Evidence+from+Part+II

Rhetoric of inevitable space militarization creates a self-fulfilling prophecy. Challenging their inevitability story helps builds peace.
Chris **__GRAY__** Interdisciplinary Studies @ Union Institute and University **__’94__** “"There Will Be War!": Future War Fantasies and Militaristic Science Fiction in the 1980s” //Science Fiction Studies// 21 (3) p. 329

Envoi. __As this article has tried to demonstrate, there is an intimate intertwining of metaphors and careers among the future-war sf writers and the postmodern US military__, __and the motivation for this is__ partly __ideological. There is a significant subculture around military futurology which cannot see any clear line between sf and real war__. __Such blurring **does not make for sound military policy** and it no doubt contributes to the incredible public misconceptions about international conflicts__ (Gray 1994). __Star Wars,__ for example, __long discredited on scientific grounds, limps along with a new name into the 21st century__ on a reduced budget of mere tens of billions of dollars a year **__because the inevitability of war is still beyond challenge in the decisive discourses__**. **__And as long as inevitable war remains an unexamined assumption there will always be some truth to it__.** __For if people are sure that "There will be War!" then there will be, for history has shown that he who prepares for war, finds one__. __But like any good story, the inevitability of war is__ really just __**an elaborate construction of images**, characters, plot (history), and facts (created by non- human nature and/or by human technoscience). To be sure, the story has many authors and even more readers but there is **always the opportunity to change the ending**__**.** **__Simply to discuss this pattern is to begin to challenge it, but the real change comes from imagination most of all__**. __As much great anti-war sf has demonstrated, new endings to old tales can be found by reworking old tropes (such as enemy) or through redefining key metaphors and themes. Recognizing ideologies, and the limits of thinking only in terms of ideology, is crucial for this. Ideologies predetermine endings, imagination generates new ones__.31 __Perhaps technoscientific imagination is now the crucial military factor, perhaps not. But cultural imagination is certainly a necessity for peace. If we can't even imagine a peaceful world, how will we make one__?

===The affirmative’s attempts to establish U.S. space control and space colonization sanctions a dangerous Astropolitik—the ideal that outer space should be conceived in terms of military strategy __suspends__ democratic engagement and relies on a virulent __ethnocentric__ threat construction===

Embrace Critical Astropolitics—__refuse__ the 1AC’s endorsement of extending earthbound geopolitical concerns to outer space—this is __crucial__ to inject democratic accountability in space policy
IV Critical astropolitics Two things should now be clear. First, outer space is no longer remote from our everyday lives; it is already profoundly implicated in the ordinary workings of economy and society. Secondly, the import of space to civilian, commercial and, in particular, military objectives, means __there is a____great deal at stake in term__ s of the access to and control over Earth’s orbit. One cannot overstate this last point. The next few years may prove decisive __in terms of establishing a regime of space contro__ l that will have profound implications for terrestrial geopolitics. __It is in this context that I want to__ briefly __introduce the__ emerging __field of astropolitics__, __defined as ‘the study of__ the relationship between __outer space terrain__ and technology and the development of political __and military__ policy and __strategy__ ’ (Dolman, 2002: 15).It is, in both theory and practice, a geopolitics of outer space. Everett Dolman is one of the pioneers of the field. An ex-CIA intelligence analyst who teaches at the US Air Force’s School of Advanced Airpower Studies, he publishes in journals that are perhaps unfamiliar to critical geographers, like the modestly titled Small Wars and Insurgencies. As what follows is uniformly critical of Dolman’s work, I should say that his Astropolitik: classical geopolitics in the space age (Dolman,2002) is unquestionably a significant book: it has defined a now vibrant field of research and debate. Astropolitik draws together a vast literature on space exploration and space policy, and presents a lucid and accessible introduction to thinking strategically about space. (In the previous section I drew heavily on Dolman’s description of the astropolitical environment). __My critique is__ not __founded on__ scientific or technical grounds but on __Dolman’s construction____of a formal geopolitics____designed to advance__ and legitimate the __unilateral