Every Age Gets the Mythology It Deserves
Space flight undeniably <i>was</i> a mythology. I would say however that if space flight was the mythology of this age, this age is rapidly coming to an end. There was some renewed &quot;mainstream&quot; interest a few years ago around Mars colonization (remember Mars One, which rapidly fell apart after seeing some hype in the early 2010s) and astronomical discoveries and accomplishments (like the first picture of a black hole) still generate some buzz every now and then but it&#x27;s hardly a mass movement anymore and hasn&#x27;t been for years. Even pre-pandemic it felt like it was already largely fizzling out.<p>To me it feels like the &quot;new space age&quot; has been ending since at least the mid-2010s. Note how Trump&#x27;s Space Force was largely met with ridicule, public awareness of SpaceX petered out as it went from experimental to production, and more recently Putin&#x27;s threat to pull out of the ISS largely didn&#x27;t have any impact beyond worries about where it might crash if it did.<p>The question is what the next mythology will be (or already is). Since the 2010s we&#x27;ve seen instability in the EU, a rise of the far right in Western nations and Christian conservatism in the US, conspiracy groups like QAnon (or its equivalents, often tied to Covid denialism) entering the mainstream, a global pandemic being mostly allowed to run its course, the catastrophic end (for now) of the American forever war in the Middle East and multiple supply chain disruptions. Where do we imagine ourselves going from here?