"Being among the stars": Et feministisk-posthumanistisk perspektiv på det multiplanetære menneske

At a time where space exploration is increasingly shaped by market logics while the consequences of extractive capitalism on the Earth’s ecosystems is becoming steadily more visible, feminist scholars must join the conversation about our relations to the more-than-human worlds “out there”, now being staged as a promising “frontier” by new, private space companies. Taking out from this commitment, this article seeks to develop a feminist posthumanities perspective on the SpaceX-driven mission to make humanity multiplanetary through Mars-colonialization. Exploring how the human is imagined as a multiplanetary species through SpaceX’s popular communication on its Mars program, we here argue that the multiplanetary human being in this context is imagined along three main lines: 1) multiplanetarity as risk management 2) multiplanetarity as a ‘gift of life’ and 3) multiplanetarity as part of an attractive human life in the not only global, but galactical elite—an idea presented as having immediate effects on Earthly life through its affective force, circulating optimism, productivity and hope for a future that may or may never materialize. Hence, our study shows how SpaceX’s imaginaries of multiplanetarity relies on re-affirming post-war Space Age tropes and imaginaries and mobilizing colonialist naturecultural divides, a rhetoric intensified by the anticipation of anthropogenic disasters on Earth: Multiplanetarity here emerges as a lifeboat, not so much for actual humans threatened by climate catastrophe but for a particular way of life, rooted in western consumer culture.