military conquest of space by the U__ nited __S__ tates. While Dolman has many admirers among neoconservative colleagues in Washington think-tanks, critical engagements (e.g.Moore, 2003; Caracciolo, 2004) have been relatively thin on the ground. Dolman’s work is interesting for our purposes here precisely because he draw’s on geography’s back catalogue of strategic thinkers, most prominently Halford Mackinder, whose ideas gained particular prominence in America in the wake oft he Russian Sputnik (Hooson, 2004: 377). But Dolman is not just re-fashioning classical geopolitics in the new garb of ‘astropolitics’; he goes further and proposes an ‘ __Astropolitik’__ – ‘ __a__ simple but **__effective blueprint for space contro__**__l’__ (p.9) – __modeled on__ Karl Hausofer’s Geopolitik as much as __Realpolitik__. Showing some discomfort with the impeccably fascist pedigree of this theory, Dolman cautions against the ‘misuse’ of Astropolitik and argues that the term ‘is chosen as a constant reminder of that past, and as a grim warning for the future’(Dolman, 2002: 3). At the same time, however, his book is basically a manual for achieving space dominance. Projecting Mackinder’s famous thesis on the geographical pivot of history (Mackinder, 1904) onto outer space, __Dolman argues__ that ‘who controls the Lower Earth Orbit controls near-Earth space. __Who controls near-Earth space__ dominates Terra [Earth]. Who dominates Terra __determines the destiny of humankind’__. Dolman sees the quest for space as already having followed classically Mackinderian principles (Dolman, 2002: 87). And like Mackinder before him, Dolman is writing in the service of his Empire. ‘Astropolitik like Realpolitik’ he writes, ‘is hardnosed and pragmatic, it is not pretty or uplifting or a joyous sermon for the masses. But neither is it evil. Its benevolence or malevolence become apparent only as it is applied, and by whom’(Dolman, 2002: 4). Further inspiration is drawn from Alfred Thayer Mahan, whose classic volume The Influence of Seapower Upon History, has been widely cited by space strategists (Mahan, 1890; Gray, 1996; see also Russell, 2006).Mahan’s discussion of the strategic value of coasts, harbours, well–worn seapaths and chokepoints has its parallel in outer space (see France, 2000). The implication of Mahan’s work, Dolman concludes, is that ‘the United States must be ready and prepared, in Mahanian scrutiny, to commit to the defense and maintenance of these assets, or relinquish them to a state willing and able to do so’ (Dolman, 2002: 37). __The primary problem for those advancing Astropolitik____is that space is **not a lawless frontier**__**.** In fact __the legal character of space has long been enshrined in the principles of the OST____and this has__, to some extent, **__prevented it__** __from being subject to unbridled i**nterstate competition.**__ **‘** While it is morally desirable to explore space in common with all peoples’ writes Dolman without conviction, ‘even the thought of doing so makes weary those who have the means’ (Dolman,2002: 135). Thus, the veneer of transcendent humanism with regard to spacegives way to brazen self-interest. Accordingly, Dolman describes the rescommunis consensus of the OST as ‘a tragedy’ that has removed any lega lincentive for the exploitation of space (137). Only a res nulliuslegal order couldconstruct space as ‘proper objects for which states may compete’ (138). Under the paradigm of res nullius and Astropolitik, the moon and other celestial bodies would become potential new territory for states. And here Dolman again parallels Karl Hausofer’s Geopolitik. Just as Hausofer desired a break from the VersaillesTreaty (Ó Tuathail 1996: 45), Dolman wants to see the US withdraw from the OST, making full speed ahead for the Moon (see also Hickman and Dolman,2002). Non-space-faring developing countries need not worry about losing out, says Dolman, as they ‘would own no less of the Moon than they do now’ (140).To his credit, __Dolman__ does give some attention to the divisive social consequences of this concentrated power. Drawing on earlier currents of environmental determinism and on the terrestrial model of Antarctic exploration, he __ponders the characteristics____of those who will be first to colonise space__. __They will be ‘highly educated__, rigorously trained __and psychologically__ screened for mental toughness and decision-making skills, __and very physically fit’; ‘the bestand brightest of our pilots, technicians and scientists’__ ; ‘ __rational, given to scientific analysis and explanation__ , and obsessed with their professions’ (26). __In other words, ‘they are a **superior subset of the larger group from which they spring’**__ (27). As if this picture isn’t vivid enough, __Dolman goes on to say__ that __colonizers of space__ ‘ __will be the most capably endowed__ (or at least