A CLG CLE Program
An Unregulated Regolith: Some Cultural, Spiritual, and Ethical Considerations for Emerging Space Law
Thursday, November 20, 2025
12:00 - 1:00pm CT
Virtual Event via Zoom
Invite link will be sent prior to the event via email.
1 hour of general CLE credit will be awarded for attending.
Space law is currently limited, with a growing cohort of space lawyers working to expand existing treaties and national laws into a more harmonious and coherent system. At a time when legal guidelines are largely absent, however, both private and public space agencies are making plans for exploration, mining, and even tourism, often failing to acknowledge ethical, cultural, and heritage issues, as well as moral and religious concerns, that may offer challenges or limits to potential activities in or uses of outer space, particularly the Moon.
Speaker:
Dr. Deana Weibel
Professor of Anthropology
Grand Valley State University
Deana Weibel, PhD (UC San Diego, 2001) is a cultural anthropologist whose work focuses primarily on religion, especially the topics of pilgrimage, sacred space, the mutual influence of scientific and religious ideas on each other, and religion and space exploration. Her early fieldwork took place in France at pilgrimage sites (sometimes understood by pilgrims as “energy” sites) like Rocamadour and Montségur. She has also conducted research at the pilgrimage center of Chimayó, New Mexico. More recent work focuses on religion as a motivation for and influence on space travel and outer space-based sciences, with field visits taking place at "space sites" throughout the U.S., including the Johnson and Kennedy Space Centers, the Mojave Air and Spaceport, the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, the JHU Applied Physics Lab, and Spaceport America. Weibel spent a month in 2019 at the Vatican Observatory, studying "the Pope's Astronomers." She has also studied the history of anthropology, particularly the overlap of her own family’s role and the role of anthropology in the exhibition of Philippine Igorot people in fairs and expositions during the early 1900s. She is the co-founder and co-organizer of Roger That! A Celebration of Space Exploration in Honor of Roger B. Chaffee, a two-day conference that has been an annual Grand Rapids, Michigan event since 2017. She served as chair for GVSU's Anthropology Department from 2012-2018 and as interim chair for GVSU's Interdisciplinary, Religious, and Intercultural Studies Department from 2021-2022.