In recent years, there has been a renewed interest in space, called ‘New Space’, involving national space enterprises as well as private enterprises with visions of a “multi-planetary” future, often framed as a reignited space race. It is important to critically engage with the claims in these visions of a “multi-planetary” future, since this is a question of what kind of futures we want to have and who sets the agenda of these futures.
The Linköping Space Studies in Humanities and Social Sciences (LSSH) has been established as a critical node for multidisciplinary investigations of futurescapes on all aspects of space exploration and the space industry.
Research objectives
- The Cultural History of Space Flight
- Imaginaries of Space Exploration
- Commercialization of Space
- Space Debris
- Media and Outer Space (e.g. Celebrity Studies)
- Astronauts
- Temporalities and Space
- Mars as a Utopia
