Exit Strategy

Profit, Cosmology, and the Future of Humans in Space

Bibliographic Data

ID2990210
AuthorsD Valentine (0000-0002-6843-410X, Twin Cities Orthopedics, corresponding author)
Year2012
Volume85
Issue4
Pages1045-1067
Publication date2012-09-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueAnthropological Quarterly (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0003-5491 • E-ISSN: 1534-1518
PublisherProject MUSE (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1353/anq.2012.0073
OpenAlexW1972776990
LanguageEN
Citations received66
References cited7

Commercial NewSpace industries are increasingly significant players in outer space. The temptation is to see NewSpace as merely the next step in neoliberal capitalism's search for new profits and markets. However, finance capitalism's emphasis on short-term investor "exit strategies" is actually hostile to both the cosmological vision and entrepreneurial practice of NewSpacers, who seek a different "exit strategy": to escape Earth's gravity and establish space settlements which they see as essential to long-term human survival and evolution. At the same time, critical theorists are hostile to, or ignore, the idea of space as a site for human sociality. I argue that the context of outer space-and what it promises-challenges a progressive perspective on human futures to take seriously the cosmological visions of powerful social actors whose goals naturalize capitalist relations, even as these goals are re-imagined in reference to powerful cultural and economic historical tropes

Capitalism · Context (archaeology) · Economics · Environmental ethics · Futures contract · Hubris · Neoclassical economics · Political economy · Political science · Politics · Sociology · Temptation · Vision · History · Law · Social Psychology · Space exploration and regulation · Space Science and Extraterrestrial Life · Spaceflight effects on biology

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