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Short abstract:

This paper draws on theories of anticipatory regimes and power/knowledge to examine SpaceX’s imaginary of future Martian colonisation. Analysing a set of statements which elaborate this imaginary, we highlight how it operates as much through foreclosures and exclusions as it does hopes and promises.

Long abstract:

In recent years, the aerospace corporation SpaceX has been a vocal proponent of Martian colonisation. Elon Musk, SpaceX’s CEO, has argued for the necessity “to make life multiplanetary” in the face of various existential threats of the anthroposcene, ranging from climate collapse to nuclear war. These bold claims have cultivated considerable public attention, attracting extensive headlines and an enormous social media following reinforcing SpaceX’s role in imagining humanity’s future.

This paper maps out the hopes, fears, and limits of this imaginary through a combination of theories of anticipatory regimes drawn from STS and the Sociology of Outer Space with a Foucauldian analytics of power/knowledge. We empirically examine an array of statements that SpaceX have used to elaborate their vision, including legal documents, corporate merchandise, Elon Musk’s social media accounts, and concept renderings of Martian infrastructures.

We will show how these different statements coalesce to mobilise long-standing narratives of colonialism and technological progress in which great (White, Western) men of history are centred as protagonists in the advancement of civilization. We describe how this nostalgic future-building has the effect of foreclosing trajectories for collective action and resistance in the present. Chiefly, we argue that to pursue the mission to make life multiplanetary is to leave vital discussions surrounding colonial reckoning, environmental reconciliation, and the ethics of obscene wealth to the wayside. As such, our paper will show how anticipatory regimes of Martian colonisation operate as much through foreclosures, silences and exclusions as they do through their imagined hopes and promises.