the public, amid threats to the space environment about orbital debris, shows the need for a “space literacy” campaign. (credit: ESA/ID&Sense/ONiRiXEL)

Space literacy: Environmental education for a spacefaring civilization

by Beverly B. Bachelder and Robert S. Bachelder
Monday, February 24, 2025

Our spacefaring civilization could benefit from the experience and wisdom of Theodore Roosevelt, the “conservation president.” The rapid development of key Earth orbits and their impending exhaustion presents a challenge similar to one he effectively addressed over a century ago

By 1908, the United States had reached an inflection point in the utilization of its terrestrial resources. Roosevelt’s response was to summon the nation’s governors, members of Congress, the Supreme Court, the Cabinet, the Inland Waterways Commission, experts in natural resources, and leading industrialists to the White House for a conference on conservation and the “wise use” of natural resources.

In his opening speech, “Conservation as a National Duty,” the president told his audience that the discovery and use of coal, oil, gas, iron, metals, fertile soil, vast forests, and abundant waterways had made “the conditions of our life unparalleled in comfort and convenience.” But he warned his listeners that the nation’s natural resources were in danger of exhaustion if the “old wasteful methods of exploiting them” were allowed to continue. He said, “We began with an unapproached heritage of forests; more than half of the timber is gone. We began with coal fields more extensive than those of any other nation and with iron ores regarded as inexhaustible, and many experts now declare that the end of both iron and coal is in sight.” Roosevelt called for immediate action “to prevent the advent of a woodless age, and defer as long as possible the advent of an ironless age.” [1]

Conference attendees were not Roosevelt’s only intended audience. Historian Clay S. Jenkinson points out that the president designed the proceedings to bring the issue to wide public attention. He writes, “Roosevelt said that urbanization cut off much of the American population from the nation’s land and its resources. The people had lost sight of their dependence on nature. This alienation from daily contact with the soil had led the country unwittingly to deplete the natural resources of the continent… Roosevelt made sure that 21 editors and reporters were on hand to inform the 88 million Americans of the importance and grandeur of the conference and to report its findings.” [2]

The White House conference was a seminal event in the history of the environmental movement. It succeeded in popularizing the basic concept of conservation and sparked a number of initiatives, including establishment of the National Conservation Commission with representatives from federal agencies and the states. In large measure, the conference owed its success to Roosevelt’s emphasis on a factor that is missing from current conversations about space sustainability: the critical role played by an educated public that recognizes its dependence on the natural world and is willing to support the efforts of policymakers to conserve natural resources for current and future needs.

In its development of space resources, our spacefaring civilization has followed a similar trajectory. Early in the Space Age, certain regions of Earth’s orbit, a limited natural resource, began to host satellites that provided important services and benefits. In 1959, Explorer 6 took the first satellite image of Earth over Mexico. Telstar-1, the first active communications satellite, was launched in 1962 and connected the US and France in the first transatlantic television transmission. By 1964, the US Navy was using radio signals from its Transit system of satellites to navigate surface ships and submarines.

Now we have reached an inflection point for space exploration and space science education. The growing interdependence of human society and the natural system of outer space necessitates a transformative change in the way we educate students about their relationship to space. Today the space operating environment serves as home to more than 10,000 satellites that society depends upon for communications, Earth observation, and navigation. At the same time, our expanding utilization of these orbits for commercial, military, and scientific purposes creates major problems for the international community in its management of space. Key orbital highways are increasingly congested with space debris and space traffic that threaten active spacecraft and astronauts.

At this critical moment, the public is largely unaware of its dependence on space. In 2022, Inmarsat surveyed 20,000 respondents from 11 countries about their attitudes toward space. The company reported, “The research findings mark a real wake-up call for the space industry. It’s clear that people have a low understanding of the breadth and richness of the work being done in space today. Perhaps because the technology deployed is essentially invisible, people do not appear to understand the role space is already playing in their everyday lives, nor its potential to deliver a brighter future for our planet.” [3]

Contemporary space science instruction is not positioned to help close this education deficit. It was not designed to address the interdependence of society and space and its ramifications. What it does do very well is teach students about space as a natural system. Forty-nine states and the District of Columbia have adopted the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) for grades 1–12 or standards based on the NGSS framework. The two core disciplinary ideas are the “Universe and the Stars” and the “Earth and the Solar System.” Students examine the “processes governing the formation, evolution, and workings of the solar system and universe.” [4]

This is why we are calling now for the creation and development of a new topic in environmental education called “space literacy” to complement contemporary space science instruction. We model space literacy after such well-established topics as climate literacy, forest literacy, and ocean literacy that focus on the interdependence of human society and natural systems. Students examine how society depends on natural systems, how human activity affects natural systems, and how society makes informed decisions about natural systems and their resources. Educating engaged citizens is a key instructional goal because even the best policy ideas tend to fizzle without strong public backing. The Forest Literacy Framework states, “For people to become participating members of a society that values sustainably managed forests, they must comprehend the role forest management plays in meeting the environmental, social, and economic needs of society and understand how they too can participate.” [5]

Education for space literacy in Earth’s orbit should help students explore three basic questions in age-appropriate ways. The first question is related to society’s dependence on space: How do certain Earth orbits function as a limited natural resource to provide a wide range of benefits to society? Students learn there are three main types of orbits with distinctive characteristics and capabilities that enable them to host satellites serving a variety of purposes. Earth observation satellites reside in low Earth orbit (LEO), for example, because its close proximity to Earth and short orbital periods provide high resolution imagery and high data transfer rates. Navigation satellites reside in medium Earth orbit (MEO) because they require a combination of low latency communications and broad geographic coverage. Communications and weather satellites, whose mission is to provide continuous coverage over a specific area, reside in geostationary orbit where they travel from west to east at the same speed as the Earth’s rotation; this permits them to transmit a signal to an antenna in a fixed position on the ground.

