One giant leap for capitalistkind: Private enterprise in outer space
dc.contributor.author | Shammas, Victor Lund | |
dc.contributor.author | Holen, Tomas Bjerke | |
dc.date.accessioned | 2019-11-14T14:10:46Z | |
dc.date.accessioned | 2019-11-15T10:28:53Z | |
dc.date.available | 2019-11-14T14:10:46Z | |
dc.date.available | 2019-11-15T10:28:53Z | |
dc.date.issued | 2019-01-10 | |
dc.identifier.citation | Shammas VL, Holen. One giant leap for capitalistkind: Private enterprise in outer space. Palgrave Communications. 2019;5(1) | en |
dc.identifier.issn | 2055-1045 | |
dc.identifier.issn | 2055-1045 | |
dc.identifier.uri | https://hdl.handle.net/10642/7833 | |
dc.description.abstract | Outer space is becoming a space for capitalism. We are entering a new era of the commercialization of space, geared towards generating profits from satellite launches, space tourism, asteroid mining, and related ventures. This era, driven by private corporations such as Elon Musk’s SpaceX and Jeff Bezos’s Blue Origins, has been labeled by industry insiders as ‘NewSpace'—in contrast to ‘Old Space', a Cold War-era mode of space relations when (allegedly) slow-moving, sluggish states dominated outer space. NewSpace marks the arrival of capitalism in space. While challenging the libertarian rhetoric of its proponents—space enterprises remain enmeshed in the state, relying on funding, physical infrastructure, technology transfers, regulatory frameworks, and symbolic support—NewSpace nevertheless heralds a novel form of human activity in space. Despite its humanistic, universalizing pretensions, however, NewSpace does not benefit humankind as such but rather a specific set of wealthy entrepreneurs, many of them originating in Silicon Valley, who strategically deploy humanist tropes to engender enthusiasm for their activities. We describe this complex as ‘capitalistkind'. Moreover, the arrival of capitalism in space is fueled by the expansionary logic of capital accumulation. Outer space serves as a spatial fix, allowing capital to transcend its inherent terrestrial limitations. In this way, the ultimate spatial fix is perhaps (outer) space itself. | en |
dc.description.sponsorship | Norges forskningsråd: 259888 | en |
dc.language.iso | en | en |
dc.publisher | Palgrave Macmillan | en |
dc.relation.ispartofseries | Palgrave Communications;Published 29 January 2019 | |
dc.rights | This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. | en |
dc.rights.uri | https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ | |
dc.subject | Outer spaces | en |
dc.subject | Private enterprises | en |
dc.subject | Capitalistkind | en |
dc.subject | Silicon Valley | en |
dc.title | One giant leap for capitalistkind: Private enterprise in outer space | en |
dc.type | Journal article | en |
dc.type | Peer reviewed | en |
dc.date.updated | 2019-11-14T14:10:46Z | |
dc.description.version | publishedVersion | en |
dc.identifier.doi | https://dx.doi.org/10.1057/s41599-019-0218-9 | |
dc.identifier.cristin | 1658849 | |
dc.source.journal | Palgrave Communications | |
dc.relation.projectID | Norges forskningsråd: 259888 |
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