ESHS/HSS Annual Meeting

Space, Science, and Imagined Futures

Session Submission Type: Organized Session

English Abstract

This session explores the imagined futures of space research developed in Europe from the 1970s to the present. While much has been made of the imaginaries, projections, and futures that motivated Cold War space science in the USA and USSR, broadening this view beyond Cold War superpowers shows how outer space took on more pluralistic, diverse valences for scientists, civilians, and policymakers alike.

This session focusses particularly on Europe, where various developments – the USA’s announcement of the Strategic Defense Initiative, the USSR’s economic problems, and the founding of the European Space Agency by the European Economic Community in 1975 – spurred new directions in European space science. Space research in Europe was not just for producing new knowledge about outer space – it was also about constructing new European politics and identities that extended into new imagined futures for space exploration.

This panel’s papers thus seek to unpack the history of science, space, and the future in Europe from the 1970s to the present and answer: what role did space science play in the construction of new futures for Europeans? How did European institutions envision their role in those futures? How did the global production and exchange of scientific knowledge relate to European imagined space futures?

Anderson’s paper, ‘East German Space Research in the 1980s’, explores the changing aims of the East German space program during the 1980s.

Ballor’s paper, ‘From Outer Earth to Outer Space,’ examines the visions for a future beyond Earth imagined through EU research in Antarctica’s cryosphere.

Ward’s paper, ‘Gaia Goes to Mars’, looks at a failed British project to terraform and colonise Mars, led by the influential left-wing sociologist, Michael Young, in the 1980s.

Sub Unit

• Organized Session

Chair

• Matthew Shindell, Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum

Individual Presentations

• East German Space Research in the 1980s - Colleen E. Anderson, National Air and Space Museum, the Smithsonian Institution

• From Outer Earth to Outer Space: EU Research in Antarctica on Climate Change and Bioastronautics - Grace Ballor, Bocconi University

• Gaia Goes to Mars: Ecology, Sociology, and Utopia in Michael Young’s Argo Venture, 1984-89 - Jacob Ward, Maastricht University

Session Organizers

• Jacob Ward, Maastricht University

• Grace Ballor, Bocconi University