Geographies Of Outer Space - Boston University
ForumGeographies of outer space:Progress and new opportunitiesProgress in Human Geography1–23ª The Author(s) 2017Reprints and I: phgOliver DunnettQueen’s University Belfast, UKAndrew S. MaclarenUniversity of Aberdeen, UKJulie KlingerBoston University, USAK. Maria D. LaneUniversity of New Mexico, USADaniel SageLoughborough University, UKAbstractResearch into outer space has burgeoned in recent years, through the work of scholars in the social sciences,arts and humanities. Geographers have made a series of useful contributions to this emergent work, butscholarship remains fairly limited in comparison to other disciplinary fields. This forum explains the scholarlyroots of these new geographies of outer space, considering why and how geographies of outer space couldmake further important contributions. The forum invites reflections from political, environmental, historicaland cultural geographers to show how human geography can present future avenues to continued scholarship into outer space.Keywordsculture, environment, geography, history, labour, outer space, politicsI IntroductionHuman geographers have begun to re-engagewith outer space as an object of their research.Much of this work has drawn inspiration from alandmark paper by Denis Cosgrove (1994),which examined the Apollo astronautphotographs of the earth from space, and theirsignificance in the genealogy of the globalimagination in western culture. Cosgrovethereby opened up extra-terrestrial perspectivesin contemporary studies of geographical representations. A further significant interventionCorresponding author:Oliver Dunnett, Department of Geography, School ofNatural and Built Environment, Queen’s UniversityBelfast, University Road, Belfast BT7 1NN, UK.Email: O.Dunnett@qub.ac.uk
2was Fraser MacDonald’s (2007) paper in thisjournal, which argued that outer space shouldno longer be seen as remote and detached fromthe everyday geographies of people’s lives, as ithas become instrumental to many modern technologies and forms of mobility. Such lines ofargument have echoed more recently, with JasonBeery (2016: 68) suggesting that geographersshould ‘reject . . . anxieties about engaging withouter space’, and grasp the opportunities therein.Indeed, outer space matters, and its engagement through critical voices in the humanitiesand social sciences has become more importantwith the increasing presence of outer space technologies in people’s everyday lives (Johnson,2016), the growing diversity of human activityin outer space, with private companiesdescribed to be launching ‘a new space race’(Grady, 2017), and the imaginative configurations of outer space that continue to shapehuman understandings of the universe, influenced by unprecedented developments in astrophysical science (NASA, 2017). Withgeography specifically meaning ‘earth writing’,some may wonder why there is a need for geographies of outer space. Yet outer space andgeography have historic connections, from theages of Classical and Medieval cosmography upuntil Alexander Von Humboldt’s Cosmos(1849). We argue that outer space should be ofpressing concern within contemporary humangeography given the increasing prominence ofouter space within culture and politics, and theneed to fully contextualize this. Human geographers are well-placed to draw on a breadth ofconceptual developments from its range of subdisciplinary perspectives, including an established engagement with concepts of scale(Sheppard and McMaster, 2004), and a postmodern cultural turn that has created the possibility for ‘an extra-terrestrial human geography’(Cosgrove, 2008: 47). With the rise of planetarygeomorphology in physical geography (Craddock, 2012) and interdisciplinary science(Mackwell et al., 2013), as well as significantProgress in Human Geography XX(X)new studies on outer space in history, sociologyand anthropology (Geppert, 2012; Dickens andOrmrod, 2016; Messeri, 2016), there is a compelling need for human geographers to catch upwith this ‘turn to space’ and the diverse influences outer space has had, and is having, onearth and its inhabitants.What form, then, might such new geographies of outer space take, and how might wetheorize engagements that have already startedto emerge? One starting point would be to thinkthrough specific geographical terminologiesand how they might apply to studies of outerspace. The most obvious connection, noted byMacDonald (2007), is the term ‘space’ itself, ahomonym that denotes both the most widelyadopted ‘unit of geography’ and also the cosmicvoid between planetary and other cosmic bodies,drawing on notions of absence, vacuity or nothingness. Space, however, is too vague a term forthe immensity and diversity of the cosmic realm,and adopting more specific geographical termssuch as place, surface, environment, volume, trajectory or landscape could open up the multiplicity of meanings behind these varied and distinctextra-terrestrial spaces. This approach also generates a whole range of outer-space-specific terminologies and nomenclatures as possibleobjects of study. Thinking through the nuancesof the ‘spaces of outer space’ through terms suchas extra-terrestrial or extra-global space, earthorbital space (involving polar, parabolic orgeostationary trajectories), interplanetary space,exo-planetary space, interstellar or celestialspace, the cosmos, or even the heavens, invokesa variety of scales and understandings to helpunpick and focus in on particular objects of study.What these suggestions offer is a specific lexiconfor geographers to take forward in future researchto critically interpret these different spaces, thinking beyond the simplistic binary separation of‘outer’ space from ‘terrestrial’ space.Geographers’ limited involvement with outerspace has occurred mostly through critical geopolitics, or ‘critical astropolitics’, interrogating
