…and now back to the future.

Statement by Georgia Martin

Text by Jeeva_D

In the final weeks of May and the first weeks of June 2020, I, along with roughly one third of the world’s population were under some form of instruction to stay at home and not go outside. The coronavirus was dominating the news headlines and affecting everyday life around the planet. People were having to adapt to a physically isolated life, predominantly indoors and set new routines and explore new ways of living. Questions were being asked of what life would be like after this pandemic. What would life be like on the other side of this extraordinary event, what would be the ‘new normal’?

At the end of May my niece, Georgia, turned 8. I am usually with her for her birthday, but not this year. We spoke over video phone. I bought her a present online. Unhappy to support the working conditions at Amazon UK warehouses, I tried to select an independent vendor but the present was delivered from Amazon via a third party anyway. On the 15th April it was reported that Jeff Bezos, the CEO of online marketplace ‘Amazon’ saw his fortune grow (up) by $24Billion dollars to over $138billion over the four months of early lockdown as people did their shopping online. Capital flows up the pyramid. Bezos uses part of his fortune to develop sub-orbital spaceflight services via his Blue Origin company. Blue origin state that they are building a road “so our children can build the future”. My niece, like my nephew, seem to get a lot of joy from the Amazon boxes in which the presents arrive. They sit in them, cut them up and make ‘things’ with them. For example, Georgia had a model of the International Space Station in her bedroom for a few years. It was made from toilet roll tubes and yogurt pots.

As a birthday treat my Sister and Brother in law allowed Georgia to stay up late to watch the launch of the SpaceX Dragon rocket on the 27th May. This launch was aborted but was successful on its second attempt on May 30th. Around 10 million people watched the launch and it gained significant news coverage. The event called ‘Launch America’ and reportedly marked a new era of American space exploration as it was the first commercial operator to send a crew up to the International Space Station. The spacecraft docked with the ISS on the 31st May. Between the time of the launch and docking Georgia had made a model of a Mars base, which we see her present on the video.

On June 8th the astronauts Douglas Hurley and Robert Behnken were asked by news reporter from ABC news “Bob, Doug, you both left Earth when so many protests were erupting across this country and around the world, I wonder what message, from your standpoint, from your viewpoint there in space, what message do you have for people on earth?”

The reporter was referring to the Black Lives Matter protests that followed the killing of George Floyd on May 25th. Floyd was arrested for allegedly using counterfeit money and the arresting officer kneeled down on his neck for 8 minutes and 46 seconds causing Floyd to suffocate and die. His dying words were “please, I can’t breathe”. The subsequent protests displaced both the coronavirus and the space launch from the top of the news feeds. A significant feature of the protests was the pulling down of monuments to slave owners such as Edward Colston in Bristol, imperial leaders such as King Leopold in Belgium and confederate military and political figures across the USA.

Robert Behnken responded to the reporter “well I think from an astronaut’s perspective there is a long history of discussing the overview effect and the recognition is really one that we share and need to understand and work together to both take care of and fully utilise and make space for everyone and so I think the message for us is one of cooperation and understanding as much as the international space station has provided a place for many countries to cooperate and integrate and successfully accomplish science and accomplish the mission of human space flight and so it’s really just that message of understanding and co-operation and the success that that can bring and hopefully we can be a small example as we go forward”

Behnken’s response evoked forms of internationalism, governments working together and a oneness of humanity. Behnken's use of the term overview effect refers to a term coined by Frank White to describe the reported cognitive shift in awareness experienced by astronauts during space flight who look down at Earth. This awareness reflects a liberal cosmopolitan globalism whereby the Earth is seen as ‘without borders’ and as a fragile ecosystem that needs to be looked after. Cooperation and the unity of humanity is foregrounded in these narratives.

The perspective of looking down from the ISS onto the earth is positioned as the key to unlocking a realisation of the unity of relations between people in this way of thinking. The future of ‘humanity’ on different planets is hard to imagine, not because of the scientific challenges it poses such as; how to live in a totalising architectural system; the isolation or the unbreathable conditions. Rather it requires the cultivation of a voice that can speak on behalf of a universal ‘humanity’ that all share a vision of a future of life off Earth. As my niece crafts a Mars base out of amazon boxes I think about who controls the means of imagining the future. I have my ideas, but thankfully Georgia has hers.

Jeeva_D interviews Georgia Martin