NewSpace, Old Stories: Disrupting Imaginations of Commercialised Outer Space

• In Event: Science, Technology and Society in Outer Space - III

Abstract

This paper explores how actors in the emerging field of NewSpace use imagery and fiction for contextualising their commercial outer space projects in relation to master narratives of human spaceflight, evolution and survival. There is a particular focus on what are described as “pervasive aesthetic and rhetorical framings” (Valentine, 2012), where NewSpacers regularly refer to science fiction as a means for rendering outer space futures both possible and engaging. By examining NewSpace framings of humans in outer space, one finds a continuum of familiar imagery and ideas which are earthly, anthropocenic and problematic. There is also an underlying tension between the speculative deep futures imagined by NewSpacers and the neoliberal profit time-horizons they operate in. Furthermore, Earth-Space relations mean these imaginations are not without consequence - where projects influence terrestrial politics, environments and ecosystems in the present (Redfield, 2000; Rowan, 2018). While the primary focus here is on the aesthetics of NewSpace, similar imagery and rhetoric are adopted by different space agencies including NASA and other state institutes. NewSpace thus contributes to the deeper embedding of a “normative imagination” of what outer space is or can be - one that arguably needs challenging “by more disruptive imaginings” (Messeri, 2017). By studying NewSpace visions - identifying continuations and contradictions, such as settler myths and colonialism - this paper finds points of disruption and intervention for contesting present imaginations from an artistic perspective, aiming towards alternative imaginings of outer space.

Author

• Joseph Popper, Institute of Experimental Design and Media Cultures