Earth Alienation Earth Alienation
i
SpaceX SAOCOM 1A Mission. Source: @SpaceX / Unsplash
Outer Space

Earth Alienation

Hannah Arendt on Outer Space
Shoaib Shafi
Reading
time 10 minutes

In the 1960s, the political theorist Hannah Arendt wrote an essay entitled “The Conquest of Space and the Stature of Man”. In our present era, when billionaires such as Elon Musk are attempting to colonize the likes of Mars, what might Arendt’s essay tell us about the commercialization of outer space – and the human condition?

On Wednesday 30th May 2020, billionaire Elon Musk’s SpaceX company launched its first human passengers into orbit from Florida’s Kennedy Space Center, opening a door to the commercialization of space. With the National Aeronautics and Space Administration astronauts Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley, and the SpaceX-manufactured manned orbital rocket, this was the first time that a private firm had carried humans into space orbit. For Musk, it was “a dream come true”, as he took a small step towards his ultimate goal: the colonization of Mars. But he is not alone, soon the billionaires Jeff Bezos and Richard Branson will follow suit with their respective commercial space exploration companies, Blue Origin and Virgin Orbit.

When the erstwhile USSR launched Sputnik into space in 1957, it was the first time that “an earth-born object made by man was launched into the universe.” Those were the times of the Cold War and the ‘space race’, with both the Soviet Union and the United States seeking to gain a technological edge over each other. This space expansionist ideology initiated by the two great powers of the era marked the beginning of what Hannah Arendt called “earth alienation”.

In 1963, soon after the

Information

You’ve reached your free article’s limit this month. You can get unlimited access to all our articles and audio content with our digital subscription. If you have an active subscription, please log in.

Subscribe

Also read:

A Bird’s-Eye View on Biebrza and Narew A Bird’s-Eye View on Biebrza and Narew
Nature

A Bird’s-Eye View on Biebrza and Narew

Małgorzata Borkowska

The Biebrza Wetlands are a grand monument to nature: one of the very few in Europe and comparable to the Pripet Marshes in Belarus, or the Danube Delta in Romania.

Another fire in the Biebrza Valley might turn out to be the last extinguishable one. Although the April fire caused immense damage, it didn’t reach the peat layers deep in the ground. Such disaster would probably mean the end of the area’s hydrological system, which has been developing here for thousands of years. And there is no guarantee that next time we will be so lucky. The marsh fire is practically inextinguishable: it smoulders deep in the ground for weeks or even months.

Continue reading