Astrofuturism: Science, Race, and Visions of Utopia in Space [Hardcover]

In so many ways this is a stunning book. De Witt Douglas Kilgore, an English professor at Indiana University, employs the tools of post-modern analysis to pro-space advocacy from David Lasser in the 1920s and 1930s to Robert Zubrin at the end of the twentieth century. He suggests that advocates of spaceflight have long believed that it is human destiny to become a multi-planetary species, but not just as an end in itself but because of the desire to create a utopian society free from the constraints of cultures on Earth. His term for this is "astrofuturism," an extension of the American tradition of technological utopianism that has been so much a part of the political upheavals of the twentieth century.

Kilgore asserts that the pro-space utopian impulse was founded in the imperial politics and utopian schemes of the nineteenth century, but envisions outer space as an endless frontier that offers solutions to the economic and political problems that dominate the modern world. Its advocates used the conventions of technological and scientific conquest to express the ideals and contradictions endemic to American culture. Astrofuturists, according to Kilgore, imagined space frontiers that could extend the reach of the human species and heal its historical wounds. Their efforts both replicated dominant social presuppositions and supplied the technologies necessary for the critical utopian projects that emerged in the latter twentieth century.

Kilgore's scintillating narrative explores how this has played out in the writings of several pro-space advocates. He begins with David Lasser, an American who worked as an editor on two of Hugo Gernsback's science fiction magazines. Lasser wrote "The Conquest of Space" in 1930, laying out a leftist agenda for societies in space. He later went on to work as a union organizer but never abandoned his commitment to spaceflight as a way in which the oppressed might achieve an egalitarian society. From there Kilgore explores the work of science fiction authors Robert A. Heinlein, Arthur C. Clarke, and Ben Bova. He also offers an in-depth exploration of the thinking of Princeton University scientist Gerard O'Neill, who excited numerous counterculture refugees in the 1970s with his vision of colonies in space. Finally, Kilgore extends this search for a perfect society to current explanations of colonies on Mars and other planets.

Throughout this book Kilgore is concerned with the envisioning of futures that are inherently better in space than what exists on Earth. The novelists that he discusses always display a strong sense of justice, meritocracy, and, at least in the case of Heinlein, not a little libertarianism. A special theme that he investigates in this study is how the astrofuturists dealt with the racism so prevalent in American society, showing that in the science fiction discussed here it is overcome by a belief in the worth of all persons and an acceptance of others based on their capabilities. As Kilgore demonstrates, all of the astrofuturists, whether science fiction writers or not, always posit an open, boundless future for all humanity in space. It would be a place in which justice ruled and all had enough of every necessity of life. Space exploration would bring that, the astrofuturists believed, helping people to live together in greater harmony than ever before by ending the need to compete for resources. Kilgore maintains that this is a very important aspect of a positive future. He insists that "It is through this kind of imaginative work that we develop the tools we need to change the future" (p. 238).

"Astrofuturism" is a provocative discussion of how we have looked at a positive future in space. Kilgore notes that those involved in promulgating the astrofuturist ideology have emphasized the synergy between human and machines, social concerns and possibilities. Highly recommended.