Jim Pass

Jim Pass
Residence	Huntington Beach, CA, United States
Alma mater	University of Southern California
Known for	Founding the field of astrosociology
Scientific career
Fields	Sociology, Astrosociology

Jim Pass is an American sociologist who is known as the founder of astrosociology, the study of astrosocial phenomena — the social, cultural and behavioral patterns associated with outer space and space exploration. He is the co-founder and Chief Executive Officer of the Astrosociology Research Institute (ARI) and the executive editor of the Journal of Astrosociology.

Biography

Pass earned his Ph.D. in sociology from the University of Southern California in 1991, with a specialty in deviance. He has taught sociology at the community college level, including at Long Beach City College, and resides in Huntington Beach, California.

Having long-standing interests in both sociology and space exploration, Pass sought to bring the two together. He launched the website Astrosociology.com in 2003 and formally introduced the field in his 2004 inaugural essay defining astrosociology, its theory and its scope. Since then he has worked to establish astrosociology as a recognized subfield of the social sciences and to encourage collaboration between social scientists and the space community.

Work

Astrosociology, as defined by Pass, is the social-scientific study of astrosocial phenomena — the social, cultural and behavioral patterns related to outer space. Rather than treating space activity as the exclusive domain of the physical sciences and engineering, astrosociology argues that space exploration and settlement are inherently social undertakings that require the systematic attention of sociology, anthropology, psychology, political science, economics and the humanities. Pass has argued that the near-absence of sociological attention to space constitutes an "extraordinary void" in the discipline.

In May 2008 Pass co-founded the Astrosociology Research Institute, a nonprofit educational and research organization, together with sociologist Marilyn Dudley-Flores and aerospace engineer Thomas Gangale. As CEO of ARI he has overseen its educational outreach, its online library of astrosociological literature, and the establishment of the Journal of Astrosociology, for which he serves as executive editor. He has also served on the editorial board of the journal Astropolitics.

Pass has presented astrosociological work at professional venues including the International Astronautical Congress (IAC) and the Space Technology and Applications International Forum (STAIF), and has appeared as a guest on The Space Show.

Publications

• "Inaugural Essay: The Definition and Relevance of Astrosociology in the Twenty-First Century (Part 1: Definition, Theory and Scope)" (2004)
• "Astrosociology and the Space Community: Forging Collaboration for Better Understanding and Planning", The Space Review (2005)
• "The Sociology of SETI: An Astrosociological Perspective" (2005)
• "The Astrosociology of Space Colonies: Or the Social Construction of Societies in Space", STAIF Conference Proceedings (2006)
• "The Astrosociological Implications of Astrobiology" (2006)
• "Viewpoint: Astrosociology as the Missing Perspective", Astropolitics (2006)
• "Examining the Definition of Astrosociology", Astropolitics (2011)
• "The Potential of Sociology in the Space Age: Developing Astrosociology to Fill an Extraordinary Void"
• "Astrosociology: Social Problems on Earth and in Outer Space", in The Cambridge Handbook of Social Problems

External links

• Astrosociology Research Institute