Space travel is about the bigger picture, says fossil fuel critic set to orbit Moon
Photographer tells Catherine Lough how energy for voyage will be outweighed by positives
ABritish photographer chosen to be on the first civilian orbit of the Moon has said the “positives outweigh the negatives” regarding the trip’s use of fossil fuel, having criticised society’s reliance on oil in the past.
Rhiannon Adam, 37, from Hackney, north London, was selected by Yusaku Maezawa,a Japanese billionaire, for the seven-day flight, along with seven other artists, after a year-long screening and application process.
Adam has previously been a fierce critic of over reliance on fossil fuels, winning an award to explore the topic of fracking through photography in 2018. At the time, she told The British Journal of Photography that society “should be moving away from a reliance on fossil fuels, instead of investing in a process [fracking] that will potentially cause more environmental damage”.
Rocket launch boosters can burn fuel at two million times the rate of an average family car. However, speaking yesterday, she said: “Naturally I’ve thought about these things but I think we also have to remember that space has a long legacy of actually founding research with climate change.
“It is this completely out-of-thisworld experience, no pun intended, and actually being able to create work in space allows us to reflect on some of these issues in a deeper way, by being able to gaze back at the Earth and see it in its entirety.” She added that this was “a very powerful perspective” saying: “So, of course, I’ve thought about it but I actually think the positives outweigh the negatives on this.”
Last year, Thomas Pesquet, a French astronaut, spent six months aboard the International Space Station and was disturbed to see the effects of climate change on the planet were more visible from space compared to his previous trip in 2016.
He said the most glaring effects were “glaciers retreating year after year” as well as extreme weather events. He said that witnessing the “fragility” of the planet from above makes you want to protect it and added: “We need activity in space to get satellite research done. This benefits the planet a lot. So space travel is a necessary evil.”
The Moon orbit is expected to take place next year using Starship, a rocket being developed by Elon Musk’s Spacex company. Musk plans for the rocket to eventually carry passengers to Mars but he lost four prototypes in explosions in 2020 and 2021 and it only achieved its first safe landing in May 2021.
Adam said she was drawn to the project as she usually works with remote communities such as the Pitcairn Islands. She applied after seeing the trip advertised on Twitter, describing how it “seemed a fantastic opportunity to make work in an entirely new environment, and to explore one of the most remote communities ever – which would be this community of artists on this ultimate artist residency in space”.
Each artist on the trip will create a unique project upon their return, inspired by their experience. Adam said that as a woman and queer person it is “massively important to me to be visible ... when I was growing up it was hard to imagine women doing half of the things I see women doing now and I don’t think I’d be doing this if I hadn’t seen women before me who did things that were out of the ordinary.
“As a queer person it’s really important to be visible ... in space there has not been a great legacy of queer people.
“Even little old me from Hackney can actually do things that I never thought were possible.”
Adam also had a very British reaction to the news that she would be travelling to space. “There was this very detailed medical and, being a Brit, my first thought was not only am I going to be told that I’m not going to go to space but you’re going to tell me there’s something just hideously wrong with me,” she said.
Some friends have reacted with excitement asking how much baggage room she might have to sneak them on. Others have expressed horror at the thought and said she must be “off her rocker”. Adam said that for some people looking back at Earth, with all the people they had ever known and all the tastes and smells they had ever experienced, “is a terrifying thought”.
As a child sailor, she experienced landing back after many days at sea. “I think that there might be some sort of similarity in that sense of feeling lost and then found again, so I’m looking forward to that ... I’m hoping I don’t have this bout of depression where I feel nothing will ever be the same and I feel dissatisfied with life,” she said.
“I think actually it will allow us to appreciate the things that we have.”
‘Even little old me from Hackney can actually do things that I never thought were possible’