Care infrastructure for the cosmos
Feminist ethics of care applied to outer space governance: a lens toggle, five phases of care, and a maintenance budget.
Most space policy is written in the language of competition: domain, assets, deterrence, dominance. Feminist ethics of care asks a different set of questions: who depends on whom, who does the upkeep, and who is not being heard. Toggle the lens and watch the same orbit change meaning.
Five phases of care, applied to orbit
Political theorist Joan Tronto describes care as a process with phases, not a feeling (the fifth was added in her later work). Each phase turns out to be a governance function that orbit currently handles unevenly.
Rebalance the budget
In 1969 the artist Mierle Laderman Ukeles pointed out that societies honour development and hide maintenance. Try it with orbit: spread ten tokens across five kinds of spending and read what is left unattended. This is a thinking tool, not real budget data.