Owing Christopher Columbus a Mission to Mars 

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MASTERARBEIT / MASTER’S THESIS 

 

Titel der Masterarbeit / Title of the Master‘s Thesis 

Owing Christopher Columbus a Mission to Mars:  

Narrative Strategies in the Introductory Speeches of American  

Space Policies and the Sociotechnical Imaginary of Conquering Space 

 

verfasst von / submitted by 

Sebastian Eberth (BA) 

 

angestrebter akademischer Grad / in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of 

Master of Arts (MA) 

 

Wien, 2019 / Vienna 2019 

 

Studienkennzahl lt. Studienblatt /  A 066 906 

Degree programme code as it appears 

on the student record sheet: 

Studienrichtung lt. Studienblatt /   Masterstudium Science-Technology-Society 

Degree programme as it appears 

on the student record sheet: 

Betreut von /Supervisor:    Univ.-Prof. Dr. Ulrike Felt 



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Acknowledgements 

The following roughly 100 pages are filled with words and thoughts that I have had in the past two 

years. None of these thoughts I would have had without some wonderful people supporting, inspiring, 

encouraging and also criticising me.  

First, I need to thank my family, and especially my parents. If you had not raised me the way you did, I 

would not get to do all these awesome things I do. This is your work. 

Next, I need to thank my supervisor, Ulrike Felt. You gave me the time I needed and more than just 

answered the questions I had for you along the way. This is your work. 

And finally, these acknowledgements would be fundamentally incomplete without thanking Xenia. You 

spent your holidays in a library with me, believe(d) in me and gave me all the space I need. This is your 

work, too.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 



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“Technologies are produced by institutions and  

people with stakes and interests - political,  

social, historical, and cultural. This  

is neither inherently good  

nor inherently bad;  

it simply is.” 

Gabriele Hecht in The Radiance of France  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 



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Owing Christopher Columbus a Mission to Mars:  

Narrative Strategies in the Introductory Speeches of American Space Policies  

and the Sociotechnical Imaginary of Conquering Space 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 



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Table of Contents 

1. Introduction ......................................................................................................................... - 10 - 

2. State of the Art ..................................................................................................................... - 13 - 

2.1. Nations and Cultures of Technology .................................................................................. - 14 - 

2.2. Spaceflight and Pop Culture .............................................................................................. - 16 - 

2.3. Spaceflight as Cultural Performer ...................................................................................... - 18 - 

2.4. Spaceflight as Political Instrument ..................................................................................... - 20 - 

2.5. Of Being Singular and Superior: American Exceptionalism ............................................... - 23 - 

2.5.1. Exceptionalisms Building Blocks: American Myths .................................................... - 25 - 

2.6. From Colonialism via Postcolonialism to Neocolonialism.................................................. - 28 - 

3. Research Questions .............................................................................................................. - 31 - 

4. Sensitising Concepts ................................................................................................................ - 32 - 

4.1. Tech and Time: Sociotechnical Imaginaries ....................................................................... - 32 - 

4.2. Us and Them: Imagined Communities ............................................................................... - 35 - 

5. Material ................................................................................................................................... - 36 - 

5.1. Choosing material ............................................................................................................. - 36 - 

5.1.1. Dwight D. Eisenhower (1953-1961): Founding Civilian Spaceflight ........................... - 38 - 

5.1.2. John F. Kennedy (1961-1963): Choosing to Go to the Moon ....................................... - 38 - 

5.1.3. Lyndon B. Johnson (1963-1969): The Apollo Years.................................................... - 39 - 

5.1.4. Richard Nixon (1969-1974): From Exploration to Reusability..................................... - 40 - 

5.1.5. Gerald Ford (1974-1977): Following Nixon’s Plans .................................................... - 41 - 

5.1.6. Jimmy Carter (1977-1981): The Shuttle On Its Way.................................................... - 41 - 

5.1.7. Ronald Reagan (1981-1989): Challenger, Two Policies, and No Talk.......................... - 41 - 

5.1.8. George Bush senior (1989-1993): The Space Exploration Initiative ............................. - 42 - 

5.1.9. Bill Clinton (1993-2001): Cancelling SEI and Building (On) Robots ........................... - 42 - 

5.1.10. George W. Bush (2001-2009): Humans to Explore ................................................... - 42 - 

5.1.11. Barack Obama (2009-2017): Abandon Constellation, Aiming for Asteroids .............. - 43 - 

5.1.12. Donald Trump (from 2017 on): New Old Plans and Mars.......................................... - 43 - 

6. Narrating Reality: Methods .................................................................................................. - 44 - 

6.1. Working with Narratives ................................................................................................... - 44 - 

6.2. Unpacking Narratives: Thematic and Performance Analysis .............................................. - 46 - 

6.3. Narratives at Work: Political Speeches and Why to Study Them ........................................ - 47 - 

7. Analysis ................................................................................................................................... - 48 - 

7.1. John F. Kennedy - Torn Between Fear and the Spirit of Optimism ..................................... - 49 - 

7.1.1. Some Context ............................................................................................................. - 49 - 

7.1.2. Dichotomies, Contradictions, Americanness ............................................................... - 50 - 

7.1.3. Exciting America ........................................................................................................ - 52 - 



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7.1.4. Technologies, Knowledges, Futures ............................................................................ - 53 - 

7.2. Richard Nixon - Defending No Space Offensive .................................................................... - 55 - 

7.2.1. Some Context ............................................................................................................. - 55 - 

7.2.2. Reasonability and Down-to-Earthness ......................................................................... - 55 - 

7.3. George Bush - Pride, Preachers and Whom to Owe Spaceflight ......................................... - 57 - 

7.3.1. Some Context ............................................................................................................. - 57 - 

7.3.2. An American Past: The United States’ Proud Children ................................................ - 58 - 

7.3.3. An American Future: Space Romance and the Aggrandisement of Spaceflight ............ - 60 - 

7.4. George W. Bush - Of the Human Nature and Our Limits to Dream .................................... - 63 - 

7.4.1. Some Context ............................................................................................................. - 63 - 

7.4.2. The Human Nature, the American Nature, and Other Worlds ...................................... - 63 - 

7.4.3. High Hopes and the Obligation to Carry On ................................................................ - 66 - 

7.5. Barack Obama - Back into the Future ................................................................................ - 67 - 

7.5.1. Some Context ............................................................................................................. - 67 - 

7.5.2. Lacking Vision: Shadows of the (Recent) Past ............................................................ - 68 - 

7.5.3. Commitment and Society: The Grand Future .............................................................. - 69 - 

7.6. Common Narratives: Why to Conquer Space ..................................................................... - 71 - 

7.6.1. Unity: The Spacefaring Nation.................................................................................... - 72 - 

7.6.2. Exceptionality: Valuing the United States of America ................................................. - 73 - 

7.6.3. History: The Traditionalisation of Values.................................................................... - 75 - 

7.6.4. Destiny: Expanding into the Future ............................................................................. - 80 - 

7.6.5. Hierarchy: America in the World ................................................................................ - 82 - 

7.6.6. Trajectory: Of Logical Paths ....................................................................................... - 84 - 

8. Conquering Space: Conclusions ............................................................................................... - 86 - 

8.1. Technologies and Nations: Technocultural Identities ......................................................... - 87 - 

8.1.1. America ...................................................................................................................... - 87 - 

8.1.2. Developments ............................................................................................................. - 89 - 

8.1.3. Rockets ...................................................................................................................... - 90 - 

8.2. Columbus and the Mars Mission: Sociotechnical Imaginaries ............................................ - 91 - 

8.2.1 Origin & Embedding ................................................................................................... - 91 - 

8.2.2. Resistance & Extension .............................................................................................. - 93 - 

8.3. Implications, Thoughts, Next Steps ................................................................................... - 95 - 

9. Bibliography ............................................................................................................................ - 98 - 

10. Abstracts ........................................................................................................................ - 106 - 

 

 



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Table of Figures 

Figure 1:  Astronaut Mark C. Lee during an extravehicular activity in 1994. NASA, 2009. ........... - 12 - 
Figure 2: Final scene of the movie Interstellar. A colony is founded, with the American flag blowing 

in the wind. Nolan & Thomas/Obst, 2014..................................................................................... - 18 - 
Figure 3: Parade for and with the Apollo 11 crewmen after their trip to the moon. NASA, 1969. .. - 22 - 
Figure 4: Astronaut Mike Hopkins during an extravehicular activity at the ISS on December 24th 

2013, with his US patch clearly visible. NASA, 2013. .................................................................. - 30 - 
Figure 5: John F. Kennedy during his speech at Rice Stadium, Houston. NASA, 2006. ................ - 39 - 
Figure 6: Aerospace engineer Wernher von Braun in front of the Saturn V. NASA, 2004. ............ - 90 - 
Figure 7: Astronaut Edgar D. Mitchell planting the American flag on the moon during the Apollo 14 

mission. NASA, 1971. ................................................................................................................. - 97 - 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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List of Tables 

Table 1: Dichotomies employed by John F. Kennedy in his “We choose to go to the moon” talk.  . - 50 - 
Table 2: Color codes explaining tables three and four. .................................................................. - 76 - 
Table 3: Time specific historical references made in the talks. ...................................................... - 76 - 
Table 4: Not time specific references made in the talks................................................................. - 78 - 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 



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1. Introduction 

“There is no harm in repeating good things.” 

Plato (428/427 - 348/347 BC), philosopher 

Rockets do not just appear out of nowhere, ready to lift off into space. So, what has to happen 

for a rocket to leave the earth’s atmosphere? Sure, its engines need to ignite, generating thrust, enormous 

and yet meticulously controlled. Beforehand, millions of technical components will have to be 

assembled, able to withstand great physical forces. Software will have to be developed. Thousands of 

people will have worked days, weeks, months, often years in order to make the boosters catapult not 

only satellites and materials but also animals and humans into space. Behind every rocket launch lies an 

enormous organisational and financial effort, that, over time, has led to some of the greatest 

technological extravaganzas in human history. People were sent to the moon, landed on it, jumped 

around, and flew back. Probes have been crushed by the atmospheres of Venus, Saturn, and Jupiter, 

while others have landed on both Mars and several moons of planets other than earth. Probes even landed 

on asteroids and comets. Some returned successfully, importing dust from outer space.  

Obviously, all these technical feats cost large amounts of money. Money, which in most cases 

came from taxpayers. Over the years, some of that money was spent on failed missions, as not every 

mission was (and will be) a success; two of the five American built space shuttles disintegrated, 

Challenger in 1986 on its way to space, Columbia in 2003 on its way back. Each disaster cost the life 

of seven human beings, and - without putting human lives and money into comparison - literally burned 

up billions of tax dollars. And still, or, as we will see, perhaps even because of that, spaceflight still 

achieves to fascinate people in an oddly intangible yet commonly accepted way. 

The investments in the pioneering research and the practical execution of spaceflight only came 

about through governmental efforts
1
, and for decades it was, with a few exceptions, the preserve of the 

USA and the USSR (respectively Russia). The duel for filling the vacuum began some years after WWII, 

marking a time in which the relationship between science, society and politics changed dramatically and 

permanently. Science fought for its intellectual independence, but ultimately the lines between these 

realms became increasingly blurred (see Barker, in Jasanoff & Kim, 2015). This blurring of boundaries 

included those of spaceflight. Contrasting its very much privately inspired and funded origins (see Kirby, 

2010), president Eisenhower founded the US’ National Aeronautics and Space Agency (NASA) in 1957. 

From that point on, as is every scientific and technological development, spaceflight was deeply 

                                                   
1 We have seen in the recent past the very refreshing development of private companies enriching the branch 

with new groundbreaking innovations, too. However, greater undertakings such as sustaining the International 

Space station are still left to state agencies. Additionally, private companies are yet to have proven their 

capability of reaching deep space with more than an electric car (see chapter 2.2.). 



Owing Christopher Columbus a Mission to Mars 

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embedded in society, becoming an active part of the social and the political, far from being an 

independently working system.  

Lacking independence, NASA’s work needed external approval, including that of the American 

population. They did not only have to see the Saturn V lifting off to the moon, they had to see something 

in it. Something more than just a rocket standing about 110m tall. The technology needed a story, a 

narrative background, which would constitute a comprehensible right to exist. Rockets, in the eyes of 

everyone involved, had to become more than just the millions of components assembled by some 

scientists and engineers: they had to stand for something bigger. In principle, it is this narrative backbone 

that the study at hand aims to unpack and investigate. The question arises: Where and how to study these 

narratives? Acknowledging the peculiar entanglements of spaceflight and American politics, and 

especially the role the president
2
 plays, I will turn towards some of the most central moments of decision 

making in spaceflight. Spaceflight in the US for the most part depends on the national space policy, 

which, simplifying it somewhat, aligns itself with the interests and plans of the president. Once the 

policy framework has been decided upon, a framework upon which NASA must act accordingly, it is 

often presented to the public in the form of a presidential speech. These talks introducing American 

space policies do not only present some kind of vestigial to-do list but also play a central role in the 

narrative embedding of rocketry in society. In that, they particularly provide storylines for how the 

policy and its ideas matter in the future, offering conceptualisations about aspects of spaceflight 

technology and/in the American society.  

In my aforementioned descriptions and the entire work I draw on the conceptual framework of 

co-production, which assumes that neither the systems I mentioned - science, technology, society, 

politics, and the like - nor what is produced in and through them, is intrinsically autarkic. Instead, co-

production proposes to perceive all these realms as mutually influencing one another in a reciprocal 

process, together producing what is (see Jasanoff, 2004, or Hecht, 2009). This co-production becomes 

effective at various sites and expressed in various ways. However, one may ask, if reality is as messy as 

proposed here, how come that specific “technological trajectories diverge across polities and periods” 

(Jasanoff, 2015a, p. 5), resulting in some technologies and technology-related ideals being tremendously 

durable, while others quickly vanish off the face of the earth? Tracing exactly these questions for specific 

technologies and approaches, is what sociotechnical imaginaries, at the same time reasons and outcomes 

of co-production, enable us to do. With the help of this concept, I aim at investigating how the specific 

imaginary of conquering space via technologies of rocketry has been stable for many decades in the 

American context and how this set of technologies is tied to a “subjective self-understanding [of] a 

shared social and moral order” (ibid.). A sociotechnical imaginary is often tied to a single country, 

                                                   
2 I want and need to remark, that, in the following, I will always speak of the American presidents in the male 
form. That is simply because, although statistically highly unlikely, until now all presidents of the United States 

of America have been male. 



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though it does not have to be, as some imaginaries are considered to have impact even on a global scale. 

Felt, however, points out the “central role technological choice can play in the formation of national 

identities” (Felt, 2015, p. 103), and following that line, my focus lies solely on the United States of 

America. My main research question hence reads: “How did US presidents in talks introducing new 

space policies contribute to the construction of the sociotechnical imaginary of ‘conquering space’?” 

While sociotechnical imaginaries are my main 

conceptual lens, I also draw upon other resources 

provided by different realms, among them American 

studies, enriched with aspects of cultural studies and 

nation making, and even some glimpses into popular 

culture. Finally, the lens of American studies also 

served me as a proper jacking point to the field of 

postcolonial studies. This diverse theoretical 

foundation allowed me to problematise the talk’s 

narrative constructions and their sociotechnical, 

sociocultural, and sociopolitical implications, 

pondering what the sociotechnical imaginary of 

conquering space is laden with in the American context. 

What I will hence show in the following chapters, is 

how the talks in a very consistent manner used very 

similar narrative strategies to make sense of the risky 

and expensive effort of (manned) spaceflight. Although 

spanning over fifty years, the five talks I was able to 

meaningfully include in the study, provide a textbook 

example of the evocation of an imagined community (see Anderson, 2006, and chapter 4.2.). This 

imagined, homogeneous community of Americans is ascribed with certain values and traits, most of 

them being dictated by the centuries-old tenet of an American exceptionalism (see chapter 2.5.). In the 

talks, this characterisation gains plausibility through the strong inclusion of historical accounts, which 

strive to invoke cultural continuity in order to make the culture and its supposed traits explainable and 

traceable in space and time. National mythology, I found, aids greatly in grounding identity as well as 

desired futures. Thus, the sociotechnical imaginary of conquering space is drenched in Americanism, 

the ‘desirable future’ that is promoted is one of historically justified national domination and logical 

international hierarchy. I worked on revealing the needed messy process of remembering, assessing the 

status quo, and envisioning what ideas are best to follow - thought work, that is influenced by diverse 

past, current and imagined future individuals, collectives, and circumstances in science, technology, 

society and politics. 

Figure 1:  Astronaut Mark C. Lee during an 
extravehicular activity in 1994. NASA, 2009. 



