Connecting people and cultures at the frontiers of Outer Space exploration

The Social Dimension of Outer Space (SDOS) network is coordinating the Space Enlightenment Festival (SEF) in Spring-Summer 2019, highlighting the vital contribution of humanities and social science to framing the future of Scottish and global engagement with outer space, through both emerging technologies here on Earth and the expanding frontiers of space exploration and industry. This festival will coincide with several key anniversaries, for instance the 200th anniversary of the birth of most famous Edinburgh Astronomer Royal, Charles Piazzi Smyth, and the 50th anniversary of the first human landing on the Moon.

The festival’s timeline “launched” at the “Boldly Go!” Shoreline of Infinity’s Event Horizon, on 11 April, then have regular “comms link” at a monthly seminar to mark the journey’s progress, and will conclude with a “landing”, the conclusion of the seminar series and opening of the mini-exhibition on 19 July 2019. In total, we are planning to coordinate several dozens of activities, some delivered exclusively by the expanding membership of our network and others in partnership with external contributors, organisations and institutions/venues – all listed in the calendar below.

The Space Enlightenment Festival is financially supported by the University of Edinburgh and Edinburgh Napier University and is part of Festival of Creative Learning.