New and Emerging Needs: the Case of Space Tourism

• In Event: The Politics of Deficit Construction

Abstract

The paper will address general and pertinent questions about the malleability of needs: how are novelty and needs co-produced? Can such changes be anticipated? Also, when needs are not pre-given, but dependent upon socio-technical configurations, and, in fact, both cause and effect of technological change, the question emerges what the role of publics, policies and experts can be. While the public is the carrier of the novel need, the public is also mobilized as the critical instance of the technological possibilities and the novel needs. To unravel the emergence of new needs, this paper investigates the contested case of space tourism and the various ways it generates and mobilizes novel needs. Space travel has its roots in the Cold War arms race and in science fiction novels and movies. This century, various operators like SpaceX and Virgin Galactic seek to offer space travel for private persons, and promise to organize such travels on a regular basis in the near future, with dropping costs. An array of orbital and sub-orbital space flights are being developed, based on new technologies and new business models. In their attempts to define and inhabit the prospective market for space tourism, these operators bring forth particular visions of the future of space tourism and why people would need it. Data are drawn from newspaper articles (2005-2015), websites of operators, popular books on space travel and governmental documents.

Author

• Harro van Lente, Maastricht University