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As hinted at, in general, this is a study that locates itself within the field of science, technology 

and society (STS), a field that enables one - just not to say makes one - to conduct interdisciplinary 

studies. Hence, some things lie out of the scope of this study. Most importantly, 

… I will not go much into reasonings of, in general, how sensible spaceflight and especially 

explorative spaceflight was, is, and will be in the future. I will also avoid any (automatically personal) 

assessment of specific missions or activities of any actor, both within NASA and the government. 

… I will not assess the value, reasonableness and historical validity of any (American) myth or 

narrative taken up in the speeches. This study is exclusively about finding out how they are used in 

presidential speeches in American spaceflight and why so. 

… I will not study the general public perception and societal uptake of the speeches that I will 

analyse, or ‘the’ public take on spaceflight. This study is almost exclusively about the talks themselves 

and not about what reactions they provoked in the long run. 

Nonetheless, I believe this study to matter for several scientific fields, yet specifically to the 

field of science, technology and society (STS) in which literature on spaceflight is existent, yet barely 

abundant. Additionally, it rather focuses on technologies in spaceflight than conceiving of spaceflight 

as technology, or “super technology’ (see Kay, 1994). In the social studies, there are studies on probes 

and robots in space, on spaceflight catastrophes, and some about historical analyses. It is examined ‘How 

to See like a Rover’ (Vertesi, 2015), yet questions of its sociocultural backing are often left unanswered. 

When it comes to contemplating the general Whys and societal Hows of spaceflight coming about, 

scholarly contributions tend to stem exclusively from the natural and engineering sciences. I set out to 

tackle these questions from the point of social sciences. I want to find out not how American spaceflight 

is done, but how it is thought and imagined. In the end, thus, I want to show that a lot more than plain 

construction and natural work has to happen before rockets leave our thin, thin atmosphere. Spaceflight 

is just as interesting from a sociocultural point of view as it is from a sober technological perspective.  

2. State of the Art 

The state of the art will now introduce the central bodies of work that I aim to contribute to with my 

study. The materials section (chapter 5) contains an extensive part on the roles each president played for 

spaceflight. That part may be considered as an actual part of the state of the art as well. However, since 

I directly draw my empirical material from this historical perspective, it was more reasonable to include 

the historical context of spaceflight in the materials section. 

 



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2.1. Nations and Cultures of Technology 

“Society is unity in diversity.” 

George Herbert Mead (1863-1931), philosopher, sociologist and psychologist 

Many scholars in the science and technology studies have engaged with the complex 

entanglements of what we take to be culture, nature, society, and the role science and technology play 

in (continuously re-)defining it. In general, the concept of co-construction or co-production is shared by 

many scholars. It claims that eventually all these rather blurry concepts mutually shape each other 

instead of one shaping, or even controlling, another (see for instance Jasanoff, 2004, or Epstein, 2008). 

Science shapes society just as society shapes science, producing what is, and hence the technology that 

is part of our reality. Understanding this conceptual premise coined by Jasanoff (2004) and Jasanoff and 

Kim (2015, see also chapter 4.1.) constitutes a crucial context of the rest of this section, which will now 

explore some aspects of the mutual co-production of science, technology, cultures, and nations (all being 

closely tied to the sensitising concepts, see sections 4.1. and 4.2.). 

The Oxford Online Dictionary defines ‘nation’ as the following: “A large body of people united 

by common descent, history, culture, or language, inhabiting a particular state or territory” (“Nation”, 

2019). Anderson (2006) speaks of the “contingency and ineluctability of our particular genetic heritage” 

(2006, p. 10), which can be understood not only in a biological, but also in a cultural sense; part of it 

being for example our mother-tongue. We ‘inherit’ it, barely being able to change it. Hence, a connection 

does not exist because you carry the same passport around with you, but it is because you share some 

rather unmeasurable, invisible things - a culture. Although, what seems logical on first glance then 

reveals a paradox: How ‘common’ can people’s attributes be, when we speak of a ‘large body’ of 

people? How much ‘unity’ can be at hand, when there are millions of individuals? The larger this body 

gets, inherently, the more diverse the population becomes, and today there are two nations inhabited by 

more than one billion people, and a few with hundreds of millions of people. And still, if you meet a 

fellow countryman or -woman in some far away country, you will probably feel some kind of indistinct 

connection, knowing, that you share at least some things with one another. 

A major source for me is one presented by Šabanović (2014). In her study on ‘social’ robots, 

she examined how actors working within social robotics would constantly invoke a specific notion of 

what ought to be a specific and distinct Japanese culture. Generally, Šabanović states that the scientists 

she worked with situated their work within a ‘local cultural frame’, with the goal to render the newly 

developed social robots native to this constantly constructed cultural frame. Referring to Caporael 

(1997) she calls this the ‘repeated assembly of a cultural model’, a term I will continue using for exactly 

those processes of actively constructing and demarcating a specific culture and by that reasoning and 

justifying certain activities, as for instance capabilities in specific scientific/technological realms. This 

reassembly is being done by different means. Generally, actors will need to define a certain reference, 



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that is, they assemble the very cultural model by “specifically relating the applications and int eractive 

capabilities of [a technology] to practices, beliefs, and social norms they consider to be culturally 

normative”, and thereby “repeatedly assemble cultural models of [...] technology’s role in society” 

(Šabanović, 2014, p. 345). However, these models may differ from actor to actor. Šabanović explains, 

that the local cultural frames do not stay stable over time but are rather mutative and fluid than absolute 

and definite perceptions of a culture situated in space and time. Although similar cultural sources may 

be drawn from during different assemblies, the overall process is recursive, thus enabling models to 

“dynamically change and adapt to fit contemporary circumstances” (ibid, p. 346). 

Another pivotal attribute of such a cultural model is that of ‘cultural continuity’, an inner logic 

of the model that ensures a certain trajectory, a direction in which the culture is developing and has, 

seemingly, always developed into. Šabanović speaks of the attempt to create a feeling that things will 

have been, enabling actors to “create a cultural logic supportive of current sociotechnical developments” 

(Šabanović, 2014, p. 344), which effectively act as an “interpretive filter, through which the world is 

meaningfully perceived and can be acted upon” (ibid., p. 345). To give this continuity and inner logic 

to a cultural mode, it needs to be filled with content that has to be reconstructed or created by, for 

instance, scientists or politicians. Šabanović observed how people would “incorporate and adapt 

traditional themes and cultural values into advancements in robotic technology”, so that they, in their 

stories and argumentations, could “provide epistemological grounding and social justification for 

robotics” (ibid., p. 359). This observation again suggests that scientists, and thus all other actors 

constructing cultural models, are very much situated in terms of history, geography, culture, and the 

social. This situatedness itself can at times be very useful for actors in rendering their opinions and work 

use- and even rightful. Through careful acts of situating specific technologies or technological 

developments, actors are very much able to explain and stress the social as well as scientific importance 

of the work they do. Hereby, science and technology, often perceived as separate from culture and 

society, become part of an argumentation that includes both; the human and the non-human. Specific 

scientific progress and societal support are both constructed rightful as the science/technology is made 

fit into the local cultural frame (Šabanović, 2014, p. 395).  

Thus, it is through these performances that artifacts or sets of technologies become cultural 

performers themselves, and hence also both, reason and evidence, origin and materialisation, of a 

specific set of values constructed as ‘true’ and ‘original’ to the very culture they are produced and or 

developed in. This section has shown that people, especially those equipped with a certain authority and 

concomitant decisive power, may assemble cultural models through means of creating a narrative of 

cultural continuity that logically results in certain technological developments. The models do their work 

by providing interpretive filters and creating as well as situating knowledge. The models crafted are then 

presented among others in public and persuasive moments.  



Owing Christopher Columbus a Mission to Mars 

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2.2. Spaceflight and Pop Culture 

“This is Ground Control to Major Tom 

You've really made the grade 

And the papers want to know whose shirts you wear 

Now it's time to leave the capsule if you dare”  

- David Bowie in Space Oddity (1969) 

Spaceflight has found its way into many different cultural spheres. However, I here want to explore 

some aspects of spaceflight’s role in (specifically Western and US American) pop culture. When 

Jasanoff claimed that "[t]echnological innovation often follows on the heels of science fiction” (2015a, 

p. 1), they were among others in fact writing about spaceflight. They noticed how popular writers like 

H.G. Wells, Fred Wilcox, and Fred Hoyle had been writing about interplanetary traveling decades before 

the first human had even touched the Earth’s moon, let alone other planets. Consequently, they find that 

“[n]ational sociotechnical imaginaries may permeate into popular culture, finding expression in the mass 

media and in nonofficial genres” (ibid., p. 27). Today, spaceflight still is an inherent part of science 

fiction and the wider pop culture. Yet, as implied, spaceflight is not only a part of it, but it arguably 

came into existence only through science fiction and pop culture. Almost a century ago, in the 1920s 

and 1930s, people rather located spaceflight and rocketry purely within the realm of science fiction than 

in actual science, so that “rocket science became conflated with pure kitsch” (Smith, 2014, p. 328). But 

as Kirby shows, rocket scientists from all over the world would not refrain from their work in 

(successfully) advancing their research, even if this urged them to make popular movies a means to 

promote rocketry (see Kirby, 2010, but also Smith, 2014, p. 229). Eventually, “[t]he rocket ship became 

the ultimate iconic symbol of 1950s science fiction, the moment of its blast-off encapsulating the ideals 

of the Space Age and providing a suitably melodramatic climax for ‘cosmic breakout’ stories” 

(Stableford, 2006, p. 447). And, still 70 years later, “who now can imagine outer space without some 

reference to science fiction?” (Redfield, 2002, p. 812). 

As the fictional stories somehow sparked real spaceflight, real spaceflight in turn kept and keeps 

sparking inspiration for ever new fictional stories, which perhaps becomes most notable in, again, pop 

culture. From the time on spaceflight became ‘real’, countless songs and movies were released that 

revolved around spaceflight. In 1964, even before the first moon landing Frank Sinatra asked to Fly Me 

to the Moon. In 1972, Elton John was a Rocket Man and seven years later, The Police was Walking on 

the Moon. In 2010 then, the Stone Temple Pilots for example sang of the First Kiss on Mars. 

Additionally, movies like 2001: A Space Odyssey, Apollo 13 or rather recent works like Gravity and 

Interstellar, are movies about (manned) spaceflight, becoming screened around the globe. Only months 

before this thesis was finished, the bibliographical drama First Man came into the theatres, telling the 

story of Neil Armstrong’s personal way to the moon. Moreover, these movies have not only been major 

box office successes. Just the first four exemplary movies received 26 Oscar nominations, winning 



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eleven of them. What is not to be taken as a sign of definite cinematic quality, it vividly shows how 

these stories and popular imaginations about space, spaceflight, and astronauts that they transport, have 

made it into the general cultural consciousness. Today, it is not at all uncommon for spaceflight to 

actually be consumed by large parts of society in diverting kinds of ways. Furthermore, even actual, 

non-fictitious spaceflight is increasingly becoming part of pop culture. In 2015, for instance, astronaut 

James Hadfield sang David Bowie’s Space Oddity on the ISS; the ‘first music video filmed in space’ 

rapidly spread in Social Media (Rare Earth, 2013). 2018 held another peak in the marriage of spaceflight 

and pop culture, when private spaceflight company SpaceX launched a heavy weight rocket into space 

for a test flight, carrying an electric car with an astronaut dummy in it. The car’s radio was playing 

David Bowie’s Space Oddity in endless loop, the livestream and video of it became viral, too (SpaceX, 

2018a and SpaceX, 2018b).  

But there is something particularly curious in the cultural representation of space travellers. 

Especially the movies share something that I want to go shortly into, as it is the one thing that this section 

eventually is all about. In its pop cultural uptake, the astronaut as such tends to always be the hero. 

Often, they are specifically American heroes (see image 1). Space is the ultimate arena to express untold 

courage. At the same time, most of today’s spacemen and -women are scientists, just as most in popular 

movies like the aforementioned. Yet, as implied, it gets interesting when taking a closer look at how 

these scientists are framed. Often, in film producers “invest the evil of science in the personality of the 

scientist” (Toumey, 1992, p. 411). Very rarely does this happen with spacefaring protagonists. They 

only seldom fall into the category of the “Mad Scientist”. In addition, the movies’ narratives also are 

not very often “a way of shouting ‘Beware of Science!’” (ibid., p. 412), as it is the case for some other 

fields of science, especially artificial intelligence (see Fisher, 2002). Space seems to be a place for brave 

heroes, not genius villains. The lyrics I started this section with thus has two interesting layers; on the 

one hand, it points at astronauts being public figures for eventually just doing their job (“And the papers 

want to know whose shirts you wear”). On the other hand, and funnily enough, the same subtle critique 

of heroisation of public figures takes place in a song that ranked high in international music charts, hence 

taking part in that very heroisation, hence confirming it. 

 



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Figure 2: Final scene of the movie Interstellar. A colony is founded, with the American flag blowing in the wind. Nolan & 
Thomas/Obst, 2014. 

Why is all this interesting for my study? First, it shows how spaceflight regularly gets not only 

recognised, but actively represented in, and for, what may be termed the ‘public’. Now, Jasanoff 

famously wrote that “the ways in which we know and represent the world (both nature and society) are 

inseparable from the ways in which we chose to live in” (2004, p. 2). Spaceflight as a set of “Super 

Technologies” (Kay, 1994) seems to be represented in a specific way, differently than other large 

technological systems; namely as a space and place for heroes. That framing may directly feed into the 

construction of what I am primarily concerned with, namely the sociotechnical imaginary of conquering 

space. Furthermore, I am interested in looking if, and particularly how, presidents contribute to and 

make use of the heroisation of astronauts and glorification of spaceflight in their speeches.  

2.3. Spaceflight as Cultural Performer 

 “For one priceless moment in the whole history of man,  

all the people on this Earth are truly one.”  

Richard Nixon, 37th president of the US on the 1969 moon landing  

In the previous section, I have briefly explored spaceflight’s value for pop culture. Yet, 

spaceflight is far more than a resource for pop culture. Often, particularly spaceflight is perceived as 

great collective endeavour, and referring to it becomes a means to experience this collective or 

community (see Anderson, 2006, section 4.2.). Although in the end, spaceflight still is ‘just’ another 



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technoscientific complex, the collective experience and attachment is much more apparent in spaceflight 

than it is for example for genetic research or oil production. Especially during the Space Race (see also 

chapter 2.4. and 5), spaceflight did not only inspire the arts (see chapter above), but it also was an 

immensely personal, political and emotional matter, and a way of national identity making, too. 

Launching rockets was a means to prove that identity, and at the same time demarcating it from other 

cultures and their (inferior) values (see chapter 2.5.1.). For the United States, winning the Space Race 

to the moon was not simply about some astronauts reaching the moon, but it was much more about the 

US as a collective, a determined community, to win over the supposedly evil and hostile collective of 

‘the’ Russians (see McCurdy, 2011, p. 61ff, and Anderson, 2006).  

“We have vowed that we shall not see [space] governed by a hostile flag of conquest, but by a 

banner of freedom and peace” declared President John F. Kennedy in 1961 when he publicly promoted 

Americas undertakings for a manned journey to the moon (see section 7.1). In the end nothing more 

than technological capabilities of those involved in it, spaceflight was nevertheless a national and hence 

cultural statement, and particularly in the 1960s but also in the time after “[s]pace technology was to 

become the vehicle for national and international prestige” (Vaughan, 1996, p. 18). It sure was not the 

only, but one important resource to perceive the country and its culture to be on the right and righteous 

path. Additionally, through having a very limited number of human representatives, spaceflight was an 

endeavour that people could identify with very easily (see Hersch, 2012); Mindell for example described 

the astronauts of the Mercury programme as “walking embodiments of American individualism, military 

might, and middle-class values” (2009, p. 68). And still today, as Mahler states, “[i]mages of shuttle 

launches and earthrise over the rim of the moon are iconic representations of American strength, 

technological capacity, and the future of humankind” (Mahler, 2016, p. 711). It is thus not particularly 

surprising for NASA to publish papers like the one that is entitled “Seeking a Human Spaceflight 

Program Worthy of a Great Nation” (Review of U.S. Human Spaceflight Plans Committee/NASA, 

2009). Spaceflight is one indicator for the perceived technological dominance and a deducted cultural 

superiority. 

