| Summary/Abstract |
As it has accrued meaning over time, outer space has become as much a social construct as a physical reality. Because space is a product of the imagination, its contours are not stable and are subject to needs and desires that shift and evolve according to social, political, and economic priorities. This article examines differing relationships to space that shed light on the social and political dynamics that defined their historical moments—in particular the different iterations of the democratic impulse that these relationships express. This article compares the emergence of the dualistic and nation-based discourse of the late 1950s and 1960s Cold War era out of the first satellite and rocket launches to present-day ‘NewSpace,’ which is characterized by free enterprise and the logic of commodification. In the process, it touches on the 1986 by the Challenger mission and the emblematic figure of school teacher Christa McAuliffe; however, attention is paid primarily to how she represented a transitional moment between the global, nation-building priorities of the Cold War and the contemporary profit-driven individualism of NewSpace. The article concentrates on Cold War spaceflight and contemporary space tourism because they offer in the most vivid way a glimpse into how society's own projections have populated the universe.
|