Looking beyond the well-trodden, celebratory narratives of space exploration and the powerful nostalgia of lunar landings, Cosmic Fragments focuses instead on the moral ambiguities of spaceflight. Beyond the fetishization of machines, men, and manifest destiny and the Cold War tensions of the space race lies a history rife with violence, racial inequity, colonial ambitions, and catastrophe. This volume yields new insights on the crucial role of environmental damage, Indigenous dispossession, population displacements, infrastructural entanglements, and narratives of decline in space exploration situated within larger questions in the history of science, technology, and the environment. Each chapter explores histories of space travel across nations and regions to better understand the destructive power of infrastructure, waste, and exploitative legal regimes at the height of the space age. Drawing from postcolonial science studies, science and technology studies, and anthropology, contributors suggest that phenomena designed to disenfranchise and dislocate, such as the displacement of Indigenous peoples, were deeply imbedded in the coloniality of space travel. By confronting and challenging problematic early accounts rooted in the cultural mores of settler colonialism, Cosmic Fragments offers a fundamental repositioning of the history of spaceflight.
"Cosmic Fragments enlarges the purview of the history of space exploration, foregrounding those narrative fragments normally consigned to the edges-environmental damage, Indigenous dispossession, infrastructural entanglements, failed pathways, and cultural registers of ambiguity and rupture. This anthology is a significant achievement and is poised to make a valuable contribution to space history.
Matthew Hersch, Harvard University
"Cosmic Fragments makes a valuable contribution to space exploration history through its coverage of the negative and problematic aspects of space development."
Michael J. Neufeld, author of Von Braun: Dreamer of Space, Engineer of War
"Cosmic Fragments is an exciting collection of essays challenging the commonsense idea that space history is only the technological innovations and political interests of the Cold War superpowers. The book gives us a new history that disrupts our favorite 'right stuff' myths, unveiling overlooked places, people, and perspectives. It is essential reading for exploring the space-age ruins of India,
