Spaceflight and Globalization

3 Credits · Level: Graduate, Undergraduate

Through the 20th century and into the 21st, spaceflight has become increasingly important to the human experience. It has served as a vital site of imagination across cultures, reshaped the textures of everyday life on every continent, and changed our conceptions of the Earth and the cosmos. It contributes to increased flows of trade, consumer culture, and the movement of ideas, peoples, and technology across the world. Initially provoked by geopolitical competition, spaceflight aids diplomacy, international scientific cooperation, and the global marketplace. This course will cover spaceflight’s dynamic relationship with the process of globalization, giving special emphasis to the global economic, social, and political implications of space development. At the beginning of the semester, we will discuss how spaceflight developed through distinct historical contexts, from the Cold War conflict between the US and USSR that resulted in signature accomplishments such as national security reconnaissance, the Apollo Moon landings, and space-based communications and environmental monitoring; to the end of the Cold War, with its strong emphasis on market-based space initiatives. The course then shifts focus to themes within contemporary spaceflight and globalization: national space programs; reconnaissance and military space; Earth Systems Science and climate change; satellite communications and navigation; and the “New Space” economy.