Since the founding of SpaceX in 2002, there has been a growing number of companies as well as new countries entering into outer space with visions of a “multiplanetary” future, often framed as a reignited space race. This new development calls for the humanities and social sciences to turn their attention to this burgeoning new area. It is important to engage with the claims in these visions since this is a question of what kind of future(s) we want to have and who sets the agenda of these futures. The Linköping Space Studies in Humanities and Social Sciences (LSSH), based in Linköping, Sweden, exists to answer that call. LSSH has been established as a critical node for multi and interdisciplinary investigations of futurescapes on all aspects of space exploration and the space industry.
From investigations into the cultural aspects of space through film, novels and media reporting which has an impact on social and political attitudes and understandings of outer space, the politics and economics of commercialisation and public sector space exploration, the impact of the law on the growing activities in outer space, geographical implications of the growing footprint of infrastructures on earth and in orbit, space debris or how artists are trying to understand how outer space has been or can be imagined, there is an urgent need for academia to study and ask questions of this increasingly important aspect of human life.
Research objectives
- The Cultural History of Space Flight
- Imaginaries of Space Exploration
- Commercialization of Space
- Politics of Outer Space
- Space Debris
- Media and Outer Space (e.g. Celebrity Studies)
- Astronauts and the Human Body in Outer Space
- Temporalities and Outer Space
- Planetary and Outer Spatial Utopia(s)"