The national, or cultural, collective that is evoked through spaceflight perhaps becomes even 

more tangible in moments of crisis. NASA has lost two space shuttles, Challenger in 1986, Columbia 

in 2003, and each time seven astronauts lost their lives. But especially the Challenger disaster has stayed 

in the American collective, also, but not exclusively, because the first civilian, a teacher, who was 

supposed to travel into space on the Challenger. This circumstance is said to have given the mission a 

“special aura” (Vaughan, 1996, p. 1). “Collectively, the country grieved” (ibid., p. XI), when the shuttle 

disintegrated only 73 seconds after the launch. In the aftermath president Ronald Reagan even postponed 

the annual State of the Union address due to the accident. He started off the address one week after the 

intended date, which should have been the evening of the Challenger launch, with an emotional remark 

regarding Challenger, again strongly conceptualising astronauts as general national heroes: 



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“We pause together to mourn and honor the valor of our seven Challenger heroes. And I hope 

that we are now ready to do what they would want us to do: Go forward, America, and reach 

for the stars. We will never forget those brave seven, but we shall go forward.” 

(ReaganFoundation, 2009) 

Next to the image of the fallen heroes, he also called on a national theme. The death of seven 

astronauts is rendered not only a disaster for NASA, or for the US government, but it is actively 

transformed into a national disaster. This transformation began already on the day the Challenger 

exploded: “This is truly a national loss” (Garber/NASA History Office, 2004, my emphasis) said 

Reagan live on television on the day that the Challenger disintegrated. Since a regular teacher was 

supposed to travel into space, the mission was supposed to become “a major statement about the 

reliability of space travel and the achievement of the administration (and the country) responsible” 

(Vaughan, 1996, p. 12), or in other words, an embodiment of American cultural strength. 

As politics are done by human beings, the varying cultural value was also something that 

affected the daily work of politicians involved in spaceflight - including American presidents. One of 

his former consultants recalled how Nixon convinced him of a new space policy by persuading him on 

a walk in nature that space “was something that could change the whole way that we lived, change our 

nation. He convinced me” (Logsdon, 1998). Section 2.4. will now go deeper into how, driven by its 

cultural value, spaceflight could turn not only turn into a political issue, but into an explicit political 

instrument. 

2.4. Spaceflight as Political Instrument 

“Outer space, including the moon and other celestial bodies,  

is not subject to national appropriation by claim of  

sovereignty, by means of use or occupation,  

or by any other means.”  

Outer Space Treaty, Article II 

In the previous chapter, I laid out how spaceflight over the years developed into a cultural 

resource for inspiration and the building of - often even national - identities, or as Šabanović (2014) 

termed it, cultural models. Spaceflight’s inherent cultural value, created over the decades through careful 

work by a variety of public and political institutions/actors, contributes a considerable political relevance 

to spaceflight and automatically renders spaceflight a political issue. Of course, these relations are 

reciprocal; cultural interest may emerge from political issues, just as cultural issues emerge from 

political interests). This relevance has such a big potential that I will in fact conceive of spaceflight as 

an elaborate and strategically employed political instrument. This section thus aims to provide context 

for and to highlight the relevance of the material that I will analyse, by examining how rockets and 

stations in space were and are used to do politics down on earth. 



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Probably the most notable and vivid circumstance of spaceflight being turned into a more or 

less pure political issue was the so-called Space Race between the US and the Soviet Union during the 

Cold War. Many central breakthroughs and developments in spaceflight still stem from that time – from 

the first rocket, to the first animal and human in space, the first human on the moon and the first reusable 

spacecraft, the US built Space Shuttle. The latter would eventually stay in use until 2011, some 20 years 

after the Cold War was finally ended. However, such breakthroughs cost an enormous amount of money. 

One historical account from a pivotal time in spaceflight might point out how spaceflight had become 

not only a culturally driven but also a politically relevant and emotionally laden endeavour. Against the 

backdrop of the ‘Sputnik Crisis’ and the Soviet’s success of sending Yuri Gagarin into space, in the 

1960s a congressman asked NASA engineers in a congressional hearing regarding the feasibility of a 

manned flight to the Earth’s moon:  

“I would like to make it clear for the record that I personally—and I am not a technical man, I 

am speaking just as a Congressman, trying to do what I can for the country—that I would favor 

any such program, regardless of the cost, that would put us definitely in the race to reach the 

Moon first” (as cited in Seamans Jr., 2007, p. 16).  

Yet, obviously, having in mind mentioned ‘Sputnik Crisis’ he was asking the question not solely 

for himself, but at least to a certain extent also on behalf of many other American citizens. President 

Kennedy, too, had the same simple initial position. Asking his Vice president and advisors to assess a 

moonshot’s feasibility, in the end he was the one to decide if it was at all a sensible thing to do (more 

on the procedures of the president and his advisory entities in chapter 5). As the congressional question 

implies, the most central point at that time was not to simply reach the moon, but to reach it first. 

Eventually, a committee reporting directly to president Kennedy in 1961 stated, that “a crash program 

aimed at placing a man into an orbit at the earliest possible time cannot be justified solely on scientific 

or technological grounds” (as cited in McCurdy, 2011, p. 65). In a 1961 memorandum to then president 

John F. Kennedy, Kennedy’s Vice president Lyndon B. Johnson came to similar conclusion regarding 

the actual use of what would eventually become project Apollo:  

“Major successes, such as orbiting a man as the Soviets have just done, lend national 

 prestige even though the scientific, commercial or military value of the undertaking may 

 by ordinary standards be marginal or economically unjustified.” (US Gov., 1961, p. 8) 

Thus, the justification of American spaceflight was from its early days driven by primarily rather 

emotional factors. Its meaningfulness, following Johnson’s memorandum, was best measured by 

‘extraordinary’ standards. It was not (primarily) hard scientific facts, technological breakthroughs or 

financial gain to be generated after the investment, but primarily soft factors like prestige that were able 

to drive the necessary efforts. Politicians realised the symbolic political potential inherent to spaceflight 

thanks to its cultural potential and perception. Especially during the Cold War, spaceflight was a political 



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muscle flexing, laden with cultural expectations as well as national hopes and dreams. However, it was 

primarily a means to exert and demonstrate technological or scientific abilities, and thus power, 

dominance, and national superiority. 

 

Figure 3: Parade for and with the Apollo 11 crewmen after their trip to the moon. NASA, 1969. 

Nevertheless, one should also acknowledge how spaceflight was just as well used for political 

approximation, even during the Cold War. For a few days a Soviet and an American vehicle in space 

were docked together, and even though the crews conducted some experiments together, “[t]his was 

above all a political statement, a concrete manifestation of the new climate of détente“ (Krige, Long 

Callahan & Maharaj, 2013, p. 14). However, when the Cold War came to an end, spaceflight was also 

affected by the globally changing political conditions. McCurdy registered that “[w]hen the Cold War 

ended, so did much of the rationale for the ambitious program of lunar and planetary exploration that 

fear had motivated” (McCurdy, 2011, p. 61), making clear the interdependence of national politics and 

spaceflight activities. Although there had indeed been some cooperation before, in particular the ISS 

shows how cooperation gained some new momentum in the 1990s and 2000s. Once again, spaceflight 

did two things at the same time; it reflected the current political climate, as well as it embodied political 

developments. The ISS vividly reveals that, as it is a perfect alternative programme as to how and with 

what intentions spaceflight was used in the Cold War. Eventually having cost well over 100 billion US$, 

it may be seen as an attempt and a symbol to lessen international competitiveness and foster cooperation 

in space, but also on earth.  



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This chapter aimed at sensitising one to the idea of spaceflight as a political instrument. It can 

indeed only be one instrument in the ‘orchestra’ of national politics, yet it has the potential to fill a quite 

considerable role in it. This is yet another insight that adds to the construction of research questions with 

sufficient depth and will be further worked on in the material section, where I will put individual 

presidents into relation with spaceflight affairs. 

2.5. Of Being Singular and Superior: American Exceptionalism  

“Nothing in the history of American nationalism is more impressive than the speed and the lavishness 

with which Americans provided themselves with a usable past: history, legends,  

symbols, paintings, sculpture, monuments, shrines, holy days, ballads,  

patriotic songs, heroes, and – with some difficulty – villains.”  

Commager, 1967, p. 13.  

The own history is very much necessary in order to embody an identity, and thus matters greatly 

in creating and shaping one’s own future. A nation’s self-supply of an own history happens at various 

sites, and certainly, the state’s political arena is one of them. Now, history is not exactly a neutral passing 

on of facts, and especially one’s own history is always actively created, constructed, at times creatively 

composed, and it is no different with the history of an entire nation. “[V]ibrant societies share common 

narratives of who they are, where they have come from, and where they are headed” (Jasanoff, 2015a, 

p. 6), and over the years narratives using historical events and explaining developments may turn into 

great and widely shared (national) myths. Paul (2014) identified and analysed seven central American 

myths all of which feed into and are fed on one central aspect of US American self-conceptualisation: 

American exceptionalism, the “idea that America is a singular, superior, or even God-favored nation 

within the international system” (Gilmore, Sheets and Rowling, 2016, p. 506), a master narrative by 

nature (see Jasanoff, 2015a, p. 20). 

French scholar Alexis de Tocqueville using the adjective “exceptional” in the 1830s when 

describing the American democracy is often seen as the foundational moment of what American 

exceptionalism is today. Back then it was a mere description, of the young countries political system, to 

be precise. And even though this mere description stemmed from a non-American, over time it 

developed into a shared self-understanding of the entire nation, invoking uniqueness and inherent 

predestination. Rapidly, the term had become the general mode of self-representation, that it still is. 

Gilmore (2014) states it to have three central themes. First, that the US is a singular exception among 

all countries, in virtually any given context. This specific idea still stems from the founding days of the 

US, when it became independent, allegedly starting from scratch, and was from that point on supposedly 

qualitatively different from any other country. Second theme is that of being superior, including the 

implication that all other countries are inferior to the US, again more or less regardless of the context at 

hand. Third, is the partly religiously driven theme that the US is destined by nature, chosen (by a divine 



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entity) to play a special role in the international community of states. However, American 

exceptionalism is not just some spiritual idea, floating above, detached from everyday life. Instead, it 

gets practically applied in many situations, it serves as a shared mental point of departure, as common 

denominator of who one is and what one therefore ought to do as an American. Being exceptional as a 

nation by nature ideologically guides and plausibly steers matters, both private and public, individual 

and collective. "In its dominant and recurring themes as well as in its overall rhetorical structure, 

American exceptionalism informs and structures American self-representations”, carefully building up 

a “framework of national solidarity and belonging” (Paul, 2014, p. 17). However, American 

exceptionalism itself is in fact rather intangible, being described as a “fuzzy conglomerate of very 

different ingredients” (Paul, 2014, p. 15). Yet, keeping in mind the three overarching themes I mentioned 

above, Paul identified three different types of Exceptionalism that may be studied separately from each 

other: a religious exceptionalism, a political exceptionalism, and an economic exceptionalism. Of those 

three, the study at hand will be exclusively concerned with the political exceptionalism, later analysing 

aspects of its “narrative framing, iconic visualization, and ritualistic enactment” (Paul, 2014, p. 16) in 

the context of presidential activities in American spaceflight.  

A number of scholars have shown how major speeches of American presidents regularly 

become a site where American exceptionalism becomes nourished and institutionally reproduced. The 

imagination of the US being exceptional and greater than other countries by nature has been around for 

over one century, as for example already the third US American president, Thomas Jefferson, described 

the still rather young US to be “the world's best hope” (as cited in Gilmore, Sheets and Rowling, 2016, 

p. 507). Ideas of this kind, the scholars found, are often used in US-political contexts, but precisely 

become apparent in addresses and communication from the presidents of the United States (ibid., as well 

as Gilmore, 2014, and Neumann & Coe, 2012). “American exceptionalism has become an increasingly 

powerful and relevant concept in presidential speeches to the American public since the end of the Cold 

War” (Gilmore, Sheets and Rowling, 2016, p. 516). This circumstance has led to a small, but still 

existent discourse about the different usage of US exceptionalist ideas by the US presidents over time 

(see among others Gilmore, Sheets and Rowling, 2016 and Monten, 2005). Gilmore eventually 

concluded “that U.S. presidents are well aware of the power involved in invoking American 

exceptionalism and they are creative in how they choose to invoke it” (2014, p. 2431). As will become 

obvious later on, this study will also add to this existing body of literature investigating the relationship 

between American exceptionalism and practical political work of American presidents. 

 

 



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2.5.1. Exceptionalisms Building Blocks: American Myths 

“A tale is born from an image, and the image extends  

and creates a network of meanings  

that are always equivocal.” 

Italo Calvino (1923-1985), author and journalist 

The underlying exceptionalist idea about the US affects what and how parts of national history 

are getting re-told, re-presented and hence incorporated in the nation’s composition of its own history. 

To make them valuable, credible and flexible in discursive arrangements, notions as strong as that of a 

nation being singular and superior require certain historical grounding, that is provided by ‘historical 

figures, incidents, interactions, and achievements’, which out of the many possible choices have to be 

selected very carefully. In the case of US American exceptionalism, in applied form some of these 

narratives are described by Paul as “The Myths that Made America” (2014, her book of the same title). 

Myths are powerful, not only, but particularly because they work as “means of providing coherence” 

(Paul, 2014, p. 27). They, ‘objectivate’ developments or events, letting them appear as inherently logical, 

they may provide a sense of purpose to in fact mind-boggingly causeless happenings, making them more 

seamlessly fit into a ‘usable past’, as Commager termed it (see above). These attributes render myths a 

key component of national or cultural, yet in any case collective, memory, and an important ontological 

resource to give individuals a feeling of belonging to a certain, distinctive collective with a shared, 

logical past (see also ‘imagined communities’, chapter 4.2. and Stewart, 2007, p. 2). This is true even 

though different myths shared by one collective may not be able to stand a closer historical analysis and, 

can even contradict one another, while at the same time becoming somewhat immune to criticism. 

Schueller and Watts (2003), for example, point out the rather chaotic and messy founding process of the 

United States, starkly opposing the inner telos and comprehensible trajectory that today’s common 

mythic narratives ascribe the process with. At this point though, I want to note that the aim of this study 

is not about pointing out contradictions and historical misconceptions, but much more to examine th e 

usage of such myths in political work in the realm of American spaceflight and to unpack some of the 

more tacit dimensions of myths “regulat[ing] the ‘political unconscious’” (Paul, 2014, p. 31). I have 

mentioned Paul’s seven ‘Myths that made America’, and I want to very briefly go into two of them; the 

myth that developed around Christopher Columbus and that of the American West. Both will be of 

relevance later on in the analysis.  

The myth around Columbus is a central one in the American consciousness, regardless of 

Columbus’ discovery of the Americas being centuries before the US declaration of independence, and 

Columbus himself never having set a foot on later US territory. When the relatively young US began to 

construct a national identity also through means of constructing a common history to refer to, Columbus 

was a useful figure to be incorporated. The myth itself became centered around the term and the general 

idea of the ‘discovery’, as Columbus became “a patron and ancestor of those Americans who were 



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demanding their independence from England and who later became citizens of the new republic” (Paul, 

2014, p. 53). Furthermore, when documenting his visits in the 15th and 16th century, “Columbus 

constructs his subject position as an extension and an expression of the Spanish royal authority” (Paul, 

2014, p. 47), not actually grounding authority on anything, but simply assuming it. The first encounter 

of Europeans and residents of the Caribbean was in his eyes not a process of two cultures becoming 

acquainted with another, but the logical beginning of the “rightful conquest of the Americas” (ibid., p. 

48). Columbus’ “daring, perseverance, and intrepidity were championed as necessary ingredients to the 

transcontinental endeavour” and he “became the very embodiment of an American pathfinder” 

(Groseclose, as cited in Paul, 2014, p. 57), a ‘homo americanus’. The narrative of Columbus as heroic 

adventurer became heavily contested over time, leading to today’s “multiple ‘Columbuses’, both heroic 

and shameful” (Paul, 2014, p. 76). Yet, the myth of Columbus the great discoverer eventually endured 

through time, became a cornerstone of American of the American mythology, and stayed in the 

collective American memory. Until today, October 14 marks the nation-wide annual celebration of 

Columbus Day. 

Second myth of interest for this study is that of ‘the West’, in principle concerned with the 

American expansion westwards roughly beginning in the late 18th century. In this myth, however, the 

‘West’ is more than specific place, but rather as a “transformative space [that] has often been considered 

as a pars pro toto for the nation” (Paul, 2014, p. 312), where from “the discovery, conquest, and 

settlement of the West [became a] dominant theme of American history” (Slotkin, 2001, 472). More to 

be seen as a general way of living, moving West in American contexts is often put somewhat 

synonymous with an almost archaic, and simple, frugal or rural life; farmers and cowboys are among 

the most used archetypes of characters in the West, idealised as the commendable citizen to their 

country. Until today, following Paul, the farmer in the US still stands for hard work and dedication, a 

close and ‘intact’ relationship with nature, and for an indistinct egalitarianism. Since the West “is 

constructed as a site of individual and collective quests for land and dominance” (Paul, 2014, p. 314), 

one very central concept or theme of this specific myth is that of the frontier, which is to be broken by 

Americans, through and because of their inherent Americanness. A central image in American 

mythology until present day, ‘breaking frontiers’ automatically implies expanding in some way, quickly 

revealing the West’s close connection to the overarching American expansionalism. Paul recommends 

distinguishing between two (overlapping) versions of expansionalism within the myth of the West; one 

focused on actual expansionism, depicting the West as a site of conflict and fight, and one focused on 

agrarianism, constructing the West as primarily fruitful and peaceful land (the so called ‘virgin land’). 

