Limiting Outer Space: Astroculture After Apollo - Paperback

by Alexander C. T. Geppert (Editor)

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.

Back Jacket

Limiting Outer Space propels the historicization of outer space by focusing on the Post-Apollo period. After the Apollo moon landings, disillusionment set in. With the return of the last astronaut in 1972, the skies - rather than the distant stars - once again became the limit. No longer considered the inevitable destination of human expansion, outer space lost much of the popular appeal, cultural significance and political urgency that it had gained since the end of the Second World War. With the rapid waning of the worldwide Apollo frenzy, the optimism of the Space Age gave way to an era of planetized limits. Bringing together the history of European astroculture and American-Soviet spaceflight with recent scholarship on the 1970s, the thirteen chapters in this cutting-edge volume examine 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 between East and West, Limiting Outer Space breaks new ground by exploring a hitherto underrated and understudied decade, the Post-Apollo period.

Author Biography

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.