We are thrilled to announce we are part of the Royal Astronomical Society of New Zealand's , Beatrice Hill Tinsley Lecture Tour for 2026.
We invite you to join us at The Waihinga Centre in Martinborough on Thursday 12th February at 7pm to enjoy the fascinating lecture " Astronomy vs. the Billionaire Space Race" by Dr. Samantha Lawler who is visiting from Canada.
In February 2024, hundreds of pounds of potentially lethal debris from a SpaceX Crew Dragon trunk from a private astronaut mission fell on farmland near Regina, Saskatchewan. Later in the year, a piece of a SpaceX Starlink satellite was found in a lentil field in another part of the province. In September 2025, one of the handful of Starlink satellites reentering every week was witnessed burning up across the entire western half of Canada, with the reentry ending over Saskatchewan. Dr. Samantha Lawler of the University of Regina has been studying the proliferation of satellites in orbit over the past few years, and has been stunned to learn how often space debris falls so close to her home.
Come learn why Saskatchewan is the best place in the world to find space debris, and what happens when you find space debris on your farm and silent SpaceX employees show up in a rented truck to be greeted by an astronomer and a dozen of Saskatchewan's finest local journalists. The billionaire space race is well underway, and this has important implications for international law, the continued operation of satellites in Low Earth Orbit, atmospheric pollution, and the future of astronomy.