Especially the second one tends to appear as increasingly nostalgic and romantic, making of the West a 

“pastoral idyll, a democratic space, and [...] a land of opportunity” (Paul, 2014, p. 319).  



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Part of this myth around the westward expansion and the term of the frontier is what has become 

known as manifest destiny. Similar to the term ‘exceptionalism’, it was mentioned first, quite 

inconspicuously, in a simple 1845 journal column:  

“The American claim is by right of our manifest destiny to overspread and to possess the whole 

of the continent which Providence has given us for the development of the great experiment of 

liberty and federative self government entrusted to us” (O’Sullivan as cited in Paul, 2014, p. 

322).  

From the inconspicuous column, the expression quickly found its way into congressional 

debates and later into a persistent nation’s consciousness, surpassing its original meaning, after a time 

idiomatically describing the perceived obligation of the United States to expand over all the Americas 

(Johannsen, 1997, p. 7ff.). However, within this US American myth, the expansionist also meets 

challenges, “at the frontier the environment is at first too strong for the man. He must accept the 

conditions which it furnishes, or perish” (Turner as cited in Paul, p. 324). Thus, the myth does not 

necessarily claim that expanding does not entail challenges within the new land, but it is just as well a 

story of possible setbacks, negotiation, and adaption. Failure and resistance rather confirms rather than 

limits expansionist and exceptionalist thinking. 

To conclude, American exceptionalism and the narratives or myths that constitute it are deeply 

intertwined with what may be described as ‘Americanness’, it is an essential part of American culture, 

American self-understanding, and active self-representation. What I have presented here, however, 

certainly is just a part of ‘the’ American identity, although a part that is arguably fundamental. I will 

draw on this with the goal in mind to find out how this part of an identity interplays specifically with 

the technoscientific developments. Or, differently put, I will show how American exceptionalism is 

expressed in technoscientific and technopolitical argumentations and decisions, that is, in America’s 

technopolitical identity.  

Especially when it comes to the US proclamating its own exceptionality and singularity, we can 

identify a subtle, yet unambiguous, act of active Othering. Othering is for example defined by Griffith 

Williams and Korn as “the process by which one group reproduces and reinforces distinctions, 

dominance, and subordination against those without power” (2017, p. 22). Othering in the context of 

national states is also very much apparent in (post)colonial ways of thought and structuring, which I will 

now take a closer look at in the following chapter. 

 



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2.6. From Colonialism via Postcolonialism to Neocolonialism 

“There will never be a really free and enlightened State until the State comes to recognize  

the individual as a higher and independent power, from which all its own  

power and authority are derived and treats him accordingly.”  

Henry David Thoreau in Civic Disobedience 

In the following section we will take a final step back and throw the spotlight on another, last 

strand of literature, namely that of (post-)colonialist thinking. Clearly, postcolonialism could not exist 

without colonialism. Colonialism may most generally be understood as “the conquest and subsequent 

control of another country, [involving] both the subjugation of that country's native peoples and the 

administration of its government, economy and produce” (Hiddleston, 2009, p. 2), a process that often 

becomes accompanied by an elitist, essentialist ideology that stresses the “cultural supremacy” (ibid.) 

of the colonising nation/culture (note here the resemblance between these notions and that within 

American mythology). Further disassembling it, Loomba differentiates between ‘administrative’ and 

‘settler colonisation’. In ‘administrative colonialism’, only a very limited number of people the 

colonising party actually physically move into the new colony, which is in these cases almost completely 

“controlled [only] through a military, administrative and economic apparatus” (Loomba, 2015, p. 23). 

‘Settling colonialism’, however, exists in many different forms, and, other than in administrative 

colonialism, mostly implies considerable movement of people from the colonising population into the 

colony. People move from one place to another to stay there, even if the place is already inhabited by 

some other population. Thus, colonialism is not to be confused with imperialism, which is rather a form 

of state dominance than a state’s undertakings in conquering land. Following Loomba, more exact 

definitions of colonialism are hardly possible, as especially cases of settler colonialism tend to be highly 

situated and best described individually.  

Hiddleston (2009) states postcolonialism to have had its starting days in the 1950s or 1960s, 

although Loomba only identifies Said’s work Orientalism (1978) with its aim to “re-order the study of 

colonialism” (see Loomba, 2015, p. 60) as one of the first central works within postcolonialism as an 

own field. Said grounded his thinking for example also on Foucault’s early work (cf. ibid.). However, 

postcolonialism always was and still is an ambiguous, hard to define, scholarly tradition. Hiddleston 

simply calls it a “broad and constantly changing movement, [...] generally [to] be understood as the 

multiple political, economic, cultural and philosophical responses to colonialism from its inauguration 

to the present day” (Hiddleston, 2009, p. 1). Fittingly to that rather imprecise definition, Loomba even 

states it to be so “heterogeneous and diffuse that it is impossible to satisfactorily describe what its study 

might entail” (2015, p. 5). Further examination of debates about and also within postcolonialism would 

go far beyond the present study, yet I will still use this general idea of both, colonialism and 

postcolonialism, as one of the theoretical lenses to apply on the material that I will introduce later. Jazeel 

(2016, p. 19), however, points out the importance of ‘representations’ for postcolonial ways of thinking. 



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He explains, that on the one hand, postcolonial approaches ask how actors represent something or 

someone in form of textual presentation. On the other hand, and even more importantly for this study, 

this lens sensitises one for how ‘representing’ becomes an ex- or implicit act of ‘speaking for’, and 

eventually acting for, someone, or for another collective. It invokes hierarchy. Other than the term might 

imply, postcolonialism does not imply that colonialism has been overcome, but rather, that although it 

should have been overcome by now, and officially is, certain power structures have endured over time. 

As a consequence, postcolonialism at its very core becomes a way to “tackle questions like whose and 

which narratives are able to come into representation, and who speaks for those typically occluded from 

histories still largely written by the powerful” (ibid., p. 19). Eventually, this thinking also lets emerge 

“a sense that notions of cultural purity and authenticity are themselves but myths” (Jazeel, 2016, p. 18). 

This understanding links back to specific American mythology, which has very much been about 

representing and embodying a certain authenticity and purity, making postcolonialist thinking a fitting 

additional lens to tackle such themes.  

One can now think of colonialism as historical and conceptual basis, and postcolonialisms goal 

to primarily acknowledge the narratives of those who have been and still get suppressed. In addition, I 

want to introduce a last term, namely that of neocolonialism. It is very closely tied to postcolonialism, 

but has been described as still “lingering ideologies of cultural patronage of the sort that originally 

backed up and fuelled actual colonial powers” (Hiddleston, 2009, p. 5). Accordingly, former “naked 

colonialism” (Watts, 2009, p. 360) with its oftentimes unabashed oppression was replaced by rather 

invisible processes through which old, colonial power structures are still being sustained and reinforced. 

Conditions of exploitation can hence last, yet often under the protective cloak of freedom and 

emancipation; what was once exerted by military means, may now be achieved differently, but just as 

systemically. Namely, following neocolonialism, colonialist structures are carefully maintained on 

several levels - economic, ideological, political, and cultural (cf. ibid.) - although in this study 

ideological neocolonialism will be the only aspect I will (and can) examine. Even though Watts (2009) 

claims neocolonialism to have fallen out of scholarly fashion around the 1980s, I want show that in 

certain ways, neocolonialist thinking kept being an essential part of political practice from the 1960s 

until today. 



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But yet, why are these concepts useful in 

the context of spaceflight in general? Especially 

the idea of ‘settler colonialism’ is arguably very 

much applicable in the realm of modern 

spaceflight. Celestial bodies other than earth 

(moon, Mars etc.) may be conceived of as 

potentially colonisable territory. In fact, with the 

earth-orbiting International Space Station (ISS) 

and the lonesome American flag planted on the 

moon, parts of these territories have already been 

somewhat colonised, although not ‘legally’, but 

much more ideologically and symbolically. From 

a post- and also neocolonial perspective, it is 

worth noting that from its early days through the 

21st century, it is only a very limited number of 

nations/cultures that want to and can pursue this 

most modern wave of colonialism, as which 

spaceflight may be conceptualised. This vividly 

becomes clear as until present day, spaceflight has 

always been done under the flag of specific nation states, never under a common flag or no flag at all.  

To quickly summarise this section, notions of all of the three concepts, colonialism, 

postcolonialism as well as neocolonialism, will be identified in the material, posing questions like how 

do - if - these concepts become taken up? And how are they connected especially to specific ways of 

Americanness and American myths? Previously discussed aspects of American Studies and above points 

about different colonialist ideas will be most interesting to connect and trace in the material. 

 

 

 

 

 

Figure 4: Astronaut Mike Hopkins during an 
extravehicular activity at the ISS on December 24th 
2013, with his US patch clearly visible. NASA, 2013. 



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3. Research Questions 

“Simplicity is prerequisite for reliability.” 

Edsger Dijkstra (1930-2002), software engineer and science essayist 

Having introduced the theoretical fundament of the thesis, the following will be my main research 

question: 

How did US presidents in talks introducing new space policies contribute to the construction of 

the sociotechnical imaginary of ‘conquering space’?  

It will be supported by four sub-questions, accompanied by short explanations: 

a. How is the American nation and culture, a specific ‘Americanness’ conceptualised? 

As we will see, many sociotechnical imaginaries are tied to nation states. It is hence fruitful to 

pay close attention to how the nation as reference is being constructed. 

b. How are specific collectives evoked in the talks? 

Since I address issues of nations and collective identities, questions of collectives and their 

construction will aid answering the main question as well. 

c. What role does technology/spaceflight play in defining the US?  

The study focuses on the US. In that, I am particularly interested in how (spaceflight) technology 

is rendered into both reasons and outcomes of the American identity.  

d. How is the US’ role in the world depicted in the speeches? 

Finally, I want to put the answers of the other questions into a bigger framework, as I will try to 

carve out how, through the self-conceptualisations, the US becomes located in global cultural 

and political contexts. 

e. Time/Trajectory/Future-Making 

How are ‘future worlds’ as techniques of future-making composed, and how are trajectories in 

space and time constructed? 

 

I want to find out what kind of world is created in the talks, and in what condition it is. I will 

explore social and political prerequisites and reasonings for spaceflight, that is technological innovation. 

Anderson stresses that in common narratives, worlds will have to be described or created in “careful, 

general detail” (2006, p. 32), starkly resembling what has been pointed out about the characteristics of 

(national) narratives and especially (national) myths. They as well have to be simplifying and generally 

yet sufficiently detailed and capturing. My set of research questions aims at understanding how these 

contradictions are circumnavigated by the American presidents. 



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4. Sensitising Concepts 

4.1. Tech and Time: Sociotechnical Imaginaries 

“Neither a person nor a nation can exist without some higher idea.” 

Fyodor Dostoevsky (1821-1881) in A Writer’s Diary 

Fujimura (2003, p. 176) registers that a central practice researcher in every discipline have to 

do, is exercising the act of imagining possible futures. This holds true for each and every one of us, too, 

since we incessantly plan and imagine the upcoming minutes, hours, days, weeks, and even years. Those 

previsional imaginations, such as humans possibly walking on the face of Mars someday in the future, 

are thus thought not to be just mere imaginations, but to actually shape what will eventually become 

reality. 

My main sensitising concept will be that of the sociotechnical imaginary, coined by scholars 

Jasanoff and Kim (2009), and commonly defined as “collectively held, institutionally stabilized, and 

publicly performed visions of desirable futures, animated by shared understandings of forms of social 

life and social order attainable through, and supportive of, advances in science and technology” 

(Jasanoff, 2015a, p. 4)
3
. However, this is not about any arbitrary idea about the social and/or technical. 

Only when an idea is “collective, durable, [and] capable of being performed” (ibid., p. 19), it may be a 

sociotechnical imaginary. The potential of being performed is always linked to specific collectives, often 

nation states and are thus deeply situated temporally as well as culturally. Yet, even within a nation 

state, there never is only one sociotechnical imaginary at hand at a time; different and even contradicting 

versions of ‘desirable futures’ co-exist, steadily competing and struggling for dominance and eventually 

technological implementation, that is, performance. Although imaginaries must be ‘collectively held’, 

power relations are still somewhat asymmetrical. Taking the example of spaceflight, respective 

imaginaries are not solely ‘produced’ within the White House or the NASA headquarters. Rather are 

those institutions merely a few of a number of sites where a sociotechnical imaginary gets constantly 

stabilised over time. Other institutions as well as private individuals support this process of stabilising 

the imaginary just as well as the government and NASA do. However, some key actors still play a more 

seminal role in promoting and performing it, which is why Jasanoff acknowledges “legislatures, courts, 

the media, or other institutions of power to [be able to] elevate some imagined futures above others, 

according them a dominant position for policy purposes” (Jasanoff, 2015a, p. 4). These actors can, want 

to, and in a way also need to push their agenda that is driven by their subjective assessment of what is a 

desirable path to follow in technology based on certain “visions of social progress” (ibid., p. 4). Thus, 

although necessarily being carried by collectives that are large enough, sociotechnical imaginaries still 

                                                   
3 In the 2009 article, said scholars defined sociotechnical imaginaries as "collectively imagined forms of social 

life and social order reflected in the design and fulfilment of nation-specific scientific and/or technological 

projects” (Jasanoff & Kim, 2009, p. 120). While this definition is applicable on my material, too, I will work 

with the later and more widely accepted 2014 definition. 



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depend on and take shape to some extent through “agents who are capable of moving imaginaries from 

one sociopolitical setting to another” (ibid., p. 333).  This makes clear how sociotechnical imaginaries 

are not only shaping how technology is perceived and lived by a society, but how “[t]he political and 

the technological cannot be clearly demarcated in any reasonable manner, technology always being an 

agent of political production” (Felt, 2015, p. 120).  

Due to the topic, I am primarily interested in the political fabrication, enactment, and social 

embedding of such imaginaries. The means of imaginary’s advocates to embed it in society vary widely. 

Societally important, however, is the aspect of time and history. As Jasanoff finds, especially in public 

performances, these special agents may be “pointing back at past cultural achievements and ahead to 

promising and attainable futures, or to futures to be shunned and avoided” (Jasanoff, 2015, p. 22), 

reminding audiences of “realities of the known, the made, the remembered, and the desired worlds in 

which we live” (ibid., p. 29). I conceive of politics as one place of the production of (national) 

imaginaries (see also Hecht, 2009), and, in my case, particularly the American president as one of the 

central agents to perform and integrate them in society. Hence, I consider the goal of my analysis to 

“reveal the naturalized logics of functioning, self-contained, and self-replicating social and political 

systems” (ibid., p. 25). Though, it is not surprising that enforcing a sociotechnical imaginary is not as 

simple as that. 

A decisive factor in the unfolding of sociotechnical imaginaries are the respective ‘national 

technopolitical identities’, for instance “created and maintained through the (non-)uptake of certain 

technological developments” (Felt, 2015, p. 104). Felt, for example, investigated how the non-uptake of 

nuclear energy became tied to and fed into a specific kind of Austrianness, explaining that if a society 

eventually decides for or against a (certain way) of (not) using a new technology, this decision 

constitutes more than a decision for or against a technology. Taking a closer look, these choices reveal 

how through imaginations of possible futures with or without the technology, societies define their 

preferred ways of living. Influenced by some key actors, collectives decide for their individual ‘desirable 

future’. This in mind, I investigate how coherence with Americanness as constructed and rehearsed in 

presidential speeches, is expressed through the technological system of spaceflight. But yet, following 

Hecht, NASA is something that she proposes to call a technopolitical regime, a term she uses for the 

complex of certain “institutions, the people who run them, their guiding myths and ideologies, the 

artifacts they produce, and the technopolitics they pursue” (2001, p. 258). And in the end, it is this very 

regime that has control over whether a sociotechnical imaginary finally becomes a sociotechnical reality. 

