This study investigates contemporary American attitudes and opinions regarding human expansion into outer space. Following Daniel Deudney's conception of space expansionism set out in his 2020 book Dark Skies, it examines how people approach this concept, and why. Using data collected from over 30 visitors to the Henry Crown Space Center at the Griffin Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago, it targets a bottom-up "lay" perspective underrepresented in extant literature. Space expansion enthusiast communities are often represented as insular and restless for the achievement of progress, but this paper shows another facet of this gem. It aims to answer the question of how people of a personally interested but nonprofessional public think critically as well as uncritically about space futures. How is it people are thinking about space? What do they want, and not want, to see come to pass, when thinking of a spacefaring future? How are the grand narratives championing space expansion being received? Due to the shifts from the governmental, Cold War-esque Old Space to the rapidly developing, commercialized and privately-led NewSpace since the early 2010s, views of space and what should be done there are changing. While many leading space expansionist narratives (e.g., Elon Musk's "terraform Mars" rhetoric) champion techno-optimism and a full speed ahead approach, my data indicate that these qualities lack widespread uncritical support. Even among a population identified by their enthusiasm for increased space presence, many questions and reservations emerge that they feel must be answered before any expansion project might be designed. These range from what to do about issues like climate change to social inequality, and point to deeper dissatisfaction with many patterns of Western capitalist modernity. This paper concludes that while my data may not suggest the prevalence of a technophilic, quasi-religious space expansionism among a museumgoing lay segment of the public, such dissenting perspectives are crucial to understand and consider when deciding how space should be defined in our cultural imaginations.
Alaina Lykins (Fri,) studied this question.