the most ruthlessly suitable, as the populating of America and Australia … so aptly illustrate[s])’ (27; myemphasis). ‘ **__Duty and sacrifice will be the highest moral ideals’__** (27). Society, he continues, must be prepared ‘to make heroes’ of those who undertake the risk of exploration (146). At the same time, ‘the astropolitical society must be prepared to forego expenditures on social programs … to channel funds into the national space program. It must be embued with the national spirit’ (146).Dolman slips from presenting what would be merely a ‘logical’ outworking of Astropolitik, to advocating that the United States adopt it as their space strategy.A long the way, he acknowledges __the **full anti-democratic potential**__ **__of such concentrated power__**__, detaching the state from its citizenry__ : ‘ __the United States can adopt any policy it wishes____and the attitudes and reactions of the domestic public and of other states can do little to challenge it__. __So powerful is the U__ nited __S__ tates __that should it accept the harsh Realpolitik doctrine__ in space that the military services appear to be proposing, and given a proper explanation for employing it, there may in fact be little if any opposition to a fait accompli of total US domination in space’. 156. Although Dolman claims that ‘no attempt will be made to create a convincing argument that the United States has a right to domination in space’, in almost the next sentence he goes on to argue ‘that, in this case, might does make right’, ‘the persuasiveness of the case’ being ‘based on the self-interest of the state and stability of the system’ (156; my emphasis). __Truly, this is Astropolitik__ : __a veneration of the ineluctable logic of power and the permanent rightness of those who wield it.____And if it sounds chillingly familiar,____Dolman hopes to reassure__ us __with his belief that ‘the US__ form of liberal democracy … is admirable and socially encompassing’ (156) and it __is ‘the most benign state that has ever attempted hegemony__ over the greater part of the world’ (158). __His__ sunny __view that the U__ nited __S__ tates __is ‘willing to extend legal and political equality to all’____sits awkwardly with__ the current __suspension of the rule of law in Guantanamo Bay____as well as invarious other ‘spaces of exception’__ (see Gregory, 2004; Agamben, 2005). **__Dolman’s astropolitical project is by no means__** The journal Astropolitics, of which he is a founding editor, contains numerous papers expressing similar views. And it is easy, I think, for critical geographers to feel so secure in the intellectual and political purchase of Ó Tuathailian critiques (ÓTuathail, 1996), that we become oblivious to the undead nature of classical geopolitics. It is comforting to think that most geography undergraduates encountering geopolitics, in the UK at least, will in all likelihood do so through the portal of critical perspectives, perhaps through the excellent work of Joanne Sharp or Klaus Dodds (Dodds, 2005; Sharp, 2005). But __the legacies of Mackinder and Mahan live on, and **radical critique is as urgent as ever**__. While this is not theplace for a thoroughgoing reappraisal of astropolitics in the manner of Gearòid ÓTuathail, a few salient points from his critique can be brought out. 1. Astrography and __astropolitics, like__ geography and __geopolitics, constitute ‘**apolitical domination and cultural imagining of space’**__ (Ó Tuathail, 1996:28). While commentators like Colin Gray have posited an ‘inescapable geography’ (e.g. ‘of course, physical geography is politically neutral’), __a critical agenda conceives of geography__**__not__** __as a fixed substratum but as a highly social form of knowledge__ (Gray, 1999: 173; Ó Tuathail, 1999: 109).For geography, read ‘astrography’. We must be alert to the ‘declarative’(‘this is how the Outer Earth is’) and ‘imperative’ (‘this is what we mustdo’) modes of narration that astropolitics has borrowed from its terrestrial antecedent (Ó Tuathail, 1999: 107). __The models of Mackinder and Mahanthat__ are so often __applied to the space **environment are not unchanging laws**__ ; __on the contrary they are themselves **highly political attempts** to create and sustain particular strategic outcomes in specific historical circumstances__. 2. __Rather than actively supporting the dominant structures and mechanisms of power__, __a critical astropolitics must place the primacy of such forces **always already in question**__**.**__Critical astropolitics aims to **scrutinise** the power politics of the expert/think-tank/tactician as part of a____wider project of____deepening public debate and **strengthening democratic accountability**__ (Ó Tuathail, 1999: 108). 