In all that, sociotechnical imaginaries are part of what came to be known as co-production. Very shortly 

mentioned earlier, co-production proposes that “natural and social orders [are] being produced together” 

by society, meaning that “co-production is shorthand for the proposition that the ways in which we know 

and represent the world (both nature and society) are inseparable from the ways in which we choose to 

live in it” (Jasanoff, 2004, p. 2). Sociotechnical imaginaries are a part of co-production, being “at once 



Owing Christopher Columbus a Mission to Mars 

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products of and instruments of the co-production of science, technology, and society in modernity” 

(Jasanoff, 2015a, p. 19). 

Finally, Jasanoff and Kim identify four stages of sociotechnical imaginaries: origins, 

embedding, resistance, and extension. Origins of sociotechnical imaginaries can vary from single 

persons to specific collectives. Following Jasanoff, ‘loosely circulating’ ideas or aspirations are taken 

up by these persons or collectives, and get concreted, substantiated, and perhaps even partly realised. 

As mentioned above, partial realisation often leads to fictive realisation (‘science fiction’), which may 

in turn promote developments in reality again. These processes of ideas formerly unknown by the larger 

population becoming manifest and dreamable are the sociotechnical imaginaries origin. In the second 

phase, embedding, the technical progress and the ideas behind get embedded in greater social and hence 

societal contexts, primarily through the actual production of things and “processes of collective 

‘remembering’ of events [...] in order to construct meaningful translations from pasts that were, to 

presents that are, to futures as people would like them to be” (Jasanoff, 2015b, p. 329). This melding 

and moulding of the conceptual and the material, which also enables an imaginary to become part of 

governmental practices, is the essence of embedding. Embedding is followed by possible “[m]oments 

of resistance, which threaten the disintegration of older settlements” (Jasanoff, 2015b, p. 329), when 

‘oppositional visions’ are offered, often coming from non-regulatory circles. Fourth, and finally, an 

imaginary may experience extension, which “calls for a situated re-embedding in order for translated 

imaginaries to take root and flourish in new soil” (Jasanoff, 2015b, p. 333). In other words, 

predominantly, governments and international organisations integrate and normalise the imaginary, 

thereby expanding its range of influence. 

At this point, however, I shall add that none of what I have compiled until now is to say, that 

spaceflight is an inherently useful and unquestionable endeavour, neither in science, nor in society. 

Acknowledging critical voices is also meaningful considering my main sensitising concepts. 

Anticipating what I will go into more detail in chapter 4.1., I follow Jasanoff in writing that, “[a]scribing 

a fixed ontological status to sociotechnical imaginaries, however, would rob them of their analytic 

value” (2015b, p. 339). Reducing it would simplify processes of societal developments and undo any 

possibility for ‘projection or prediction’ that the concept indeed affords, if conceived of in a flexible 

way. In other words, imaginaries and the technologies involved are nothing set in stone. Even though 

achieving the stabilisation of certain ideas over others in society, imaginaries and their expressions may 

still change and adapt due to internal and/or external influences. 

Two final remarks for this chapter should be made. First, I consider the talks mainly as means 

of embedding. I have very briefly mentioned origins of spaceflight and the idea of conquering space 

before but analysing this was and will be the work of others (see Kirby, 2010, or Neufeld, 2010). As I 

termed it, the talks ‘meld’ conceptual and material by promoting the production of certain artifacts, 



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informing and, after all, allowing, the moulding of these artifacts, that is rockets. The second remark is 

tied to that: As is brought up above, a fully fledged sociotechnical imaginary must be ‘collectively held’. 

However broadly the term ‘collectively’ is, the limitations of this study prevent me from closely 

examining how, if even, this is the case for ‘conquering space’. I will not be able to confirm the existence 

and describe a clearly demarcated sociotechnical imaginary with all its facets, but only identify traces 

of what may be a fully-fledged imaginary. Sociotechnical imaginaries thus will simply be my core 

conceptual anchor, while viewing presidential speeches as one - indeed fairly relevant - of many sites 

where my imaginary of concern becomes evoked, rehearsed and hence stabilised. 

4.2. Us and Them: Imagined Communities 

“In truth, history does not belong to us, but rather we to history.” 

Gadamer as cited by Nenon (1995, p. 44) 

Sociotechnical imaginaries are often tied to nation states, yet only look specifically at the role 

of technology in the creation of (potentially national) imaginaries. To work more grounded on the aspect 

of the nation as such, I will also consider Anderson’s concept of the imagined community, which goes 

more deeply into sociological aspects of a state’s population as a self-perceived community. He 

investigated why nations are able to evoke the kind of attachment at all that it does, tackling for instance 

contradictions between “[t]he 'political' power of nationalisms vs. their philosophical poverty and even 

incoherence” (2006, p. 5). ‘The nation’ he defines as ‘cultural artifacts’ consisting of “an imagined 

political community - and imagined as both inherently limited and sovereign” (ibid., p. 6). ‘Imagined’ 

here is meant in three different respects.  

First, in the most practical sense; the community itself is only an imagined one, as from a certain 

size onwards, it becomes increasingly unlikely that all members actually know each other personally. 

The interpersonal affiliation is thus built on individual imagination. Still, certain attributes make people 

accepting strangers as member of their community, eventually letting arise communal ‘fraternity’. This 

may “command such profound emotional legitimacy” (ibid., p. 4), that some people (would) die for the 

community s/he imagines belonging to. Second, nations are imagined as being limited, because nation 

states normally do not aim at making every human being to be ‘their’ state’s citizen, to be part of ‘their’ 

distinct community. This characteristic of nations stands in stark contrast to other communities, such as 

religions, of which most do not consider themselves as inherently limited. Third, the community’s 

sovereignty, its felt freedom, is fundamentally imagined, too; in principle, the idea of the state as 

organisation mostly is to make other institutional restrictions redundant, eventually allowing for actual 

pluralism.  

With this community of purpose in mind, somewhat lending plausibility and reason to existence, 

Anderson notes, “[i]t is the magic of nationalism to turn chance into destiny” (2006, p. 12), with this  



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term perhaps unconsciously building a bridge to the manifest destiny (see chapter 2.5.1.). If this kind of 

imagination can successfully be achieved, and people draw on the same cultural resources, one can 

observe a group of people imagining belonging together who “recognize and value that commonality 

which they regard not as an outcome of certain social facts but as their cause” (Finlayson, p. 273, in 

Amenta, Nash & Scott, 2012, my emphasis). Anderson called these ‘social facts’ 'natural ties', through 

which “one senses what one might call 'the beauty of gemeinschaff [sic!]” (Anderson, 2006, p. 143). As 

oftentimes, there is no choice in this gemeinschaft, it gets rendered as disinterested as family bonds are, 

and equally worth to invest in. Acting for the purpose of ‘national interest’, Anderson explains, is hence 

taken to be similarly to helping a family member, as the nationality and its concomitant ‘social facts’ 

are naturalised.  

In addition, I shall add that nationalism must not be taken synonymous to racism, as nationalism 

“thinks in terms of historical destinies”, whereas racism “dreams of eternal contaminations“ (Anderson, 

2006, p. 149). In other words, while racism is inherently derogatory respectively valorising people by 

membership of an unchosen collective (Judaism for instance), nationalism by definition is not about 

class, but exclusively about belonging to a nation, that does not necessarily have a certain comparable 

social worth ascribed to it (cf. ibid.).  

As is the case with sociotechnical imaginaries, the means and ways by which such communities 

come to be in people’s minds, vary greatly. While drawing specifically on novels, Anderson showed 

“'national imagination' at work [...] that fuses the world inside the novel with the world outside” (2006, 

p. 30), a technique that may be connected to sociotechnical imaginaries and myths. Taking a step back, 

novels are but narratives; creative thought work aiming at conveying something to an audience. So are 

political speeches; they, too, express something about the ‘outside world’ through the creation of a 

specific, fabricated ‘inside world’ of the speech, which nourishes national imaginations and identities. 

Imagined communities will sensitise me towards the role of nation states within the politically driven 

complex of spaceflight and its idea of conquering space. 

5. Material 

5.1. Choosing material 

“While you are experimenting, do not remain content with the surface of things.” 

Ivan Pavlov (1849-1936), physiologist 

“[T]he imaginaries framework necessarily invites us to examine the origin of new scientific 

ideas and the social arrangements or rearrangements they help sustain” (Jasanoff, 2015b, p. 322). Thus, 

to follow through my idea to work with sociotechnical imaginaries, I will need to start the analysis in 

the early days of American spaceflight. To follow a stringent logic within the choice of material, I will 



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focus on certain speeches that not only have sufficient relevance but are also comparable well enough 

in their content and context.  

The modus operandi of the US government’s collaboration with NASA oftentimes creates 

moments in which one of those equally relevant and comparable speeches take place: the introduction 

of a new space policy, for which usually the American president himself takes responsibility. As I will 

discuss later, (self-)legitimation is a necessary central act in government work (see chapter 6.3.), and 

“[l]egitimation is principally a statement about a person issuing an instruction, making a demand, or 

stating or implying a wish“ (Barker, 2001, p. 32). At the same time, not only the new policy itself, but 

also the talk some presidents have given to introduce the new policy, allows for “moving imaginaries 

from one sociopolitical setting to another” (Jasanoff, 2015b, p. 333), making the president one seminal 

‘translation agent’. It usually occurs after a president is elected and inaugurated, and, next to numerous 

other things, has the possibility - respectively responsibility - to steer the national spaceflight programme 

into certain directions. Before actively deciding on what to do, he has to assess and evaluate the current 

state of affairs, a process that is usually accompanied and supported intensively by several consultants 

and committees. The Vice President is usually heavily involved, too, as he is “traditionally the 

administration's representative for space policy” (Vaughan, 1996, p. 14). Nevertheless, depending on 

necessity and also personal interests and foci, the intensity in which the current programme is being 

worked on ultimately is open to the president. He can as well just leave the programs keep on running 

as arranged by his predecessor(s). The process around former president Barack Obama’s policy might 

serve as a good example here. 

Inaugurated in January 2009, it was announced in May 2009 that the Constellation program, 

launched under Obama’s predecessor, George W. Bush, was about to get reviewed rigorously. To this 

end, the Obama government brought into being the Augustine Commission which consisted of a number 

of branch experts and former astronauts. Released in October 2009, the commission's final report 

(Review of U.S. Human Spaceflight Plans Committee/NASA, 2009) assessed the old programme as not 

sustainable anymore, and, among other things, proposed three options on how to further pursue 

exploration beyond Low Earth Orbit (LEO). The Obama office, making use of their decisive power in 

these matters, used this report, yet did not exactly follow one of the three options. Some aspects were 

changed, as for example Obama initiated manned missions to near-earth asteroids rather than to the 

moon as Bush planned before. Obama announced his new policy publicly in a talk given in April 2010 

(Remarks by the President, 2010). However, Obama’s policy was then again overthrown by Donald 

Trump in 2017, who renewed the plans to land people on the moon and then on Mars (Remarks by 

President Trump, 2017). This back and forth, assessing and reassessing, scheduling and rescheduling, 

has been the usual process for decades now, and my analysis will be concerned with official advent of 

new US space policies. 



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Although imaginaries are ‘collectively held’ by definition, analysing talks of individuals still 

goes with the methodological requirements of sociotechnical imaginaries. Jasanoff explained that 

“individual dreams and aspirations take hold and acquire collective force only when key actors mobilize 

the resources for making their visions durable” (2015a, p. 25), and in American spaceflight the American 

president can, with a quite clear conscience, be considered a key actor. Analysing the ‘dreams and 

aspirations’ put forward in his most central space-related talk turned out to be an indeed rewarding 

approach. 

Thus, I will now have to delve into the history of American spaceflight, and, more specifically, 

the activities regarding spaceflight of American presidents holding office since the foundation of NASA 

in 1957. During this short historical recapitulation, I will present those talks suitable for my analysis. It 

may be seen as part or extension of the state of the art, and aims at providing the talk’s/material’s 

historical contexts. 

5.1.1. Dwight D. Eisenhower (1953-1961): Founding Civilian Spaceflight 

It was president Eisenhower, who, by signing the National Aeronautics and Space Act on July 

29th of 1958, eventually brought NASA as we know it today into existence. With this act, he attempted 

to legally separate between general research in space, and military activities, although both kept having 

points of contact. 

Still, Eisenhower’s enthusiasm for spaceflight was limited (see among others McCurdy, 2011, 

p. 60ff.), as he saw spaceflight from a relatively earth-oriented and pragmatic perspective. In a meeting 

in the 1950s discussing possible manned missions to the moon, estimating costs around $30 billion, 

Eisenhower is said to have asked the group “Can anybody tell me what is the best space program for $1 

billion?” (as cited in Seamans, 2005, p. 5). Since there could not be identified a central speech or 

announcement concerning the foundation of NASA or other activities afterwards, Dwight D. 

Eisenhower cannot be considered in the analysis. 

5.1.2. John F. Kennedy (1961-1963): Choosing to Go to the Moon  

President Kennedy was far more open towards spaceflight activities as his predecessor, for he 

was the one eventually deciding to found and fund the Apollo programme that lead to the first (and, as 

for now, last) manned missions to the moon. Yet, it was not primarily his personal interest, but his idea 

of using spaceflight as political instrument, that lead him to make that decision. This gets very clear in 

a governmental document from 1961, the year the decision to go to the moon was taken. There, John F. 

Kennedy asks his Vice President to craft a general report (Webb & McNamara/Johnson, 1961) on the 

possibilities to operate such a moonshot mission. Next to pointing out technical and financial aspects, 

the report also went in some details about four principal reasons for projects in space, which are named 

to be the following:  



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a. scientific knowledge 

b. commercial or chiefly civilian values 

c. military value and 

d. reasons of national prestige.  

 

Figure 5: John F. Kennedy during his speech at Rice Stadium, Houston. NASA, 2006. 

Considering what was discussed before, how spaceflight can and was used as a mere political 

instrument, Kennedy was the first president who not only acknowledged this, but also proactively made 

use of it. The report cited here and associated memoranda heavily stressed ‘national prestige’ as an 

aspect that arguably played a very crucial role in Kennedy deciding to substantially raise NASA’s 

budgets to send men to the moon in the same decade (McCurdy, 2011, p. 108). This historic decision 

yet had to be approved by both the American congress and the American people. This is why Kennedy 

promoted his plans in two talks, one in congress, the other publicly, the second with only minor changes 

compared with the first. The second talk, which was given in Rice Stadium in Houston, Florida, in early 

autumn 1961 in front of over 40,000 people, will be the first talk I will consider in the analysis. 

5.1.3. Lyndon B. Johnson (1963-1969): The Apollo Years 

John F. Kennedy was assassinated on November 22nd, 1963, only two years after his 

inauguration, making Lyndon B. Johnson, Kennedy’s Vice President, his automatic successor. In his 

tenure as American president, regarding spaceflight, Johnson in principle could just follow through the 



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plans he himself had worked out as John F. Kennedy’s Vice President some years before. In that time, 

he had already shown his take on spaceflight as (socio)political instrument. Even against the backdrop 

of the Vietnam war, Johnson kept the budgets for NASA high enough to follow the goal of arriving on 

the moon still in the 60s. His confidence in spaceflight being able to raise not only national prestige, but 

also national pride and confidence in America and the government, kept him from making substantial 

cuts of the budget (see McCurdy, 2011, p 109f.). Nevertheless, Johnson never gave a visionary speech, 

as it was existing plans that kept being pursued. Hence, he will not be included in the analysis.  

5.1.4. Richard Nixon (1969-1974): From Exploration to Reusability  

Richard Nixon became president elect in November 1968, about a month before the first 

astronauts orbited the moon and about seven months before Neil Armstrong became the first human to 

walk on its surface. He was inaugurated in January 1969. Thus, especially after the first successful 

mission to the moon, it had to be decided what should follow after the Apollo programme, as until then 

NASA’s entire purpose was to make possible and perform the missions to the moon.  

