State,capital and spaceships: A terrestrial geography of space tourism |
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| Authors: | Jason Beery |
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| Institution: | Geography, School of Environment and Development, Arthur Lewis Building, University of Manchester, Manchester M13 9PL, UK;School of Environment and Development, University of Manchester, Oxford Road, Manchester M13 9PL, United Kingdom;Department of Political Science, University of Central Florida, Orlando, FL 32816, USA;Aeromedical Center (AMC), Institute of Aerospace Medicine, German Aerospace Center (DLR), Linder Höhe, D-51147 Cologne, Germany;Department of Political Science, University of Central Florida, Orlando, FL 32816, USA;Purdue University, United States of America;ESPI Resident Fellow, Vienna, Austria |
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| Abstract: | Over the past decade, there has been a significant structural and geographical change in space travel. Following policy, budgetary and regulatory changes in the United States, space travel may now be conducted by private companies. This privatization has also led to some geographical competition and shifts between states within the US. In this paper, I respond to MacDonald’s (2007) call for more critical geographies of outer space activity. Building from his suggestion that we look more closely at the ways in which outer space activity is constituted by “numerous familiar operations” with respect to the practices of international relations and war and to the “basic infrastructural maintenance of the state and the lives of its citizenry”, this paper explores why the US Government has allowed for private space travel and why this privatization drove some states in the US to invest heavily in such a nascent industry sector. It argues that federal and state governments both saw private space travel as a means to fulfill their “basic infrastructural maintenance” with regard to economic expansion, development and competitiveness. The paper analyses these processes through the development of space tourism. In doing so, it provides more detail and geographical context to Dickens and Ormrod’s (2007) overview of the connections between outer space and the circuits of capital. It also demonstrates the many familiar political-economic processes involved in the privatization of space travel and, as such, the possibilities for further critical geographies of space activity. |
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