3. Mackinder’s ‘end of geography’ thesis held that the era of terrestrial exploration and discovery was over, leaving only the task of consolidating the world order to fit British interests (O’ Tuathail, 1996: 27). Dolman’svision of space strategy bears striking similarities. And like Ó Tuathail’scritique of Mackinder’s imperial hubris, __Astropolitik could be__ reasonably __described as ‘**triumphalism blind to its own precariousness’**__ (O’ Tuathail,1996: 28). __Dolman__, for instance, __makes little effort to conceal his tumescent patriotism__ , __observing that ‘the United States is awash with power__ after its impressive victories in the 1991 Gulf War and 1999 Kosovocampaign, __and stands at the forefront of history__ capable of presiding overthe birth of a bold New World Order’. __One might argue__, __however, that Mackinder – as the theorist of imperial decline – may in this respect be **an appropriate mentor**__ (Ó Tuathail, 1999: 112). __It is important__, I think, __to **demystify** Astropolitik__ : __there is nothing ‘inevitable’ about **US dominance in space**__ , __even if the US were to pursue this imperial logic.__ 4. Again like Mackinder, __Astropolitik mobilizes an unquestioned ethnocentrism__. __Implicit in this ideology is the notion that America must beat China into space because **‘they’ are not like ‘us’.**__ ‘The most ruthlessly suitable’ candidates for space dominance, we are told – ‘the most capably endowed’ – are like those who populated America and Australia (Dolman,2002: 27).5. __A critical astropolitics must challenge the ‘mythic’ properties ofAstropolitik____and **disrupt its reverie** for the ‘timeless insights’ of the so-called geopolitical masters. For Ó Tuathail, ‘geopolitics is mythic becauseit promises uncanny clarity__ … __in a complex world’ and is ‘**fetishistically concerned with …. prophecy**__**’** (Ó Tuathail, 1999: 113). __Ó Tuathail’s criticalproject,__ by __contrast, seeks to **recover** the political and historical contexts through which the knowledge of Mackinder and Mahan has become formalized.__
 * Macdonald, 7** – Professor of Human Geography at the University of Melbourne (Fraser, Anti-Astropolitik: Outer Space and the Orbit of Geography, Online) Progress in Human Geography, Oct2007, Vol. 31 Issue 5, p592-615

Pro-space advocates project ideologies of Western dominance into space. The elitist narcissistic perspective of the affirmative negates ethical relations with others.
Peter **__DICKENS__** Lecturer Sociology @ Cambridge **__AND__** James **__ORMROD__** “Outer Space and Internal Nature: Towards a Sociology of the Universe” //Sociology// 41 (4) p. 615-618

Some preliminary __indications of an extreme form of this kind of self come from an ethnographic study of citizens actively promoting and advocating the extension of society into space__ (Ormrod, 2006). There is __a ‘pro-space’ social movement__, largely __operating out of the USA__, numbering approximately 100–150,000 members. __These activists (many from the quasi-technical new middle class identified at the heart of the culture of narcissism [Sennett, 1974]) are paid-up members of one or more pro-space organizations, who meet to discuss the science and technology necessary to explore, develop and colonize the universe, as well as lobbying politicians in favour of both public and private programs aimed at accomplishing this__. We now draw upon our research into the movement, not as conclusive proof of a general condition of narcissism, but merely as illustrations of how some individuals relate to the universe.1 There are strong indications that these pro-space activists are amongst those most affected by late modern narcissism. Early on in life, these activists come to project infantile unconscious phantasies (those relating to omnipotence and fusion with the infant’s ‘universe’) into conscious fantasies2 about exploring and developing space, which increasingly seem a possibility and which now achieve legitimacy largely through the ideology of the libertarian right. __Those who have grown up in the ‘post-Sputnik’ era__ and were exposed at an early date to science fiction __are__ particularly __likely to engage in fantasies or daydreams about travelling in space, owning it, occupying it, consuming it and bringing it under personal control__. Advocates talk about fantasies of bouncing up and down on the moon or playing golf on it, of __mining asteroids or setting up their own colonies__. These fantasies serve to protect the unconscious phantasy that they are still in the stage of infantile narcissism. Of course not all of those people growing up in late modern societies come to fantasize about space at such an early age like this, and are less single minded in their attempts to control and consume the universe, but we argue that this is nonetheless the way in which some dominant sectors of Western society relate to the universe. It is not only pro-space activists, but many well-to-do businesspeople and celebrities who are lining up