For Nixon’s tenure, it might be useful to shortly look into the entanglements of the president 

and the NASA administrator. Namely, when James Webb resigned as administrator in October 1969 he 

was succeeded by Thomas Paine, who had only had seven months of Federal government experience at 

that point. Immediately, Paine announced to ask the Senate to increase budgets anew, among others 

calling to build a permanent space station. When the republican Nixon was elected a month later, Paine, 

a democrat, resigned pro forma, as usually the president chooses someone with similar political views 

for the job of the NASA administrator. Surprisingly, Nixon refused Paine’s resignation, making two 

quite different characters to work together. Paine, an ambitious, inexperienced idealist, was now 

confronted with Nixon, who “had never shown much interest in space” (Portree, 2001, p. 41). The 

following negotiations about NASA’s future were tough and included plans by Paine for manned Mars 

missions as early as in the late 1970s as well as Nixon giving NASA a budget for the fiscal year 1970 

that was still under the ‘minimum acceptable’ of what Paine had proposed. Finally, in March 1970, 

Richard Nixon gave a ‘Statement About the Future of the United States Space Program’ (President 

Nixon’s 1972 Announcement on the Space Shuttle, 2009), a public announcement in which he presented 

his decisions regarding NASA’s post-Apollo era. He effectively cut any expansionist plans Paine had 

fought for, and instead laid the foundations for the reusable space shuttle, which would ultimately be in 

use until 2011, and a first space station that could host astronauts for longer periods of time. The 

programme Nixon announced in the speech clearly stood in stark difference to what Kennedy had 

announced about a decade before. Portree (2001) states that “[u]nlike Kennedy’s 1961 moon speech, 

Nixon’s statement was broad and vague, with no specifics about NASA funding” (p. 49). This speech 

heralded a new era of a clear focus of LEO-research, abandoning Kennedy’s explorative and arguably 

politically driven approach. As this decision and the associate announcement have had a long-lasting 

impact on American spaceflight, it will be the second speech that will be part of the analysis. 



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5.1.5. Gerald Ford (1974-1977): Following Nixon’s Plans 

Due to public pressure that was put on him in the ‘Watergate-scandal’, Richard Nixon resigned 

from the presidential office in August 1974, making Gerald Ford becoming the next in line of American 

presidents. Ford followed through the original tenure of Nixon, and, as the enormous and long-range 

programme of the Space Shuttle was already introduced by Nixon, did not attempt to add substantial 

changes to this policy. Hence, he also did not give a speech that would add significantly to this study.  

5.1.6. Jimmy Carter (1977-1981): The Shuttle On Its Way 

Ford regularly ran for president in 1976, yet lost the election to Jimmy Carter. Carter also ‘inherited’ 

what was initiated by Richard Nixon, that is the development of the Space Shuttle. Even though costs 

for the programme were bigger than expected, it was still followed through. Regarding possible more 

explorative plans, Portree finds, that “[i]n short, NASA was too busy working on the Space Shuttle in 

1978 to think about Mars” (2001, p. 60) and other explorative missions. In his four years of being 

president, Carter did in fact pass a new space policy (The White House, 1978), which, however, was not 

accompanied by a central speech. Additionally, the policy effectively did not change much for 

explorative spaceflight, as there was a heavy focus on aspects of national defence. This all leads to the 

study not being able to reasonably include speeches by Jimmy Carter. 

5.1.7. Ronald Reagan (1981-1989): Challenger, Two Policies, and No Talk 

The year that Ronald Reagan was inaugurated also saw the first successfully launched Space 

Shuttle mission, STS-01. After two more presidencies had occurred in office, the plans that Richard 

Nixon once made were finally put into practice. Ronald Reagan again implemented his own, new space 

policy, which yet again did not have too much of a direct impact on the operational business of NASA, 

as it among some other aspects was the first policy encouraging private companies to invest in 

spaceflight (see also Kay, 1998). Just like Carter, Reagan, too, did not give a public, lengthy talk on the 

topic. 

In January 1986, however, the Challenger disaster occurred, and arguably shook not only 

NASA, but the entire US and many people around the world, as the Space Shuttle Challenger exploded 

some 70 seconds after its launch and killed all seven astronauts on board. When four months after the 

disaster, James C. Fletcher became the new NASA administrator, he commissioned what became known 

as ‘Ride Report’ (Ride, 1987), as the work on it was chaired by former astronaut Sally Ride. Not only 

despite, but arguably because of the disaster that happened shortly before, the report proposed a new, 

and very explorative approach, containing plans to send astronauts to Mars as early as in 2005. This 

report also played a part in contributing to a second space policy of Reagan’s, put into practice in 1988. 

Contrary to the 1982 policy, the last of six central goals publicly proposed in a summarising fact sheet 

was to “expand human presence and activity beyond Earth orbit into the solar system” (NASA, 1990, p. 



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194). However unfortunately, Reagan did not use talks to endorse any of his policies, automatically 

excluding him from this study.  

5.1.8. George Bush senior (1989-1993): The Space Exploration Initiative 

One year after Reagan introduced his overworked, second US space policy, he was succeeded 

by George Bush in 1989. Not coincidentally on the 20th anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing and 

only half a year after his inauguration, in a talk held on the steps of the National Air and Space Museum, 

he proposed what was given the name Space Exploration Initiative (SEI). It consisted of three central 

steps:  

1. In 1990s: build Space Station Freedom, a permanent station in low earth orbit 

2. After 2000: Returning to the moon and establishing a permanent base there 

3. About 2020: conduct manned mission to Mars 

The programme proposed in the speech announced enormous financial and technical effort, 

marking one of the boldest approaches to US spaceflight that made it further than a conceptual stage. 

The speech itself, which lasted for about 16 minutes, will be the third speech to be included in the 

analysis.  

5.1.9. Bill Clinton (1993-2001): Cancelling SEI and Building (On) Robots 

Bill Clinton was inaugurated in January 1993, and it was him and NASA administrator Daniel 

Goldin who quite immediately cancelled SEI later that year. Goldin introduced the ‘faster, better, 

cheaper’-mantra to NASA, and, as a part of that, a much more robotics-focused approach to Mars. It 

took the Clinton office about three years to announce a reworked space policy, which was the case only 

in 1996 (U.S. National Space Policy, 1996). This policy, in stark contrast to what George Bush had 

proposed six years before, contained not a single mention of manned spaceflight beyond low earth orbit, 

but heavily relied on robotic missions. Also, it was not accompanied by a talk such as Kennedy, Nixon, 

and Bush had delivered one before. Thus, Bill Clinton will also not be part of the analysis.  

5.1.10. George W. Bush (2001-2009): Humans to Explore 

Bill Clinton was succeeded by George W. Bush, the son of Clinton’s predecessor, in 2001. The 

attacks on the World Trade Center that year have arguably delayed some work on American spaceflight. 

But it was only against the backdrop of another disaster, the disintegration of the Space Shuttle Columbia 

in February 2003, that George W. Bush proposed his renewed plans of where American spaceflight 

should move in the years to come (The White House, 2004). On January 14, eleven months after the 

Columbia disaster, he was at the NASA headquarters in Washington, D.C., when he announced his 

Vision for Space Exploration (NASA, 2004). This vision abandoned the foci Clinton had set eight years 

before, and proposed the following to be the new goals of NASA and American spaceflight: 



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1. Completing the ISS by 2010. 

2. Retire the Space Shuttle by 2010 and replace it with a new system, the ‘Crew Exploration 

Vehicle’. 

3. Returning to the moon by 2015, making it ‘the launching point for missions beyond’. 

4. Finally, ‘human missions to Mars and to worlds beyond’, with robotic missions only as 

‘trailblazers’. 

The speech lasted for about 18 minutes will be the fourth object of interest for my analysis. It eventually 

led NASA to implement their manned spaceflight programme Constellation. 

5.1.11. Barack Obama (2009-2017): Abandon Constellation, Aiming for Asteroids  

Inaugurated in January 2009, the same year in April Obama announced to review 

aforementioned programme Constellation. This review was conducted by the Review of United States 

Human Space Flight Plans Committee, Augustine Commission in short, which published their report in 

October 2009 (Review of the Human Spaceflight Plans Committee/NASA, 2009). In April 2010, the 

Obama office had finally worked out their new policy which was announced in a major speech given at 

the Kennedy Space Center and lasted for about 25 minutes. As already mentioned in the introduction of 

this section, with his new policy Obama again overthrew large parts of what his predecessor had 

intended NASA to do. Constellation was almost completely cancelled, only some parts of the spacecraft 

constructed for the missions of Constellation were kept, though only with adaptations (see also Office 

of Management and Budget, 2010). Furthermore, Obama abandoned the path leading missions to the 

moon again, but asked NASA to design manned missions to a near-Earth asteroid. Essentially, only the 

long-range goal of sending humans to Mars was kept, although becoming postponed. The introducing 

speech announcing all these newly crafted plans will be the fifth speech that is to be analysed within the 

context of this study. 

5.1.12. Donald Trump (from 2017 on): New Old Plans and Mars 

As of writing this, the current US president is Donald Trump. He was inaugurated in January 

2017, and once again overthrew what his presidential predecessor had laid out some years before. After 

reactivating the National Space Council, an institution that was last used by George Bush in the early 

1990s, Trump, in December 2017, published the “Space Policy Directive – 1” (Presidential 

Memorandum, 2017). In his first year as president he only gave some short remarks on what was 

proposed in the directive, namely abandoning the missions to asteroids, reactivating previous plans of 

returning to the moon, again intending to use it as a stepping stone to Mars. The relatively short 

performance did not provide much actual content and would not add substantially to the study at hand 

(see Remarks by the President, 2017). Other remarks were performed too late to be included, which is 

why Donald Trump will also not appear in the analysis. 



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6. Narrating Reality: Methods 

6.1. Working with Narratives 

“Words are but symbols for the relations of things to  

one another and to us; nowhere do they 

 touch upon absolute truth.” 

Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900) in Philosophy in the Tragic Age of the Greeks 

Obviously, narratives are closely tied to what I have described above under the label of the 

myth. By way of example, Slotkin describes a myth simply as a “narrative which concentrates in a single 

dramatised experience the whole history of a people in their land” by “reducing centuries of experience 

into a constellation of compelling metaphors” (Slotkin, 1973, p. 269). Paul, too, states that a “myth 

becomes manifest in narratives” (2014, p. 31). Finally, also Czarniawska claimed that “[t]o understand 

a society or some part of a society, it is important to discover its repertoire of legitimate stories and find 

out how it evolved. Hence, working with tools of narrative analysis seems virtually imperative for this 

study. 

Bruner quite dramatically calls the (scholarly) process of “negotiating and renegotiating 

meanings by the mediation of narrative interpretation [...] one of the crowning achievements of human 

development in the ontogenetic, cultural, and phylogenetic senses of that expression” (Bruner, 1990, p. 

67). Many scholars have indeed noted a ‘biographical’ or ‘narrative turn’  (see Czarniawska, 2004, p. 

33) becoming observable through an an ever-growing interest in researching the social use of narratives 

as well its organisational and societal meaning. In an early work, Barthes claimed that “narrative is 

international, transhistorical, transcultural: it is simply there, like life itself” (Barthes, 1977, p. 79). This 

ubiquitous character made it interesting for various scientific disciplines, although still “[n]arrative 

research generally, and personal narratives in particular, have been used as an analytic tool for trying to 

understand wider social phenomena” (Andrews, 2007, p. 10). Ultimately, “[s]tories and storytelling are 

no longer the province of the playroom, but rather are increasingly regarded as an important arena for 

serious scholarly investigation” (ibid.), which is also being accompanied by an increasing focus on 

cross- and multidisciplinary research (Andrews, 2007, p. 10). In my research I will try to identify and 

unpack the narratives around US American spaceflight that are presidentially drawn on and thus became 

institutionalised to some degree. I believe a large portion of the main and sub narratives as well as the 

different conceptualisations they reveal, to be part of a much greater quasi-narrative; a sociotechnical 

imaginary of conquering space.  

But what are narratives, why are they so widely used, and what are they used for at all? Most 

generally, narrative is one central part of the social process of representation. When humans represent, 

recall, recount, they have always automatically and “constantly told stories, presented events and 

squeezed aspects of the world into narrative form” (Cobley, 2013, p. 2); Czarniawska even spoke of the 



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“fact that in order to understand their own lives people putthem into narrative form – and they do the 

same when they try to understand  the lives of others” (2004, p. 5). Very much similar to what I have 

pointed out above about myths (see chapter 2.5.1.), narrative both lets and makes people construct the 

world and meanings in and of it, especially of social action. Although notoriously difficult to 

comprehensively describe, its function may be boiled down to “find[ing] an intentional state that 

mitigates, or at least makes comprehensible, a deviation from a canonical cultural pattern” (Bruner, 

1990, p. 49f.). Seen that way the construction of narrative may be seen as the production of situated 

knowledge, of narrative knowledge (see Czarniawska, 2004, p. 9f.); a resource people can and will draw 

on when taking actions. This, however, applies to just as much on the societal level, where narratives or 

stories are ‘sediments of norms and practices’ through their ongoing movement - the fabrication, 

expression and reception - in social structures  (ibid.). 

Analysing exactly that, I will follow what Cobley termed the ‘constructionist’ approach to 

narrative analysis, which acknowledges the “thoroughly social nature of the construction of meaning” 

(Cobley, 2013, p. 3). The approach claims that it is not exactly the people or objects, but rather the 

‘representational system’ that they operate in, that lets meaning emerge from something. Furthermore, 

I shall briefly differentiate between what a narrative is, what a story, and what a plot. As I will use it, a 

book for example is nothing but a medium representing something, be it ‘real’ or entirely fictitious. To 

make the read comprehensible, it should tell and follow a certain, coherent story. This usually includes 

having some kind of protagonist(s) that the story revolves around. The protagonist(s), however, are not 

necessarily central to the narrative that is used by the narrator; The story can be about one person within 

a greater narrative, without the protagonist crucially altering the grand narrative. When the narrative is 

located in the Thirty Years’ War, for instance, the actual story can also be just about one soldier who is 

comparatively irrelevant to the overall course of the war’s events. A narrative thus exists to “reveal the 

relevant wider circumstances” (ibid., p. 4), while in turn being driven by what is being understood as 

the story's plot. The plot then is the “circumstances which involve [a protagonist] in a specific series of 

events” (ibid.), meaning the individual parts the story is composed of. The process of creating the plot 

around a story has been described as emplotment (see Czarniawska, 2004, p. 20f.) Each aspect is 

dependent on the other two, together creating meaning in a sequence of (retold) events.  

Now, narratives do not only appear in fiction books. They are everywhere and everytime, can 

be about everything, and can express much more than mere entertainment; they really “are powerful 

resources for defining cultures and framing [its] actions” (Halverson, Corman, & Goodall, 2011, p. 1). 

Since Yuval-Davis (2006) notes, that “[i]dentities are narratives, stories people tell themselves and 

others about who they are (and who they are not)” (p. 201), I draw on this further insight of hers, as I 

intend to find exactly that; narratives hinting at or clearly describing (national or cultural) identities, or, 

as Šabanović (2014) had called it, specific ‘cultural models’. I am then concerned with how these 

narratives are put into relationship with spaceflight. With identities however, I here do not only mean 



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identities of the speaker himself, but also the collectives he is referring to. The presidents in their talks 

are certainly individuals, but at the same time they do not only speak to, but also for certain collectives. 

This leads me to the more practical aspects of this section. Namely, to study narratives in my material, 

I will make use of two different techniques of narrative analysis as proposed by Riessmann (2005); 

‘Thematic Analysis’ and ‘Performance Analysis’, which in the following I will briefly introduce.  

6.2. Unpacking Narratives: Thematic and Performance Analysis  

“The function of sociology, as of every science, is to reveal that which is hidden.” 

(Bourdieu, 1996, p. 17) 

First, I make use of a thematic analysis. Here, “[e]mphasis is on the content of a text” meaning 

the focus solely lies on “‘what’ is said more than ‘how’ it is said, the ‘told’ rather than the ‘telling’” 

(Riessman, 2005, p. 2). Methodologically, a “typology of narratives organised by theme is the typical 

representational strategy” (ibid.). Employing thematic analysis enables the researcher to identify a set 

of different (uniquely used or recurring) topics addressed and narratives used in the material, which can 

then then be easily compared and related to each other. In this particular study, the method is of much 

help to structure and make sense of the narratives, first each individual talk and when interrelating them. 

It enabled me to see patterns, repeating narratives and arguments. The technique helped me answer the 

question how things are reasoned, how they are presented and framed, and what rationales are brought 

forward to realise certain sociotechnical futures. 

The thematic analysis was complemented by what Riessman termed performance analysis. In 

performance analysis, “interest goes beyond the spoken word and, as the stage metaphor implies, 

storytelling is seen as performance – by a ‘self’ with a past – who involves, persuades, and (perhaps) 

moves an audience through language and gesture” (Riessmann, 2005, p. 5). While it is possible in 

performance analysis to analyse whole settings or dialogues, in this case I will centre the analysis around 

what she calls a character and its positionings in a story, as performative analysis ultimately is about 

“the positioning of storyteller, audience, and characters in each performance” (ibid.). It is about the 

communicative practice which in this work, through the talks being given, become very much 

“embodied, situated and material, discursive, and open to legitimation and critique” (ibid.). For this 

study it means analysing the process and the outcomes of how the speaker is using the talk to create and 

construct several identities. Identities that I focused on are on the one hand that of the speaker himself, 

but almost more importantly the institutional and national identities he is constructing, referring, and 

drawing on. 

