Outer Space for All? Ownership and commoning in For All Mankind and 2312

Eleanor Moselle talks about the concept of outer space as a global commons and explores the question of ownership and authority in space
About this Event

Since the early days of space exploration, the concept of outer space as a global commons has been a prominent framework in thinking about national and commercial space activity. However, it is being increasingly questioned in the New Space Age: in April 2020, US President Donald Trump issued Executive Order 13914 which stated that ‘the United States does not view (outer space) as a global commons’. The notion of a commons carries with it certain assumptions about human relationships to natural resources, and humanity’s identity as a homogenous group, that often go unexamined.

In this talk, Eleanor Moselle (University of Nottingham Trent & Science Museum Group) will look at the history and origins of space as a global commons in order to expose the multiplicity and ambiguity of the commons as a definition. It then asks how space as a commons is produced in Apple TV’s For All Mankind (2019-), and Kim Stanley Robinson’s novel 2312 (2012). It considers the presence and power of the state in each text, as well as the more fundamental question of human ownership and authority, that speak to what our position is as humans in space.