Dunnett et al.terrestrial power relations embedded in spaceflight industries (Warf, 2007; Collis, 2009;Beery, 2012), space-promoting organizations(MacDonald, 2007; Dunnett, 2017), and outerspace in popular culture (MacDonald, 2008).The significance of national space programmes(Sage, 2014) or outer space cultures (Dunnett,2012) has also shown the entwined nature ofouter space with national identities andmilitary-industrial complexes. Recent developments afford geographers further possibilitiesfor study, with newly-industrialized nationsbecoming increasingly involved with spaceflight (Pace, 2015) and new private sectorengagements with research, development andmanufacturing disrupting Cold War-era concepts of nationalism in outer space. With existing studies often focusing on the national andglobal politics of outer space, there has been acomparative lack of research on the localizedpolitical and economic geographies of production embedded in the newly-emergent spaceindustries. In this forum, Daniel Sage looks toaddress this shortfall by articulating geometriesof power and dispossession inherent in thelabour geographies of upcoming space projectsthat operate in contrast to the utopian visions of‘NewSpace’ magnates such as Elon Musk.Cosgrove’s landmark paper (1994) helpedestablish the significance of space imagery inengendering a sense of environmental unity inthe earth. Subsequent studies have expanded theconcept of ‘environment’ beyond earthly limits,considering, for example, representations of theplanet Mars in the early and late 20th century(Lane, 2011; Dittmer, 2007). Researchers havealso examined how earth-orbital imagery, rocketry and planetary visualization have helped toconfigure a sense of frontier expansionismthrough narratives of discovery and exploration(Sage, 2014; MacDonald, 2015). Such studieshave investigated the connections betweenhumans and the extra-terrestrial environment,but have only made limited progress in comparison to the multitude of ways in which people3have understood off-world spaces in variousnational, regional and local contexts. Thinkingthrough the meaning of earth’s place in the cosmos raises broader questions regarding the limits of human influence in the solar system, andthe role of humanity in safeguarding environmental futures in the long term. In the forumcontributions that follow, Julie Klinger andMaria Lane seek to address these issues by configuring potential new geographies of natureculture relations in outer space, through bothcontemporary and historical research, lookingat examples such as off-earth mining and themapping of other planets.Part of MacDonald’s (2007) argument in promoting the study of outer space was to drawattention to the terrestrial geographies that areconnected to the technologies and discourses ofouter space. Others have shown how certainplaces on earth, such as the Antarctic continent,mountains and deserts, have been seen asproxies of extra-terrestrial spaces (Collis,2016; Lane, 2008; Dittmer, 2007). This workmakes significant progress in understandinggeographies of outer space through earthly analogy. There is, however, further scope for studies that investigate the more accessible andeveryday spaces through which people derivemeaning from outer space. In the penultimatesection of this forum, Oliver Dunnett examineshow landscapes of outer space have beenarticulated through popular representationsand experience, seeking also to configure themoral geographies of outer space in popularunderstandings. Finally, Andrew Maclarenexamines the concept of affective nationalismin the contemporary context of NASA spaceshuttle exhibits in various museum spacesacross the United States, thinking through how‘space heritage’ has become a major focus ineveryday narratives of human engagementwith outer space.This brief overview has pointed out a significant but underdeveloped corpus of work in thenew geographies of outer space that has