Somewhat part of both techniques are reflections about the contexts in which the talk was given, 

the audience the speaker is delivering to, as well as the specific place he is speaking from. All three 

aspects influence the content and thus the narratives that are being used. Except for these aspects, both 



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techniques focus on different things nicely supplementing each other. The thematic analysis will analyse 

what is said while the performance analysis examines by whom something is said, from where, and 

ultimately trying to reveal aspects of the why, that is the speaker’s intentions. 

6.3. Narratives at Work: Political Speeches and Why to Study Them  

“The strongest man is never strong enough to be always  

master, unless he transforms his power into  

right, and obedience into duty.”  

(Rousseau as cited in Dunn, 2002, p. 158). 

At this point, it might be fruitful to think a moment about what political speeches actually are, 

what they are meant to be, how they work and what their goals can be. This is what the upcoming short 

excursion is dedicated to explaining. But as a first step the question may be posed: What is politics in 

the first place? A tricky question, that Chilton (2004) tried to answer in, at last, a relatively simple way. 

To him, 

“[o]n the one hand, politics is viewed as a struggle for power, between those who seek to assert 

and maintain their power and those who seek to resist it... On the other hand, politics is viewed 

as cooperation, as the practices and institutions a society has for resolving clashes of interest 

over money, power, liberty and the like” (p. 4f.) 

This notion is interesting as well as it is helpful, because it connects two points that oppose each 

other and eventually make up for what politics is: a complex entanglement of socially reasoned conflict 

and cooperation. Obviously, speeches are part of the political game between conflict and cooperation 

and must thus always have an agenda. Holding a speech as a politician means doing politics, actively 

and deliberately. Particularly holding political speeches does not only mean speaking to people, but also 

speaking for people - a circumstance that requires legitimation. Regarding that, Barker finds that “[t]o 

talk of legitimation is to talk of something that people do” (2001, p. 24, my emphasis). Especially in 

political contexts he also finds plain legitimation to be one very central activity, as without proper 

legitimation no stable government is possible. Hence, “[t]he self-legitimation [...] is part of the activity 

of ruling, and as such contributes to both constituting it and defining it” (ibid., p. 30). Especially 

politicians’ public speeches are one of the sites where continuous self-legitimation takes place and are 

thus a very interesting object to be studied by the social sciences. Barker, too, argued that in political 

systems, individuals tend to primarily legitimise themselves and their own actions. Also, those talks 

proposing new space policies may be conceived of as legitimation work for the decisions the president 

himself was eventually responsible for. However, after analysing the complex negotiations that take 

place before such a talk can be given at all (see chapter 5), I will conceptualise the speeches not (only) 

as moments of individual legitimation, but perhaps even more as moments of institutional and national 

(self-)legitimisation. The presidents speak for themselves, but they also speak for the institutions they 



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represent. Hence, while acknowledging it, for the topic at hand reducing legitimation to plain self-

legitimation would neither be useful nor at all sensible. 

Barker, however, also states (self-)identification to be an inevitable part of legitimation, both 

being “dimensions of an inextricably intermeshed activity or pattern of activities” (2001, p. 35). 

Identification requires identity, and, again drawing on the work of Yuval-Davis (2006), identity is never 

a permanent state, but rather a “transition, always producing itself through the combined processes of 

being and becoming, belonging and longing to belong” (p. 202). When it comes to the realisation of 

identities,”[c]onstructions of self and identity can, however, in certain historical contexts, be forced on 

people” (ibid., p. 203), though this not to say, that political speeches are evil means of brainwashing 

people. It simply serves us as an important insight as to why political speeches are structured the way 

they are, and why the arguments appear the way they appear. Namely, as Barker explains, an identity 

and especially identities in political contexts, want to be ‘cultivated’ (2001, p. 50). Eventually, this 

explains that speeches in political contexts, especially those that are in one way or another addressed to 

‘the public’, play a pivotal role in what Šabanović called the ‘repeated assembly of a cultural model’, 

which is essentially the continuous creation and subsequent legitimation of identity. Especially since 

"[s]elf-legitimation is an inherent and characterising activity of government, just as worship is one of 

the characterising activities of religion" (Barker, 2001, p. 30), I see political speeches as a central place 

to create and recreate said cultural models. Strategic use of appropriate narratives then serve as 

persuasive devices. Inappropriate use or construction of models, identities and narratives, though, can 

result in audiences ‘struggle and resistance’ towards the speaker and his messages (see Yuval-Davis, 

2006, p. 203). In that case, legitimation erodes (see Barker, 2001), agendas may have to be adapted and 

the political game of conflict and cooperation begins anew. 

7. Analysis 

Before entering the analysis with the talk of John F. Kennedy, there is one interesting 

observation already to be made. Namely, by the choice of the material one can already find the 

interesting circumstance, that only those presidents gave a lengthy talk, who proposed large, and 

explorative policies. Richard Nixon, who abandoned exploration after Apollo and introduced the low 

earth orbit bound Space Shuttle is the only exception from this rule of thumb. Hence, we can already 

suppose that particularly explorative policy agendas call for more intensive reasoning and justification, 

or, in other words, in order to make them appear sensible, ask to “translate complex technological 

matters into meaningful public discourse” (Jordan, 2003, p. 210).  

It remains however unclear whether that is the case because the respective presidents felt the 

need to actively justify their actions, or if explorative spaceflight is not only considered prestigious for 

the country, but also for the president himself. Although both is probable, regarding the aspect of 

political justification, the monies going into explorational spaceflight are great, even for the USA. They 



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hence call for a well-grounded reasoning, which is provided by the narratives the new policy is weaved 

into. On the other hand, regarding the aspect of political legitimation, I again consult Barker, who posed 

the question “whether identity can be seen to shape legitimacy, or legitimacy qualif(ies) identity” (2001, 

p. 39). Seen from this angle, the talks and the rather aggressive technopolitical choices promoted in the 

talks are at the same time very carefully practices of legitimation and profiling work of the president as 

his individual, presidential agenda, as well as the collective(s) he represents. 

7.1. John F. Kennedy - Torn Between Fear and the Spirit of Optimism 

“If God listened to the prayer of men, all men would quickly  

have perished: for they are forever praying for  

evil against one another.” 

Epicurus (~341-270 BC) 

7.1.1. Some Context 

This analysis’ first talk was delivered by president John F. Kennedy on September 12, 1962 in 

Houston, Texas, at Rice Stadium. In the talk, he publicly proposes a manned mission to the moon, thus 

finally marking the US’ entrance into the ‘Space Race’ to the moon. I have briefly touched upon the 

evaluations and deliberations above (see chapter 5), but after proposing the plans to congress in May 

that year, this talk in September marked the first time he publicly presented them in front of a large 

audience. The talk can be seen as one central moment in the history of spaceflight. When analysing the 

speech, one also has to put into consideration the state American spaceflight was in at the time. NASA 

had conducted its first manned spaceflight only twenty days before Kennedy first proposed such plans 

to Congress in May. At the time of the public talk in Houston, there had still only been one more manned 

flight, making the president proposing a mission to the moon with NASA only having 30 minutes of 

actual experience in manned spaceflight. Much persuasion and inspirational work was needed by the 

president, and “it was [his speech] at Rice University that marked his most concerted effort at justifying 

the lunar program and demonstrated his presidential rhetorical prowess in defining the ‘moon shot’ for 

the public” (Jordan, 2003, p. 210). The talk aimed at making the American people believe in spaceflight, 

which entails trust in the technical abilities of NASA as well as the overall purpose and significance of 

such an undertaking. 

Considering the place the speech was given at, Barker notes that “[l]eaders surround themselves 

with objects which ‘acknowledge’ their importance” (2001, p. 53). Kennedy does exactly that, speaking 

in front of tens of thousands of people at the Rice Stadium of Rice University in Houston, Texas. Large 

parts of the audience were young citizens and affiliated with the university of Houston. He even actively 

points that fact out in the very first moments of his speech: “We meet at a college noted for knowledge, 

in a city noted for progress, in a state noted for strength” (JFK, #9f.). Authority and hence legitimation 

are on the one hand afforded ex officio, but on the other hand by the very place he speaks from to his 



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audience, and, in the end, to all American people. Hence, also the place was very well chosen by the 

Kennedy administration, aiming to amplify the messages Kennedy wanted to convey to the audience.  

One can divide the speech into three parts. The first part is all about giving context, which is 

done a very metaphorical and figurative way. The second part of the speech explains the need for a 

mission to moon by conceptualisations of Americanness. The third part of the speech focuses on 

measures, goals, and reasons, starting with the famous line “[w]e choose to go to the moon” (JFK, #87). 

7.1.2. Dichotomies, Contradictions, Americanness 

The regular use of conceptual dichotomies and paired contradictions is a central rhetorical 

means that Kennedy employs in his speech. These dichotomies (see table below) mostly appear in the 

first half of the speech. When Kennedy moves from providing context, constructing the challenge and 

characterising the US to describing the measures taken, goals set, and the reasons behind that, 

dichotomies make way for one-sided, absolute terms and projections into the future. For this analysis, I 

want to focus on the dichotomies. Within them, Kennedy is doing an extensive characterisation of what 

he believes to be American and what the logical consequences of this shared Americanness are. The 

dichotomies play a very central role in that, as in every dichotomy presented, one part means to show 

what the US is, what it wants to achieve and stand for, with the other part attempting to show what it is 

not, what it does not stand for, and must not be(come).  

Table 1: Dichotomies employed by John F. Kennedy in his “We choose to go to the moon” talk. 

American part “Un-American” part 

hope fear 

knowledge ignorance 

Dispelling old ills Creating new ills 

High rewards Costs and hardships 

Moving forward Waiting, looking behind 

Joining Not joining 

Leading Staying behind 

Banner of freedom and peace Hostile flag of conquest 

Instruments of knowledge and understanding Weapons of mass destruction 



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Force for good  Force for ill 

Sea of peace Terrifying theatre of war 

Moving ahead Staying behind 

Doing the job Wasting money 

 

These pairs construct ways for the US, first, to generally stay successful, but second, to stay true 

to itself - that is to stay singular and superior among the nations, and especially in comparison to the 

Soviet Union. Kennedy builds his local (American) cultural frame around these dichotomies and lets 

them determine the future. How the future unfolds is then constructed to be completely dependent on 

the decision if and how the US decides to engage in spaceflight, and more precisely, in the race to the 

moon. Constructing the challenge, however, is done in a very deliberate way, for he constructs the 

challenge of ‘exploring space’ as one that is inevitable for a “nation which expects to be the leader of 

other nations” (JFK, #51f.). Even though not spoken out verbally, it is clear that everybody's conception 

of the US as a nation includes this expectation; a clear moment in which American Exceptionalism and 

self-conception as being superior “informs and structures American self-representations” (Paul, 2014, 

p. 17). By character, the US is constructed as bound to accept that challenge, bound to go to the moon. 

This notion of American self-expectation to lead was also cited in the first paragraph of a front page 

article in the New York Times (Kenworthy, 1962) titled “Kennedy Asserts Nation Must Lead in Probing 

Space” (ibid.), publicly making the more general expectation applicable in and expressible through 

spaceflight. What was constructed as desirable future by Kennedy was not discussed, but effectively 

simply reproduced and hence publicly reinforced. 

The usefulness of a manned mission to moon is then strengthened by constructing it like the 

modern equivalent of the myth of the ‘West’, or even a logical follow-up of the movement back then: 

“What was once the furthest outpost on the old frontier of the West will be the furthest outpost on the 

new frontier of science and space” (JFK, #132ff.). While considering the locality of the speech, he still 

includes the entire country in his ambitions, rhetorically making every citizen a part of the new 

endeavour. In the talk, space became the place for the US to break frontiers again. The plausibility of 

going to the moon is afforded by constructing it as a collective and culturally founded endeavour, 

presenting it as if one homogenous nation, one community, flew there. He “invite[d] audience members 

to live up to their pioneering heritage” (Jordan, 2003, 210), building on a commonly understood cultural 

heritage, that is to a large part derived from the myth of the ‘West’, and the idea of the manifest destiny. 



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Yet, this internal reason is accompanied by an external one. Although Commager (1967) 

claimed that the US to have some difficulty to construct its villains and antagonists, that does not become 

quite apparent in this speech, as the Soviet Union is rendered into the definite enemy. He presents two 

absolute options of the future, in principle another dichotomy: either the US join the Space Race and 

space will become a “sea of peace” (JFK, #74f.), or they refuse to join, and space will become a 

“terrifying theater of war” (JFK, #75). Imagining the Soviet Union as another distinct, homogeneous 

community, the question is not if space will be conquered, but if it is going to be conquered for the 

‘right’ reasons, by the ‘right’ technopolitical culture; the right imagined community. The challenge and 

accepting it, is thus given relevance by an internal factor, driven by national pride, and an external, 

driven by fear. In principle, it is the fear that the US is slowly being deprived of its breeding-ground for 

the national pride. Ultimately, he achieves to evoke an atmosphere that is strangely torn between fear 

on the one hand, and optimism on the other hand, a condition evoked by the Cold War. Thus, the 

challenge of going to the moon gains explicit urgency by the (Soviet) enemy. Yet, additionally, what 

Kennedy calls a ‘challenge’, between the lines even becomes a threat on the identity of the US. As his 

underlying narrative goes, avoiding the challenge would in turn mean the abandonment of being 

exceptional among the nations. In a way, Kennedy constructs this as already having become the case. 

The US is not the “world’s leading space-faring nation” but has to become it: “To be sure, we are behind, 

and will be behind for some time in manned flight” (JFK, #120f.). Kennedy is challenging central 

aspects of American self-understanding. But he also offers a path to restore national and cultural 

superiority - namely by ‘choosing to go to the moon’.  

7.1.3. Exciting America 

The talk is an agitative one, that seeks to evoke emotion and particularly excitement about a 

mission to moon, and performance analysis shows, that it in fact it does. Performance analysis does not 

only seek to ask questions about what identity is constructed, but also how it is performed in an act. 

Some simple yet quite momentous moments in which performance and interactiveness accompany each 

other are the moments of the audience applauding. They can indicate points in the talk that are important 

to the speaker, the audience, or both. Analysing when the president gets interrupted by applause reveals 

some very interesting insights of moments in which Kennedy could achieve particularly strong 

contentual approval. Interruptions occurred nine times in Kennedy’s speech, after the following 

sentences: 

1. “[t]his country of the United States was not built by those who waited and rested” (JFK, #40f.) 

2. “We intend to be first!” (JFK, #64) 

3. “We choose to go to the moon!" (JFK, #87) 

4. “We intend to win!" (JFK, #92) 

5. Satellites “made in the United States of America [...] supplied far more knowledge to the people 

of the world than those of the Soviet Union” (JFK, #106ff.) 



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6. “We shall make up and move ahead" (JFK, #122) 

7. “What was once the furthest outpost on the old frontier of the West will be the furthest outpost 

on the new frontier of science and space” (JFK, #132ff.) 

8. “If I were to say, [...] that we shall send to the moon [...] a giant rocket, [...] and do it right, and 

do it first before this decade is out—then we must be bold” (JFK, #151-163) 

9. “This university is playing a part in putting a man on the moon as part of a great national effort 

of the United States of America" (JFK, #173f.) 

In each and every of these instances, the president revealed something about his perceived character of 

the United States of America, what it is, and what it ought to be, and each time the audience explicitly 

showed approval. Winning, being first, moving ahead and being bold are all characteristics that suggest 

exceptionalism, the overarching local cultural frame, not only in technoscientific matters. Overall, the 

speech achieves to build up and reinvoke the feeling of being exceptional - yet. Exceptionality is being 

threatened by the Soviet’s technological advances in spaceflight. The other moments of applause 

stressed the successful effort in evoking the national; having the best satellites, being part of a “great 

national effort” (JFK, #173) and its ‘furthest outpost on the new frontier of science and space’ respects 

locality while at the same time invoking what Anderson twenty-two years after the speech termed an 

‘imagined community’, invoking it and giving it a purpose. This communal aspect becomes very clear 

also in the wording, as he addresses the audience as us/we five times in the nine above quotes alone – 

the community needs to be named in order to be imagined. 

In sum, the speech clearly characterises the US around a shared understanding of being 

exceptional, provoking active approval by the attending audience. Anyhow, this exceptionalism is 

endangered by the enemy of the Soviet Union, yet a future in which the US has been able to overpower 

the Soviet Union again, is presented as the way to restore and prove American exceptionalism.  

