Ground Control

In the 1960s and ’70s, America spent $20 billion dollars (around $150 billion by today's standards) to land humans on the moon, and “win” the Cold War. And while man took his first steps on an extraterrestrial landscape, protests at Cape Canaveral asked: Why waste money on space when there are so many issues here on Earth?

Fifty-one years later, an oligopoly of commercial space companies—SpaceX, Blue Origin, and Virgin Galactic—has begun sending civilians into space. These civilians are the first generation of what will undoubtedly be an extensive family of space tourists. Commercial space companies aim to expand access to space, find new sources of energy, mine outer space resources, and conquer extraterrestrial lands. But their goals remain that of a capitalist and imperialist class, intent on new frontier profiteering.

The Last Astronaut uses cultural anthropology to trace the trajectory of the commercial space industry as it faces the social, political, and economic repercussions of commercial space ventures head on. Drawing on the author’s research at Spaceport America and work in the commercial space industry, it offers an insider’s glimpse of the side of human space exploration not often put on display.

In doing so, it holds the space industry accountable for its actions by asking the same questions that counterculture leaders asked in the 1960s: Should we go? Is it worth it—socially, politically, and economically—to send humans to space? What cultural outcomes will result from continued human space exploration and the colonization of other worlds? And lastly, what can we learn about our present selves by studying our most extreme visions of the future?