Comparative Book Review: Bleddyn E. Bowen, Original Sin: Power, Technology and War in Outer Space (London: Hurst and Company, 2022) and Mary-Jane Rubenstein, Astrotopia: The Dangerous Religion of the Corporate Space Race (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2022).

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Notes

1 Margaret A. Weitekamp, Space Craze: America’s Enduring Fascination with Real and Imagined Spaceflight (Washington, DC: Smithsonian Books, 2022).

2 Bleddyn E. Bowen, War in Space (Edinburgh: Edinburgh UP, 2020).

3 Bleddyn E. Bowen, Original Sin: Power, Technology and War in Outer Space (London: Hurst and Company, 2022), 7.

4 Ibid.

5 Bowen, Original Sin, 9.

6 Bowen, Original Sin, 47.

7 Bowen, Original Sin, 239.

8 Daniel Deudney, Dark Skies: Space Expansionism, Planetary Geopolitics, and the Ends of Humanity (New York: Oxford UP, 2020).; Neil DeGrasse Tyson and Avis Lang, Accessory to War: The Unspoken Alliance Between Astrophysics and the Military (New York: WW Norton and Company, 2018).; Walter A. McDougall, … The Heavens and the Earth: A Political History of the Space Age (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins UP: 1997).; Paul B. Stares, The Militarization of Space: US Policy, 1945–1984 (Ithaca, NY: Cornell UP, 1985); Joan Johnson-Freese, The Chinese Space Program: A Mystery Within a Maze (Malabar, FL: Krieger Publishing, 1998); S. Chandrashekar, China’s Space Programme: From the Era of Mao Zedong to Xi Jinping (Singapore: Springer, 2022).; James Clay Moltz, Asia’s Space Race: National Motivations, Regional Rivalries, and International Risks (New York: Columbia UP, 2018).; Deganit Paikowsky, The Power of the Space Club (New York: Cambridge UP, 2017).; and Todd Harrison, Kaitlyn Johnson, Makena Young, Nicholas Wood, and Alyssa Goessler, Space Threat Assessment 2022. https://www.csis.org/analysis/space-threat-assessment-2022.

9 Bowen, Original Sin, 326–327.

10 Mary-Jane Rubenstein, Astrotopia: The Dangerous Religion of the Corporate Space Race (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2022), x.

11 Rubenstein, Astrotopia, 28–29.

12 Ibid., 25–28, 106.

13 Rubenstein, Astrotopia, 71.

14 Ibid., 73.

15 For example, Neil M. Maher, Apollo in the Age of Aquarius (Cambridge, MA: Harvard UP, 2017).; and Roger D. Launius, Apollo’s Legacy: Perspectives on the Moon Landing (Washington, DC: Smithsonian Books, 2019).

16 Rubenstein, Astrotopia, 118.

17 Rubenstein, Astrotopia, 114.

18 Rubenstein, Astrotopia, 104.

19 Ibid., 104.

20 Rubenstein, Astrotopia, 166.

21 Bowen, Original Sin, 9.

22 Wendy N. Whitman Cobb, “For All (Wo)Mankind: Developing a Feminist Space Policy,” in Paper Presented at the Annual Conference of the Southern Political Science Association, January 2023.

23 Everett Dolman, Astropolitik: Classical Geopolitics in the Space Age (London: Frank Cass, 2002).; Joshua P. Carlson, Spacepower Ascendant: Space Development Theory and a New Space Strategy (self-published, 2020).; Namrata Goswami, and Peter A. Garretson, Scramble for the Skies: The Great Power Competition to Control the Resources of Outer Space (Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2020).; John Klein, Space Warfare: Strategy, Principles and Policy (New York: Routledge, 2006).; and Brent Ziarnick, Developing National Power in Space: A Theoretical Model (Jefferson, NC: McFarland and Company, 2015).

24 Eric M. Blanchard, “Gender, International Relations, and the Development of Feminist Security Theory,” Signs 28, no. 4 (2003): 1289–1312.; J. Ann Tickner, “Hans Morgenthau’s Principles of Political Realism: A Feminist Reformulation,” Millennium: Journal of International Studies 17, no. 3 (1988): 429–440.; and J. Ann Tickner, Gender in International Relations: Feminist Perspectives on Achieving Global Security (New York: Columbia UP, 1992).

25 For example, see Steve Kwast, “The Real Stakes in the New Space Race,” War on the Rocks, August 19, 2019, https://warontherocks.com/2019/08/the-real-stakes-in-the-new-space-race/; Jared Thompson, “Op-ed: Beijing’s Troubling Space Ambitions,” Space News, May 20, 2021, https://spacenews.com/op-ed-beijings-troubling-space-ambitions/; Joseph Trevithick, “China’s Historic Mission to the Dark Side of the Moon is About More than Science,” The Drive, January 3, 2019, https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/25781/chinas-historic-mission-to-the-dark-side-of-the-moon-is-about-more-than-science; and Mark R. Whittington, “The latest Chinese space launch presents both a problem and an opportunity for NASA,” The Hill, May 11, 2020, https://thehill.com/opinion/technology/497067-the-latest-chinese-space-launch-presents-both-a-problem-and-an-opportunity.

26 See David T. Burbach, “Partisan Rationales for Space: Motivations for Public Support of Space Exploration Funding 1973–2016,” Space Policy 50 (2019).; Francois Nadeau, “Examining Public Support for Space Exploration Funding in America: A Multivariate Analysis,” Acta Astronautica 86 (2013): 158–166.; and Wendy Whitman Cobb, “Who’s Supporting Space Activities? An ‘Issue Public’ for US Space Policy,” Space Policy 27 (2011): 234–239.