The second question is related to society’s impact on space: How does human activity in space threaten this limited natural resource? Students learn that routine space operations create debris in the form of defunct satellites and spent rocket stages. Debris is also created by fragmentation events, including fuel tank explosions, collisions, and anti-satellite weapons testing. Space debris is dangerous because it travels at orbital speeds and has already reached critical mass in heavily used orbits in LEO. Once collisional cascading begins, the risk to satellites continues until the orbit is no longer useful. Future launches over the next few years will contribute substantially to orbital congestion.

A third question is related to environmental citizenship: How does society make informed decisions about its utilization of space resources? Students learn about mitigation, remediation, and tracking strategies to relieve congestion and promote safety and efficiency on busy orbital highways. NASA emphasizes the importance of shorter post-mission disposal periods, increased shielding for spacecraft, passivation of fuel tanks, removal and recycling of large debris, better tracking of small debris, and better coordination of space traffic. International guidelines to minimize the creation of new debris have been adopted by the United States and other nations on a voluntary basis. Because such guidelines add to the cost of missions, though, some nations and other space actors are unwilling to adopt them.

Teaching materials for space literacy can be designed to address NGSS performance expectations. NGSS-aligned lesson plans and other instructional resources provide entry points within a standards-based curriculum to help students grasp the interdependence of society and space. Through participation in these learning activities, students gain appreciation for outer space as a home to spacecraft that provide information essential to life and health on Earth. As they study Earth’s processes and cycles, students learn how satellites help scientists predict potential disasters, monitor weather and climate, and address effects of human actions on the Earth’s environment. The problem of space debris is used to help students develop an understanding of functions and modeling. While learning about new technologies for space debris mitigation, students are challenged through “hands-on” activities to design their own space debris solutions. Finally, students apply what they have learned within a real-life context as they participate in activities that promote civic engagement, including space education and advocacy with their parents, schools, local communities, members of Congress, and public media.

At a time when the nation confronted numerous challenges, Theodore Roosevelt declared “the conservation of natural resources is the fundamental problem. Unless we solve that problem it will avail us little to solve all others.” Conservation is still the “fundamental problem” and it has become even more complicated to solve. In 1908, the conservation of natural resources could be viewed as a “national duty” while in 2025, the conservation of terrestrial and space resources must be recognized as a global responsibility. Unfortunately, as James Clay Moltz of the Naval Postgraduate School emphasizes, solving environmental problems in space is similar to solving them on Earth: The “growing fragmentation of power among countries, groups, and organizations makes it difficult to reach a consensus and translate that into action.” [6] Amidst such complexity, Roosevelt’s emphasis on the vital role played by an educated public is all the more salient, and the need for instruction in space literacy is all the more urgent.

Endnotes

1. Voices of Democracy: The U.S. Oratory Project, “Theodore Roosevelt: Conservation as a National Duty (13 May, 1908)”.
2. Clay S. Jenkinson, “Teddy Roosevelt and the Surprising Roots of the National Governors Association,” Governing, May 15, 2022.
3. “What on Earth is the Value of Space?” Report by Inmarsat.
4. NGSS Lead States. 2013. “High School Earth and Space Sciences” Next Generation Science Standards: For States, By States. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press.
5. Sustainable Forestry Initiative-Project Learning Tree. (2023). Forest Literacy Framework: A Guide to Teaching and Learning about Forests. Washington, DC, 12.
6. James Clay Moltz, Crowded Orbits: Conflict and Cooperation in Space, (New York: Columbia University Press, 2014), 189.

Beverly B. Bachelder and Robert S. Bachelder co-authored “Educating Space-Age Environmentalists at the Elementary Level,” a chapter in a book edited by Rebecca L. Young: Climate Change Education: Reimagining the Future with Alternative Forms of Storytelling (Lanham: Lexington Books, 2022). They have presented workshops on orbital space sustainability for such organizations as the Massachusetts Environmental Education Society, the Massachusetts Association of Science Teachers, the National Science Teachers Association, and STREAMS—an international conference highlighting exemplary practices in the environmental humanities. A retired school principal, Mrs. Bachelder worked collaboratively with science teachers in her district in 2012 to create and implement “Space Week” for grades six through eight—an interdisciplinary curriculum unit recognized for excellence by the New England League of Middle Schools. Mr. Bachelder is the retired president of a nearly 200-year-old Massachusetts charitable organization that in 2009 launched a public education and advocacy program for a sustainable space environment.

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