to take advantage of new commercial opportunities to explore space as tourists. __The promise of power over the whole universe is therefore the latest stage in the escalation of the narcissistic personality. A new kind of ‘universal man’ is in the making. Space travel and possible occupation of other planets further inflates people’s sense of omnipotence__. Fromm (1976) discusses how in __Western societies people experience the world__ (or indeed the universe) __through the ‘having’ mode, whereby individuals cannot simply appreciate the things around them, but must own and consume them__. __For the narcissistic pro-space activist, this sentiment means that they feel a desperate need to bring the distant objects of outer space under their control__: Some people will look up at the full moon and they’ll think about the beauty of it and the romance and history and whatever. I’ll think of some of those too but the primary thing on my mind is gee I wonder what it looks like up there in that particular area, gee I’d love to see that myself. I don’t want to look at it up there, I want to walk on it. (25-year-old engineering graduate interviewed at ProSpace March Storm 2004) __Omnipotent daydreaming of this kind is also closely linked to the idea of regaining a sense of wholeness and integration__ once experienced with the mother (or ‘monad’) in the stage of primary narcissism, counterposed to a society that is fragmenting and alienating. Experiencing weightlessness and seeing the Earth from space are other common fantasies. Both represent power, the ability to ‘break the bonds of gravity’, consuming the image of the Earth (Ingold, 1993; Szersynski and Urry, 2006) or ‘possessing’ it through gazing at it (Berger, 1972). They also represent a return to unity. Weightlessness represents the freedom from restraint experienced in pre-oedipal childhood, and perhaps even a return to the womb (Bainbridge, 1976: 255). Seeing the Earth from space is an experience in which the observer witnesses a world without borders. __This experience has been dubbed ‘the overview effect’ based on the reported life-changing experiences of astronauts__ (see White, 1987). Humans’ sense of power in the universe means our experience of the cosmos and our selves is fundamentally changing: It really presents a different perspective on your life when you can think that you can actually throw yourself into another activity and transform it, and when we have a day when we look out in the sky and we see lights on the moon, something like that or you think that I know a friend who’s on the other side of the Sun right now. You know, it just changes the nature of looking at the sky too. (46-year-old space scientist interviewed at ProSpace March Storm 2004) In the future, this form of subjectivity may well characterize more and more of Western society. A widespread cosmic narcissism of this kind might appear to have an almost spiritual nature, but the cosmic spirituality we are witnessing here is not about becoming immortal in the purity of the heavens. Rather, __it is spirituality taking the form of self-worship; further aggrandizing the atomized, self-seeking, 21st-century individual__ (see Heelas, 1996). Indeed, the pro-space activists we interviewed are usually opposed to those who would keep outer space uncontaminated, a couple suggesting we need to confront the pre-Copernican idea of a corrupt Earth and ideal ‘Heaven’. __For these cosmic narcissists, the universe is very much experienced as an object; something to be conquered, controlled and consumed as a reflection of the powers of the self.__ This vision is no different to the Baconian assumptions about the relationship between man and nature on Earth. This kind of thinking has its roots in Anaxagoras’ theory of a material and infinite universe, and was extended by theorists from Copernicus, through Kepler and Galileo to Newton. The idea that the universe orients around the self was quashed by Copernicus as he showed the Earth was not at the centre of the universe and that therefore neither were we (Freud, 1973: 326). However, science has offered us the promise that we can still understand and control it. Robert Zubrin, founder of the Mars Society, trumpets Kepler’s role in developing the omniscient fantasy of science (it was Kepler who first calculated the elliptical orbits of the planets around the Sun): Kepler did not describe a model of the universe that was merely appealing – he was investigating a universe whose causal relationships could be understood in terms of a nature knowable to man. In so doing, Kepler catapulted the status of humanity in the universe. Though no longer residing at the centre of the cosmos, humanity, Kepler showed, could comprehend it. Therefore […] not only was the universe within man’s intellectual reach, it was, in principle, within physical reach as well. (Zubrin