![]() If they succeed, Rubenstein warns, outer space-“once the stuff of infinite possibility”-will become “just another theater of greed and war.”Īstrotopia is a cautionary tale-which is a bit out of character for the field of space history, a genre that tends toward positivist and triumphalist narratives of conquest-about the power of tales, fables, and myths namely, it is a reminder that, whether they are told as history or as legend, we should pay attention to stories that tell humans the whole universe is ours for the taking. A book of cultural criticism as well as consciousness raising, Astrotopia is meant to reach beyond the philosophers of religion and space historians to the interested layperson who needs to know how the world’s wealthiest people are “rehashing” themes of Christian conquest to justify their manifest destiny in space. ![]() Her work is always delightfully readable and engagingly enlightening, but Astrotopia feels more immediate, because the message is both timely and urgent. In her previous books, Rubenstein, professor of religion and science at Wesleyan University, has tackled everything from terrestrial pantheism to the multiverse. This flung gauntlet has famously been picked up by Elon Musk, one of humanity’s would-be astro-saviors profiled in Mary-Jane Rubenstein’s Astrotopia: The Dangerous Religion of the Corporate Space Race. Von Braun believed our next stop was so obvious that he prefaced his statement with “of course”: “there is the planet Mars.” I hope now that these brave Apollo eleven astronauts can be assured that their trip was not in vain, that our reach into space will be continued and that from their brief journey of exploration there will be a brighter future for mankind.”Īnd, in a soundbite that more than a half-century later still lingers as a challenge, von Braun observed that even though “the moon is still commuter traffic as far as the universe is concerned…like commuting from the suburbs to the city” there are other planets to conquer. After a cheering crowd carried von Braun on their shoulders and set him down onto the courthouse steps, von Braun described the United States’ moonshot as an exercise of “genuine brotherhood with all nations.” The lunar landing, von Braun rhapsodized, represented more than technological prowess: it was symbolic of how “the ultimate destiny of man is no longer confined to the earth. On July 24, 1969, the day American astronauts safely splashed down in the Pacific Ocean after humankind’s first expedition to the Moon, Wernher von Braun, the former Nazi rocket scientist turned aerospace engineer and one of the architects of the American space program, addressed journalists-and the world-from the Madison County courthouse in Huntsville, Alabama. ![]() (Image source: California Business Journal) ![]()
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