4Progress in Human Geography XX(X)emerged in the past decade or so. This work hasintervened successfully in areas such as criticalastropolitics, planetary environmentalism andearth-space analogies, in explaining varioushuman understandings of the cosmos. Theseinterventions, and those that follow in the mainsections of this forum, seek to take advantage ofgeography’s unique traditions and perspectivesin understanding the spaces of outer space, andwhat they mean to people on earth in varioussocial, cultural and economic contexts. In an erain which human interactions with outer spaceare only likely to develop, such perspectives areall the more important.Oliver DunnettQueen’s University Belfast, UKAndrew S. MaclarenUniversity of Aberdeen, UKII Labour geographies of the spaceage: Astro-capitalist organizingand its alternativesIn 2007 NASA’s now Deputy Chief Historian,Glen Asner, drew attention to how ‘individualson the lowest rung of the employment ladder’(Asner, 2007: 393) had, despite their work constructing and maintaining launch facilities, producing experimental technologies, and ensuringsafety in high-risk conditions, been consistentlymarginalized in scholarly histories of spaceexploration. Read against the sub-discipline oflabour geography (Castree, 2007; Herod, 1997),this inattention to the daily lives and experiences of space workers, as opposed to seniormanagers and politicians, cannot be regardedas insignificant. Rather, it reveals and reinforcesa recurrent vision that the significance of spaceflight is determined by forces of capital, notlabour (cf. Herod, 1997). As such, space exploration can be variously understood as: a catalystto drive consumer, manufacturing and managerial innovation (Johnson, 2016), a place toextract resources (Capova, 2016), and a wayto train globally competitive knowledge workers while creating new ‘off world’ consumers,such as space tourists (Beery, 2012). We mightcelebrate this vision like Jeff Bezos, Amazonfounder, CEO and space booster, as a ‘hugedynamic entrepreneurial explosion in space’(quoted in Davenport, 2016) or lament it as apernicious ‘up scaling’ of the overaccumulation crises, and social inequalities, ofterrestrial capitalism (Dickens and Ormrod,2007; MacDonald, 2007). But either way, thefuture of space exploration, which, for Bezosand other space entrepreneurs, often appearsas our only future, appears increasingly determined by capital.While space capitalists like Bezos areundoubtedly gripped by multiple, even conflicting, visions for space exploration, includingspecies survival, colonialism, and libertarianpolitics, what seems certain is that ‘they cannotimagine exchange and social relations outsidethe framework of capitalism and profit; it is thebasis for human sociality in space’ (Valentine,2012: 1061). However, as Valentine (2012) suggests, critically-minded social scientists shouldavoid simply echoing, and thus naturalizing,this astro-capitalist teleology in their critiques.In what follows I propose that one way of opening up astro-capitalism is to challenge theassumption that space workers function as apassive appendage to the organization ofastro-capitals. Far too often the agency of labourin shaping astro-capitalism and other spacefutures remains invisible, or else, as with Wills’rare study of space labour, is figured as subservient to ‘powerful forces . . . [of] . . . capital’(2016: 118). My call here for labour geographies of the space age focusses upon the potential for further examination of how the agencyof space labour (Herod, 1997) is relationallyafforded a certain autonomy from capital tocope with, rework, even resist, astrocapitalism – spanning actualized and potential,terrestrial and extra-terrestrial, geographies.Such a line of inquiry is vital if we are, as many
Dunnett et al.critically minded scholars propose (e.g. Dickensand Ormrod, 2007; Valentine, 2012), to understand and resist the foreclosing of the future byastro-capitalists. To be clear, I am not proposingthat capital does not shape uneven economicgeographies related to space travel but ratherthat it is not the only, or even sometimes mostsignificant, influence. Drawing reference toworkers in and around NASA, I will now sketchout two strands of enquiry into how we mightdevelop such labour geographies.First, labour geographers have consistentlystressed how the agency of labour has reproduced itself at sites of production, helping toenable the production of uneven capitalist economic geographies (Castree, 2007). In contrast,analyses of the relationship between space anduneven terrestrial economic geographies havetended to exclusively focus on its determinationby capital: from the use of satellite tracking tooptimize the profit margins of multi-nationalshipping corporations moving raw materialsfrom the Global South to the North, to the availability of satellite communication to support thehigh-speed trading of global financial centres(MacDonald, 2007).To gain sight of the agencies of labour in theproduction of these uneven geographies, wemight consider labour at space production facilities, specifically individuals such as Jean Alexander, NASA’s last directly-employedspacesuit technician at Kennedy Space Center.Interviewed in 1998 as part of NASA’s oralhistory program, Jean was responsible for prelaunch interactions with the space shuttle crewsduring launch and return. The checking procedures Jean carried out on helmets, pressure suitsand straps were vital to the success of dozens ofcommercial, military and scientific satellitelaunches. Strikingly, Jean describes how thesecrucial, yet painstakingly exacting, procedureswere accompanied by light-hearted camaraderie, fun and practical jokes. It is difficult to readJean’s recollections of how she and her colleagues relieved boredom, stress and tension5by tricking astronauts, as entirely passive to theflow of capital into