with Wagner, 1996: 24) Thus Zubrin begins to lay out his plan to colonize Mars. The Universe as Object for the Exercise of Power __While pro-space activists and others are daydreaming about fantastical and yet seemingly benign things to do in outer space, socially and militarily dominant institutions are actively rationalizing, humanizing and commodifying outer space for real, material, ends__. **__The cosmos is being used as a way of extending economic empires on Earth and monitoring those individuals who are excluded from this mission__**. On a day-to-day level, communications satellites are being used to promote predominantly ‘Western’ cultures and ways of life. They also enable the vast capital flows so crucial to the global capitalist economy. Since the 1950s, outer space has been envisaged as ‘the new high ground’ for the worldwide exercise of military power. The ‘weaponization of space’ has been proceeding rapidly as part of the so-called ‘War on Terror’ (Langley, 2004). The American military, heavily lobbied by corporations such as Lockheed Martin, Raytheon and Boeing, is now making new ‘Star Wars’ systems. These have been under development for over 30 years but are now being adapted to root out and destroy ‘terrorists’, if necessary with the aid of ‘smart’ nuclear weapons. American government spending on the Missile Defence Program jumped by 22 percent in 2004, reaching the huge sum of $8.3 billion (Langley, 2004). The unreal and almost certainly unobtainable objective is to create a new kind of ‘pure war’ in which terrorists are surgically pinpointed and killed while local civilians remain uninjured (Virilio, 1998; Virilio and Lotringer, 1998). Meanwhile, and paralleling the weaponization of space, surveillance satellites have also been much enhanced. Although originally developed for military purposes, they are now increasingly deployed to monitor nonmilitary populations, creating a global, orbital panopticon. Workers in British warehouses are even being tagged and monitored by satellite to ensure maximum productivity (Hencke, 2005). __For those elites in positions of power over the universe, as for pro-space activists, the universe is experienced as an object to be placed in the service of human wants and desires__. __However, for those with less privileged access to the heavens, the universe is far from being such an object – their relationship with it is more fearful and alienated than ever before__.

Space development re-enacts colonial fantasies of conquest.
Peter **__REDFIELD__** Anthropology @ UNC **__‘2__** “The Half-Life of Empire in Outer Space” //Social Studies of Science// 32 (5-6) p. 795-797

In this paper, I take a related but slightly different tack, emphasizing degrees of distance within locality, and examining intersections of place, power and time implicit in the location and operation of a vast technical network. For if we incorporate colonial history into our considerations of science and technology, do we not always, continually, need to ask what it might mean for something to be somewhere relative to somewhere else? My focus will rest directly on the spatial edge between metaphor and materiality used to distinguish global and local: the planet, united and bounded by its atmospheric limit, revealed and transcended by technoscience. The general argument I will advance here is that __outer space reflects a__ practical __shadow of **empire**__.10 I mean by this two things. The first is that __space represents a kind of stabilization of ‘elsewhere’, and its removal from the globe__. __From the very inception of influential modern dreams of space exploration, the masculine adventure of earthly colonialism was a **constant referent**__, and the temporal pairing of rocket launches and the greatest anti-colonial movements only accentuated the parallel.11 Indeed, __the realization of outer space__ – __its__ initial __domestication__ if you will – __represents the effective provincialization of terrestrial empire from above. Once a few white men moved beyond the atmosphere they became newly, artificially human by virtue of the nonhuman space around them, **cast as universal representatives** by virtue of their transcendent, hazardous location__. Once extended beyond the planet, __modernity acquired the possibility of another geographic frame__, intermingled with a new temporal order. __Whatever the past may have been, the future was clearly out there, and everything else a local concern__. Aliens became extraterrestrials. __The second way__ in which __I__ want to __link outer space and empire is the manner in which each enacts and represents place__ in terms of connection, dislocation and the possibility of an ever-longer network. __Just as an imperial outpost signified not only itself but also the expansion of a metropolitan centre, so too a satellite link is both an immediate presence