Ground Control: An Argument for the End of Human Space Exploration

Space exploration will drag exploitation and inequality along with it, according to this uneven debut manifesto. Anthropologist Mandel recaps her intellectual journey away from fascination with space travel to jaundiced rejection of it, prodded along by anthropology fieldwork at New Mexico’s Spaceport America and an internship at the Commercial Spaceflight Federation in Washington, D.C. Some of her objections are practical: there’s little to do in space that’s both useful and feasible (a recent vogue for speculative asteroid-mining startups ended in bankruptcies), robotic exploration is cheaper and safer than crewed exploration, and money for human space travel could be better spent on Earth. Mandel also voices ideological misgivings, noting that the space industry is run by billionaires and elites; that American law encourages companies to monetize space resources; that, if they succeed, rich investors will get stratospherically richer; and that the space enterprise is plagued by nationalism, militarism, racism, and sexism. (She reports being sexually harassed by an aerospace executive.) Though Mandel’s ethnography of space-industry managers and policymakers is well-observed (“We floated between ornate table displays, primly dressed wait staff, and a swarming huddle of partygoers clustered around Buzz Aldrin”), her case for ending human space exploration is defeatist, portraying as inevitable the venture’s control by bad actors and bad policy. The result is an unconvincing call to inaction. (July)