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Photographer chosen for first civilian moon trip says ‘visibility’ justifies space tourism

Rhiannon Adam in her Hackney studio - Clara Molden for The Telegraph
Rhiannon Adam in her Hackney studio - Clara Molden for The Telegraph

A British 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 fuels, having criticised society’s reliance on oil in the past.

Rhiannon Adam, 37, from Hackney, was selected by Japanese billionaire Yusaku Maezawa to orbit the moon for seven days, along with seven other artists, following a year-long screening and application process.

The full dearMoon crew - dearMoon Project/Reuters
The full dearMoon crew - dearMoon Project/Reuters

Adam has previously been a fierce critic of overreliance 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”.

“Right now I am sitting in London during one of the hottest summers on record: if there has ever been a time when climate change seems more apparent, it is now,” she added.

Speaking to The Telegraph on Friday, she said she felt the “positives outweigh the negatives’’ when it came to the environmental impact of the trip. Rocket launch boosters can burn fuel at two million times the rate of an average family car.

“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,” she said.

“It is this completely out-of-this-world 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 said.

She went on to say this was “a very powerful perspective” and that “by being visible … it helps elevate those stories and amplify those voices”.

“So, of course, I’ve thought about it, but I actually think the positives outweigh the negatives on this.”

In 2021, French astronaut Thomas Pesquet spent six months on board the International Space Station, and was disturbed to see that the effects of climate change on the planet were more visible from space compared to his previous trip in 2016.

However, he pointed out that: “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, dearMoon, is expected to take place in 2023 on board Starship, a rocket being developed by Elon Musk’s SpaceX company. The company lost four prototypes of the rocket to explosions in 2020 and 2021, only achieving its first safe landing in May 2021 – but Musk plans for the rocket to eventually carry passengers to Mars.

Yusaku Maezawa chats to Elon Musk - Amar Daved/SpaceX/PA
Yusaku Maezawa chats to Elon Musk - Amar Daved/SpaceX/PA

Adam applied to take part after seeing the trip advertised on Twitter, describing how it “seemed a fantastic opportunity to be able to make work in an entirely new environment”.

“After the pandemic when we were already feeling so isolated, I was actually craving to do something with other people,” she added.

Each artist on the trip will create a unique project inspired by their experience upon their return.

Adam said that as a woman and queer person it is “massively important to me to be visible”, citing the fact that historically there had been stark underrepresentation of LGBTQ people in space travel.

She said that “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.”

While some friends have reacted with excitement to her news of the trip, 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”.

She said that for some people looking back at the Earth, with all the people they had ever known, and all the tastes and smells they had ever experienced, “is a very terrifying thought”.

Having sailed as a child, she said that the experience of landing back on Earth might be similar to seeing the Salvadoran coast 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 transformative experience – I’m hoping that I don’t have this bout of depression where I feel at the end of it that nothing will ever be the same and I feel dissatisfied with life on Earth,” she said.

“But I think actually it will allow us to appreciate the things that we have.”