and a conduit beyond the horizon__. In a sense, outer space puts human place into three dimensions. This is simultaneously a highly practical matter, involving a material assemblage of launch vehicles and a swarming of satellites, and a representational one. For looking up from the ground implies a motion away from it. In a setting marked by colonial history such a motion is not neutral, as I hope to illustrate in French Guiana. First, however, I will review some of the more obvious traces of empire in dreams of space travel. The Inertia of Adventure and Another New World When discussing the conquest of space, it is automatic to refer to Christopher Columbus. [Pecker (1987): 3] __The rhetorical link between outer space and colonial history requires little introduction__. __Anyone with a passing acquaintance of the Space Age is familiar with its frontier metaphors and allusions to European colonial expansion__, from the frequent appearance of male explorers past in NASA presentations to the imaginary exploits of increasingly varied Star Trek crews. The above quotation thus constitutes a reflexive, though casual, reference; its intended import lies less in the actual words transcribed than the reminder of a larger pattern echoing through them.12 Just like colonial history itself, the field of representation running through outer space is complex, multiple and full of tension, encompassing the possibility of reversals and counter-themes, such as the reverse colonialism of alien abductions.13 However, __at the base__ of rockets __we can identify a consistent and optimistic reading of history through the future__. __In the aftermath of the 20th century, advocates of space exploration constitute perhaps the **last unabashed enthusiasts of imperialism**__, __cheerfully describing conquest, settlement and expansion, and hesitating not a whit before employing the term ‘colony’__. __Theirs is a Columbus of exploration, nation building and risk taking, not of **invasion, domination and genocide**__. __History is cleansed above the planet__; unlike a group of Native American scholars meeting in the immediate aftermath of the Apollo landing, it would never occur to participants of workshops such as the one cited above to ‘pity the Indians and the buffalo of Outer Space’ [Young (1987): 271]. Here __I will take the explicit tie of human activity in outer space to the vocabulary of earlier periods of colonial expansion and imperial rule – its blatant historical resonance – as seriously as possible, in order briefly to examine the ancestry and legacy of exploration, on and over the globe__. To do so I first refer to two fictions of import to space history, Jules Verne’s mid-19th-century sardonic fantasy of a moon voyage, and Fritz Lang’s early-20th-century film epic on the same topic, both of which employ imperial tropes prominently in their narration. Between the two we can recall variant definitions of the key term ‘adventure’, and its implied personal or financial risk, part way between exploration and exploitation. I want to position ‘adventure’ to describe a form of extending networks, an ambiguous and plural category of movement, but one that is hardly neutral.

Space colonization reflects rationality run amok – the affirmative detaches us from ethical and material connection to others.
Val **__PLUMWOOD__** Australian Research Council Fellow @ Sydney **__‘2__** //Environmental Culture// p. 240 __Rationality failures in many areas mean there are many productive ways to work for change. We need skills and structures at all levels of our lives that can make us aware and responsible for our ecological impacts -economic structures that reduce remoteness__ that are among the strategems of ecological economics, __dialogical skills that increase our ability to modify and negotiate our goals in the light of the other's needs and responses__, and many more. Ecological forms of both spirituality and rationality would help us recognise the way both human and earth others nourish and support our lives, would remind us that nurturers must in turn be nurtured, and prevent us from taking from that capacity to nourish more than we put back. __It would caution us to abandon further projects of rational conquest that depend on flouting this basic wisdom, such as of space colonisation. Space colonisation is an extreme example of a rationalist project that misunderstands our nature as earth beings. Hyperbolised autonomy and the haekgrounding of the earth here create an illusory sense of detachability from the earth, and present as "rational" a project where every venture outwards further damages the earth we depend on. When we have learnt the true nature of our being as earth-dependent__ and have learnt both to cherish the earth and to go beyond it without damage, __it may he time for us to try to leave for the stars but not before.__