Making a success of ‘failure’: a Science Studies analysis of PILOT and SERC in the context of Australian space science

Abstract

This thesis presents an in-depth empirical investigation, based on participant observation, interviews and publicly available materials, of PILOT and SERC, two recent Australian space science projects that were both connected to the problem of space debris. While PILOT’s proposal for funding failed, SERC was successfully funded yet failed to reach its initially stated goal of demonstrating the possibility of Active Debris Removal (ADR) using a ground-based high power laser combined with laser guide star adaptive optics. My analysis illustrates that the Australian space science funding and policy environment changed significantly in the brief period between PILOT’s unsuccessful proposal and SERC’s formation, marking the period of time in which dual-use space capability development was recognised as a political strategic priority. In SERC’s case, dual-use technology has been developed through (substantially) publicly funded institutions and by civil scientists. I argue that the current arrangement of policy and funding structures in the Australian space sciences sector facilitates engagement in dual-use technology development in such a way that two outcomes emerge: first, that moral responsibility for the products of such research is institutionally and individually avoided by distributing it ‘up the chain’ to national governmental entities, and second, that international legal responsibility is likewise avoided at a national level by distributing it ‘down the chain’ to institutions. I demonstrate how policy and funding conditions in Australia allowed individuals working in, and adjacent to, the space sciences to maintain, unchallenged, the convenient fiction that science is itself amoral and, to some extent, apolitical.