The orbital technosphere: The provision of meaning and matter by satellites

Abstract

With a new ‘technosphere’ concept, Peter Haff offers a provocative reconceptualization of technology in Anthropocene, not as derivative consequence of human activity, but as a new ‘quasi-autonomous’ sphere of the environment that conditions human survival within the Earth System. Paying attention to the expansion of the orbital satellites in outer space, this paper suggests that technosphere analysis needs to conceptualize specific histories of the planetary-scale technology while considering how these technologies provide the epistemological basis and limitations for the technosphere. Satellites enhance the capacity of the technosphere as a system and provide systemic knowledge that is the basis for the meaning of the technosphere concept. Yet, this expansion is rooted in the contingencies of earthly geopolitics and the continual breakdown of technology – in this instance as a space debris layer formed in orbit around Earth that endangers the technosphere itself.