Abstract
When it came to me to chair the first meetings of the group appointed by Gérard Brachet to explore field of space ethics within CNES, I had to overcome the surprise and concerns of my colleagues at having to address a philosophical subject for which their engineering training and tasks had not prepared them. To do that, I turned to one of the oldest methods used by our ancestors to ask questions about the meaning of life and the task of being human: mythological narrative. The narrative of Icarus sprung to mind immediately.
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References
The quotations are taken from book VIII of Ovid’s Metamorphoses, in the translation by Frank Justus Miller. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984.
See McCurdy, Howard E. Space and the American Imagination. Washington/London: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1997.
See Lecourt, Dominique. Prométhée, Faust, Frankenstein. Fondements imaginaires de l’éthique. Paris: Synthélabo, 1996.
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Arnould, J. (2011). Icarus. In: Icarus’ Second Chance. Studies in Space Policy, vol 6. Springer, Vienna. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-7091-0712-6_3
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-7091-0712-6_3
Publisher Name: Springer, Vienna
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