MEMORIES OF THE SPACE AGE

Abstract

In this article the mundanity of contemporary cyberspace will be contrasted with the technological sublime of the space programme, now almost 40 years ago. Using some short stories from J. G. Ballard, I explore the idea that contemporary forms of ‘space’, usually prefigured as ‘cyber’ or ‘virtual’, are insular and privatized in comparison to Apollo. To a certain extent, this contraction of ambition can also be witnessed in contemporary cyberpunk science fiction, and in the combination of capitalist and conspiratorial narratives about space. Though there are many ways in which the space race might be deemed politically suspect, it represents a triumph of a modernist concatenation of progress, technology and organization. In contrast to the introverted couches of the virtual, the sublime space between the stars might suggest a much more expansive relationship between technology and the human.

Keywords:

• Apollo
• space programme
• cyberspace
• Ballard
• technology

Notes

Thanks to Paul Taylor for his comments on an earlier version of this piece.

Though science fiction is not all that he has written, and the Canaveral stories make a small proportion of his science fiction.

I will refrain from exploring whether such a position is characteristic of some boys (and girls) of a certain age. Readers can make their own assumptions about that.

Many of the uncited organisational details in the following section are drawn from ‘Project Apollo: A Retrospective Analysis’, at www.hq.nasa.gov/office/pao/History/Apollomon/Apollo.html. See also Parker (2007).

Ironically, Tito was wealthy enough to afford the flight ($18 million) because he applied software developed for the unmanned Mariner missions to investment risk analysis (Kemp 2007, p. 45).

Kemp's book has a foreword by Richard Branson and is published by Virgin.

An empirical fact, simply because that is what commercial marketing, political spin and global capitalism do.