outer space or as part of afalse consciousness (Jean is highly critical of theincreasing use of private subcontractors inNASA during the 1990s). If Jean did not wardoff boredom, or anxiety, this might not only leadto a mistake which could endanger amultimillion-dollar satellite owned by a mediacorporation (and thus her career), but mightcompromise a workplace that fosters the reproduction of emotionally rewarding self and groupidentities and agencies. The affective encounters and atmospheres reported by Jean appear asan ingredient in both her own and her colleagues’ self-reproduction and the reproductionof astro-capitalism. Similar accounts of theaffective registers that helped workers copewith monotonous and pressurized work in andaround NASA can be found within NASA’sgrowing oral history collection, popular filmssuch as Theodore Melfi’s 2016 release, HiddenFigures, as well as scholarly accounts(McCurdy, 1993; Faherty, 2002). Labour geographers, and other labour scholars, might buildon these brief accounts of space labour in theworkplace with primary research that examineshow the uneven economic geographies of astrocapitalism are bound up with the circulation oflabouring affects, identities and agencies.Secondly, labour geographers have long beenconcerned with how groups of workers can formally organize their interests and agendas in theworkplace to rework and resist capitalist modesof production (Herod, 1997). While labouragency is certainly not pre-determined torework and resist capital, the workplace remainsan important site for geographers to identify andunderstand how labour agency can be collectively organized along these lines. To glimpsethe significance of such collective organizingwe might consider the United Launch Alliance(ULA), which employs over 3400 skilled workers at two sites in Alabama and Texas, in addition to thousands more employees across itsglobal supply chain. ULA’s production site in
6Decatur, Alabama, alone employs 850 people.ULA is a joint venture formed from the longestablished, and rival, space divisions of Lockheed Martin and Boeing, which have since 2006had a 100 per cent success rate in launchingunmanned Atlas and Delta rockets for NASA,the Department of Defence and commercialcustomers.The majority of ULA staff at Decatur andelsewhere are represented by the InternationalAssociation of Machinists and AerospaceWorkers Local Lodge 44. While Lodge 44 hasstruggled in recent years to mobilize its members to strike to oppose a professed degradationof pay and conditions at ULA (purportedly dueto resistance from members at ULA launch sitesoutside Decatur that are less affected by recentcontract changes), it has become increasinglycritical of one strand of astro-capitalism. Specifically, Lodge 44 has sought to challenge therise of SpaceX, a commercial space launchcompany of 5000 largely non-unionizedemployees owned and run by PayPal ownerElon Musk.Since its formation in 2002, SpaceX hassought to compete with ULA on price terms –the cost of a SpaceX Falcon 9 satellite launch is 60 million versus the lowest ULA launch costof 164 million (Grush, 2016). Musk’s utopianvision for SpaceX centres around a drive to‘make space flight accessible to almost anyone’(quoted in CBS News, 2016). However, since2010, Falcon 9 has experienced two full launchfailures. After the Falcon 9 launch failure on 1September 2016, Lodge 44 argued, via its publiclyaccessible Facebook site, that SpaceX had overworked its employees to produce cheaper, yetdangerous, rocket technologies. Lodge 44’s listof criticisms against SpaceX included ‘severallawsuits filed against them from employees thatclaim to have had to work off the clock to stayemployed, unfair terminations, ignoring the CalWARN Act [a piece of California legislationprotecting workers from mass layoffs], andworking their employees 60–80 hours per weekProgress in Human Geography XX(X)without rest or meal breaks’ (Lodge 44, 2016).Such concerns are supported by commentsmade by a current SpaceX engineer explaininghow: ‘If you believe that a task should take ayear then Elon wants it done in a week. . . . Ofcourse reality kicks in and either
tions of outer space that continue to shape human understandings of the universe, influ-enced by unprecedented developments in astro-physical science (NASA, 2017). With geography specifically meaning ‘earth writing’, some may wonder why there is a need for geo-graphies of outer space. Yet outer
Misalkan terdapat table A dan B, maka hasil inner join dapat diperlihatkan sebagai bidang terasir dalam diagram Venn seperti Gambar 1. Gambar 1. Inner Join b. Outer Join Outer join dibagi ke dalam tiga jenis, yaitu left outer join, right outer join dan full outer join. Left Outer Join Left outer join atau left join mengembalikan semua nilai .
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Supporting Texts Cloke, P., Crang, P. & Goodwin, M. (eds) (2005) Introducing Human Geographies Holloway, L. and Hubbard, P. (2001) People and Place: The Extraordinary Geographies of Everyday Life Johnston, R.J. et al (eds) (2000) The Dictionary of Human Geography Horton, J. and Krafty P. (2014) Cultural Geographies Assessment Examination: 100%
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