from the chiasmus archive: June 01, 2020 "NASA'S MANNED SPACE PROGRAM RETURNS. DOES ANYONE CARE?"

(Image:  Barry N. Malzberg novel 'The falling astronauts"  1971)

In light of the first manned mission from the privately owned space freight company SpaceX, on route and docking successfully soon after to the International Space Station (ISS), the mythos and heroic aspects of what the American space program once entailed, lives only as a reflected melodrama in the 21st century.  Caught between the immature and feigned 'libertarian' martyrdom commentary of a billionaire industrialist on social media feeds and governments scrambling to define space exploration - as either an inflated communication 'junk' fest of satellites or a general interest in understanding of what the cosmos means to humanity.  The launch of SpaceX's manned mission is historic in the context that it has been nearly a decade since NASA scrapped the Shuttle missions soon after 2011.  However, there is a symbolic projection of the SpaceX launch, in moving the program back onto American soil, away from using the indispensable Russian Soyuz rockets, to which they had a proven track record of successful missions for American and European astronauts to the orbiting ISS.  That it now lies in the hands of a private company and NASA, to maintain a persistent American launch program, however significant this event is, it failed to invigorate a reminder one of the greatest moments in human history, particularly for Americans at the time as it galvanized a nation, when in 1957 the Russians sent the first satellite into orbit, Sputnik, setting off, amidst the first Cold War a Space Race between the superpowers. 

There is a dichotomy of then and now in space exploration, the social and economic stability of the 1950s – with a clear diversion between the superpowers, who after Word War Two began a massive infrastructure programs that were occurring globally.  But it was the space race that gave life to a plethora of new industries in a reassertion towards a collective effort to beat the Russians, more so the contention to put the first man on the Moon. To which, America successfully achieved over Russia.  In our current time in history with all its paradoxical dynamism and correlations from past to present, mixed with the current hyper reality of digital media; a global pandemic has swept the world, social unrest and geopolitical tensions have risen.  Set against a back drop to reinstate, in a desperate way, global trade, which collapsed spectacularly when the Covid-19 outbreak was seen, earlier on, as less of a threat to trade routes.  Yet, as this new virus continues to spread, a new Cold War is about to begin.

The SpaceX moment has not been held in the same significance of America's past space exploration glories, but maybe the shine was never really there.  That it has always been the human condition, in what might be deemed as having moments of stability, also represents an instability which, in turn, maintains its vitiated directive.  Failing to inspire a society in turmoil.

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(A.Glass 2020)