CONTENTS
- This Thursday: Sean T. Mitchell Presents âAn Ethnographic History of Brazilâs Spaceportâ
- Thursday, September 25: âSatellites, Sterilized Flies, and the Screwworm Scourgeâ
This Thursday: Sean T. Mitchell Presents âAn Ethnographic History of Brazilâs Spaceportâ
âAn Ethnographic History of Brazil's Spaceportâ
Sean T. Mitchell (Rutgers University, Newark)
Thursday, September 18 at 2:00 pm EDT / 1:00 pm CDT / 11:00 am PDT
In 1982, in the waning years of Brazil's military dictatorship, a Brazilian Air Force team arrived in northern Brazil, carrying plans to build Brazilâs satellite launch base.
The equatorial region, Alcântara, Maranhão, is ideal for satellite launch; it was also once the hub of a wealth-generating cotton economy based on enslaved labor. However, as that export economy faltered, free black communities formed in the area, long before
slavery's abolition in 1888. Many of those communities suffered forced relocation when the base was constructed. Drawing on and updating the ethnographic research that led to the publication of the book, Constellations of Inequality: Space, Race, and Utopia
in Brazil (University of Chicago Press, 2017), this talk examines the history and politics of this equatorial spaceport in its local, national, and international context.
Microsoft Teams Need
help?
Meeting ID: 275 398 746 686
Passcode: UQ2EJ2Ei
Dial in by phone
+1 256-715-9946,,908062377# United
States, Huntsville
Phone conference ID: 908 062 377#
Thursday, September 25: âSatellites, Sterilized Flies, and the Screwworm Scourgeâ
You wonât want to miss this final seminar in
the âAerospace Latin America: A Historyâ
series with Brad Massey!
âSatellites, Sterilized Flies, and the Screwworm Scourge: NASA, la Comisión Nacional del Espacio Exterior, and the Mexican-American Screwworm Eradication Campaign,
1972â1980â
Brad Massey (NASA History Office)
Thursday, September 25 at 2:00 pm EDT / 1:00 pm CDT / 11:00 am PDT
In 1972, a screwworm outbreak plagued the U.S. and Mexican cattle industries. The parasite ultimately cost ranchers millions of dollars and contributed to food inflation.
In response, U.S. and Mexican agricultural officials created the Comisión México Americana para la Erradicación del Gusano Barrenador del Ganado [COMEXA]. Also known as the Mexican-American Screwworm Eradication Commission.
This history examines the role NASA and Mexicoâs Comisión Nacional del Espacio Exterior [CONEE] played in the multi-agency campaign to eradicate screwworms. The presentation begins
with a brief look at the joint NASA-CONEE agricultural initiatives of the 1960s. It then examines the 1972 screwworm outbreak and the NASA-CONEE-COMEXA collaboration that led to the creation of the Screwworm Eradication Data System [SEDS]. Using satellite, aircraft,
and ground-sourced climate and moisture data from Mexico and the United States, SEDS designers created an algorithm that predicted where screwworms might proliferate. SEDS proponents argued that COMEXA could use these predictions to determine where to drop sterilized
flies in its quest to stop the spread of screwworms.
Microsoft Teams Need
help?
Meeting ID: 269 282 431 442
Passcode: Vz3wE3Tk
Dial in by phone
+1 256-715-9946,,674477220# United
States, Huntsville
Phone conference ID: 674 477 220#
_________________________________
NASA History Office
Office of Communications