Limiting Outer Space propels the historicization of outer space by focusing on the Post-Apollo period. After the moon landings, disillusionment set in. Outer space, no longer considered the inevitable destination of human expansion, lost much of its popular appeal, cultural significance and political urgency. With the rapid waning of the worldwide Apollo frenzy, the optimism of the Space Age gave way to an era of space fatigue and planetized limits. Bringing together the history of European astroculture and American-Soviet spaceflight with scholarship on the 1970s, this cutting-edge volume examines the reconfiguration of space imaginaries from a multiplicity of disciplinary perspectives. Rather than invoking oft-repeated narratives of Cold War rivalry and an escalating Space Race, Limiting Outer Space breaks new ground by exploring a hitherto underrated and understudied decade, the Post-Apollo period.
Table of Content
Introduction.- 1 Alexander C.T. Geppert;
The Post-Apollo Paradox: Envisioning Limits During the Planetized 1970s.- Part I: Navigating the 1970s.- 2 Martin Collins;
The 1970s: Spaceflight and Historically Interpreting the In-between Decade.- 3 Roger D. Launius;
Responding to Apollo: America’s Divergent Reactions to the Moon Landings.- 4 Doug Millard;
A Grounding in Space: Were the 1970s a Period of Transition in Britain’s Exploration of Outer Space?.- Part II: Reconfiguring Outer Space.- 5 Robert Poole;
The Myth of Progress: 2001: A Space Odyssey.- 6 Florian Kläger;
The Earthward Gaze and Self-reflexivity in Anglophone Novels of the 1970s.- 7 Thore Bjørnvig;
Building Outer Space: LEGO and the Conquest of the Beyond in the 1970s.- 8 Luca Follis;
The Province and Heritage of Humankind: Space Law’s Imaginary of Outer Space, 1967–1979.- Part III: Grounding Utopias.- 9 Andrew Jenks;
Transnational Utopias, Space Exploration and the Association of Space Explorers, 1972–1985.- 10 Regina Peldszus;
Architectural Experiments in Space: Orbital Stations, Simulators and Speculative Design, 1968–1982.- 11 Tilmann Siebeneichner;
Spacelab: Peace, Progress and European Politics in Outer Space, 1973–1985.- 12 Peter J. Westwick;
From the Club of Rome to Star Wars: The Era of Limits, Space Colonization and the Origins of SDI.- Epilogue.- 13 David A. Kirby;
Final Frontiers? Envisioning Utopia in the Era of Limits.
About the author
Alexander C.T. Geppert is Associate Professor of History and European Studies and Global Network Associate Professor at New York University Shanghai as well as NYU’s Center for European and Mediterranean Studies in New York City. From 2010 to 2016 he directed the Emmy Noether research group ‘The Future in the Stars: European Astroculture and Extraterrestrial Life in the Twentieth Century’ at Freie Universität Berlin.
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