7.1.4. Technologies, Knowledges, Futures 

Obviously, when there is talk of the future in the speech, most of the time it is about the specific 

future of the US. As I have described above, dichotomies are an important means of narratively creating 

the ‘inside worlds’ of the speech, and many of these ‘inside worlds’ are projections of possible future 

worlds, all caused primarily through (eventually rather unspecific) technological advances. Furthermore, 

for Kennedy, these technological advances are logical and ultimately inevitable; the “quest for [...] 

progress, is determined and cannot be deterred” (JFK, #49), meaning that “the exploration of space will 

go ahead, whether we join in or not” (JFK, #50), partly also because “technology has no conscience of 

its own” (JFK, #71), so the line of argument goes. Especially the last statement is interesting, as it was 

(unknowingly) inspired by social constructivism (see Winner, 1993), and greatly served the purpose of 

the talk. If technology had been pictured as ultimately in full control of those who created it in the first 

place, the narrative construction of the inside future worlds could not have happened as sharp and 



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confident as it was the case. Technological determinism would put the technology in control of the social 

and thus the future, but Kennedy’s social constructivism grants the power to shape the future to 

technocultural collectives consisting of human beings, their values, and their decisions. These, however, 

are indeed pictured as quite determined and predictable. Through its definite, determined and worthy 

purposes, its character expressed through technology, and through international technological leadership 

in spaceflight, only the US is able to ensure a peaceful future - an exceptionally strong sociotechnical 

assessment and temporal projection of cultural capabilities. Following Kennedy and depending on 

whether the “frontier [...] space” (JFK, #133f.) could successfully be broken by the US first, either a 

technocultural utopia or dystopia will come to be, while these imaginations are heavily based on 

nonverbally shared imaginations of the Soviet enemy. Throughout the speech, these ‘future inside 

worlds’ are constructed in “careful, general detail” (Anderson, 2006, p. 23), and presenting these 

definite options/futures is being done almost in the manner of Hollywood science-fiction. The villain 

will destroy anything and everything that is good and fair, unless the hero takes action (I have mentioned 

above that also Jasanoff found a close relationship between imaginaries and science-fiction). Defining 

the villain is also being done via the concept of knowledge. By stating, that “man, in his quest for 

knowledge [...] is determined and cannot be deterred” (JFK, #48f.), a conceptualisation of the very 

human nature is used to again render inevitable a future situation in which the US has to lead. Then the 

questions arise: who has knowledge, who does not have it, and is it the ‘right’ knowledge one possesses? 

In “an age of both knowledge and ignorance” (JFK, #11f.), Rice University is claimed to be a place of 

the ‘right’ knowledge. That not only Rice University, but the entire nation possesses and produces ‘right’ 

knowledge is also stressed in the following. By speaking of “new knowledge to be gained, and new 

rights to be won” (JFK, #69f.), as well as “new hopes for knowledge and peace” (JFK, #180), 

specifically US produced knowledge is also put in close relation with enabling and preserving global 

peace. As a consequence of only the US knowing what ‘right’ knowledge is, the US again emerges as 

superior; as ‘world’s best hope’.  

Building on what I have stated before concerning the threat on American exceptionalism, its 

expression may be merely rhetorical for the moment, but the intended expression takes place through 

technology, resembling the above quote by Mahler, who said that “[i]mages of shuttle launches and 

earthrise over the rim of the moon are iconic representations of American strength, technological 

capacity, and the future of humankind” (Mahler, 2010, p. 711). At length, Kennedy is describing past 

missions, future plans, and specific models of rockets and their strength, and in the narrative technology 

becomes the means to embody and show superiority and singularity - a means to embody Americanness 

itself. To some extent, this sociotechnical materialisation of American exceptionalism is also openly 

being proposed to be done just for the sake of it, or at least without clear, measurable intents. Besides 

the rationales based on cultural conceptualisations, Kennedy also admits, that “we do not now know 

what benefits await us” (JFK, #149f), and simply proposes to ‘climb’ space “[b]ecause it is there” (JFK, 



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#178f.). That way, although at that point the USSR was a step ahead in spaceflight, the technology itself 

is conceptualised as typically and inherently American. Just like in American myths, exploration 

becomes something logical instead of something debatable. 

In the end, I find Kennedy’s speech at its very core to be about choosing among two possible 

futures, both being propelled specifically by spaceflight technologies. The US as one distinctive 

community has to choose rightly, responsibly, and wisely, to avoid a Soviet and communist dystopia, a 

‘terrifying theatre of war’, and to allow for a global, yet American-lead, peaceful utopia to come into 

existence. Eventually, however, the speech achieves it to make actually asking how and whether to go 

to the moon at all completely obsolete, as the answer is already there, predetermined by American 

exceptionalism and its mythically reinforced ideals.  

7.2. Richard Nixon - Defending No Space Offensive 

"I am convinced that before the year 2000 is over,  

the first child will have been born on the moon." 

Wernher von Braun (1912-1977), NASA aerospace engineer, in 1972 

7.2.1. Some Context 

The talk Richard Nixon gave in 1972 is an exception. One the one hand, Nixon proposed a specifically 

non-explorative approach to spaceflight, and on the other hand, surprisingly gave a speech nevertheless. 

He thus serves as a great point of comparison to the other talks. In the talk, he re-interpreted “old-style 

space flight” (RN, #233) by offsetting its politico-symbolic value and its economic use. He proposed to 

“mov[e] out from our present beach-head in the sky to achieve a real working presence in space” (RN, 

#223f.). In fact, he seeks an, at least temporary, closure to deep space exploration: “The new year 1972 

is a year of conclusion for America's current series of manned flights to the moon” (RN, #201f.). This 

talk, the only of which no video was traceable, was considerably shorter than the others, yet of the same 

nature than the others, which is why it still found its way into the analysis. 

7.2.2. Reasonability and Down-to-Earthness 

One cornerstone of this work is the idea of ‘conquering space’. And yet, what does it actually 

mean to ‘conquer’ space? Does sending probes into space mean to conquer it? Do the probes have to 

touch down on other celestial bodies? Or do human beings have to get into space? If so, for how long? 

Is it enough to just be there for limited amounts of time, always returning to planet earth? Is it enough 

to stay in earth orbit, or is it necessary to reach other destinations? For Kennedy, what should at least be 

the first step, was clear. The space race inspired ‘conquest’ of space was tied to a manned mission to the 

moon. Only rhetorically, he asked ‘why the moon?’. For Nixon, in contrast, this question of ‘why the 

moon?’ would not have been a rhetorical one at all. After the space race was ‘won’, he seemed to have 

had a fundamentally different idea and definition of what ‘conquering’ space means than president 

Kennedy. Nixon aims to ‘conquer space’ by establishing a ‘real working presence’ in space, 



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transforming space into an actual habitat, whereas for Kennedy, ‘conquest’ is perfectly congruent with 

exploration. It is thus not surprising that the idea of ‘space as habitat’ does not appear once in Kennedy’s 

talk, yet it in fact does appear in every talk after him, starting with Nixon. 

Already after some two introductory paragraphs, he constructs the ultimate purpose of 

spaceflight as “utilizing space to meet needs on Earth” (RN, #211), calling on examples like weather 

forecasting, airplane coordination, and pollution control. Including these specific scopes is quite 

contrary to how other presidents at times framed spaceflight as an end somewhat in itself (remember 

Kennedy’s ‘because it is there’). With this framing in mind, he defends his less explorative approach: 

“all these possibilities, [...] with direct and dramatic bearing on human betterment, can never be more 

than fractionally realized so long as every single trip from Earth to orbit remains a matter of special 

effort and staggering expense” (RN, #221ff.), in which he, other than the other presidents, emphasises 

the cost over the emotional and cultural value of spaceflight. Kennedy, for example, openly admits that 

“all this costs us all a good deal of money” (JFK, #142), and president Obama, as we will see, claimed 

that “for pennies on the dollar, the space program [...] inspired generations of Americans” (BO, #974ff.). 

While the other presidents wanted to legitimise higher investments, Nixon believed the most positive 

aspect to be that the space shuttle “may bring operating costs down as low as one-tenth of those present 

launch vehicles” (RN, #220f.). That way, his argumentations arrive at very different destinations than 

those of other presidents, and, as we will see, somewhat stresses financial over the social reasoning, 

which other presidents have deployed for explorational spaceflight.  

Thematic analysis additionally revealed, that there is effectively no moment in which Nixon 

does not in some way justify his decisions. He is excessively soberly explaining his rationales, eventually 

making it almost seem as if he feels the need to apologise for his policy. Hence, the main objective of 

the talk is not to excite people, but to defend the very new policy in front of them. Performance analysis 

supports this as well, as the language he uses is more sober than that of the other talks, much less driven 

by emotions. It tries to persuade with measurable arguments rather than with emotion, and is not exactly 

inspiring, but calculating. However, in the end also president Nixon uses a historic figure, writer Oliver 

Wendell Holmes, to reason his decision: “We must sail sometimes with the wind and sometimes against 

it [...] but we must sail, and not drift, nor lie at anchor'” (RN, #270f.), adding that “[s]o with man's epic 

voyage into space - a voyage the United States of America has led and still shall lead” (RN, #271f.). 

This instance, directly after again promoting “low-cost, multi-purpose space missions” (RN, #268), is 

and ideological exception within the exception that Nixon’s talk constitutes. It seems as if Nixon’s 

conscientiousness compelled him to this one, historical reference. Because spaceflight in America seems 

to be asking for more than positive financial balances, and he knew full well (see his memorandum 

included in chapter 5). 



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Finally, the mere shortness of the talk may also be seen as a hint to the defensiveness of Nixon. 

While clearly laying out the rationales behind the decisions, he does not even really try to weave the 

policy into a plot that is as exciting and compelling - and supposedly ‘American’ - as that of Kennedy. 

Themes of courage, taking risks and (past) heroes appear in every talk except for that of Nixon, who 

does not even include them once. Additionally, he is the only president who did not include humorous 

aspects in his talk. In interesting contrast, aspects of ‘caring for earth’ are implemented relatively 

intensively, and are the only thing that Nixon put in poetic, dramatic language: “We are learning the 

imperatives of universal brotherhood and global ecology, learning to think and act as guardians of one 

tiny blue and green island in the trackless oceans of the Universe” (RN, #262ff.). Hence, Nixon’s 

account of spaceflight is, so to speak, very much down-to-earth. It is rendered from an ideological 

weapon and cultural obligation into a mere technological tool that has no particularly profound impact 

on (long term) societal forthcomings. The national wellbeing and progress are neither dependent from 

nor particularly evident through spaceflight; a starkly different assessment than those brought forward 

by other presidents, from Kennedy to Obama, as I will show. Also, for him, spaceflight does not per se 

express Americanness, at least he does not include this explicitly in the talk. However, as presidents are 

somewhat expected to follow the idea of American exceptionalism, he is understandably reluctant to 

include connected themes in the talks. In fact, his narrative and argumentative goal is to decouple 

spaceflight from the American identity, or at least take away some ideological weight from it, that 

Kennedy had successfully laden it with a decade before. 

7.3. George Bush - Pride, Preachers and Whom to Owe Spaceflight 

“Once the state has been founded, there can no longer be any heroes.  

They come on the scene only in uncivilized conditions.” 

Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770-1831), philosopher 

7.3.1. Some Context 

The third talk is that of George Bush, delivered in 1989, seven months after his inauguration. It 

builds on the second policy of his predecessor Ronald Reagan, and specified Reagan’s policy goal “to 

expand human presence and activity beyond Earth orbit into the solar system” (NASA, 1990, p. 66). In 

the wake of the fall of the Iron Curtain, some great changes in world politics were about to come. As 

much as the influence of these events on the decisions and talk can only be speculated about, there is 

not much doubt that another incident has had its impact on the policy: the loss of the Challenger shuttle 

three years earlier, which is in fact prominently brought up in the talk. The talk was delivered on the 

steps of the National Air and Space Museum. Like Kennedy did before him, he stages the talk in a place 

connotated with knowledge, history, and authority, lending importance to the performance, that aims to 

legitimise the decision presented (see Barker, 2001). Even though Bush’s decisions and the subsequent 

talk did not have an actual impact nearly as great as that of Kennedy or Nixon in the long run, it is one 



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seminal moment of American spaceflight for the social sciences. It contains strikingly strong messages, 

weaved into a remarkably distinctive narrative, that I will explore in the following sections. 

The talk may be divided into four parts. After some acknowledgements, Bush continues to 

honour past heroes with an extensive narration of the Apollo 11 mission. He builds on that, proceeding 

with the third and longest part of the talk, in which he, like his predecessors, presents his draft of the 

US, and presents his actual policy goals. He smoothly finishes with an emotional closure.  

7.3.2. An American Past: The United States’ Proud Children 

Already Murray found that “Bush in his 1989 speech was a lot like Kennedy trying to set a new 

nationalistic Apollo goal to get the country moving” (2016, p. 186). National greatness, that is 

superiority and singularity, is a central theme for George Bush to ‘get the country moving’, as some 

very unambiguous lines reveal very quickly. Already the third sentence, essentially his thematic 

introduction into the talk, reads “[b]ehind me stands one of the most visited places on Earth, a symbol 

of American courage and ingenuity” (GB, #309f.), supporting Barker’s (2001) point how places and 

objects are used in terms of lending substance and legitimation to (techno-)political messages. Only 

moments thereafter, he asks to “tell [American children] of the flag - the American flag - that still flies 

proudly in the ancient lunar soil” (GB, #327f.), not without adding later on that “[t]he only flag on the 

moon is an American flag” (GB, #417f.), perhaps the most remarkable occurrence of emphasising 

American singularity, deducted from American mythology. Throughout the entire talk, the US and its 

achievements become intensively belauded, partly in quite dramatic and ornate ways. Supporting 

spaceflight means to “join us in a great dream, an American dream, a dream without end” (GB, #329f.), 

and America is depicted as the “the world's greatest experiment in freedom and diversity” (GB, #372) - 

in other words, the world’s best hope. In the following incident he almost gets blunt in emphasising 

exceptionality: “today, yes, the U.S. is the richest nation on Earth, with the most powerful economy i n 

the world. And our goal is nothing less than to establish the United States as the preeminent spacefaring 

nation” (GB, #387ff.). Yet, the simple message makes clear a set of presumably inevitable future actions. 

In the American imaginary Bush constructs from the past, technological choices are equalled with 

cultural choices. Accepting and embracing technological challenges becomes naturalised, as the country 

can count on its historically proven values and traits: 

“Apollo is a monument to our nation's unparalleled ability to respond swiftly and successfully 

to a clearly stated challenge and to America's willingness to take great risks for great rewards. 

We had a challenge. We set a goal. And we achieved it” (GB, #358ff.) 

This is a particularly interesting moment, as it renders endeavours of spaceflight into something 

that is to be done out of (American) tradition. Narratively, this is a useful step, because if it has to be 

done out of tradition, it cannot be discussed with those who supposedly started the tradition, in this case 



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a cultural tradition of progress, bravery, and risk seeking. Instrumentalising the Apollo 11 crew as central 

icons of spaceflight and all America is yet another thoughtful tactic, as particularly Buzz Aldrin is until 

this day a great proponent of spaceflight (see for example Aldrin & Wachhorst, 2004).  

These extracts, and especially the language, show, how a kind of ‘simplistic romanticism’ is a 

central way of framing that Bush uses while constructing his local cultural frame. Through that, he 

achieves heroisations of both, the dead and living people. He frames the situation around his 

performance as an “unprecedented gathering of America's space veterans” (GB, #312f.), admitting 

himself to be proud “shar[ing] this stage with three of the greatest heroes of this or any other century: 

the crew of Apollo 11” (GB, #313f.). Simplistic romanticism allows Bush to instrumentalise 

protagonists of his talk, facilitating his messages in a way that they can hardly be attacked by any 

American, as they address basic American assets that are rooted in traditional mythology American, 

more precisely American exceptionalism. He achieves what Šabanović termed ‘cultural continuity’, by 

counting on what Anderson called the ‘imagined community’. Now, the Amer ican president 

constructing America in exceptional ways is just according to an the historically grown national 

narrative, and thus not particularly surprising, as this study shows (see also Gilmore, Sheets and 

Rowling, 2016, p. 516). What distinguishes this talk from the other four talks is the exceptionally clear-

cut conceptual grounding of greatness. Although there is no exception in the other presidents using it, a 

thorough thematic analysis clearly shows that Bush’s approach to spaceflight is driven very strongly by 

motives of certainty and pride, which are derived to a great extent from cultural icons and the respective 

historical accounts. Incidents in the past lineary evoke present values, acting as a logical fundament for 

the future. Very interesting is the argumentation around the Challenger tragedy, which I find useful to 

be interpreted through the lens of imagined communities. Anderson wrote, that  

“[t]he idea of the ultimate sacrifice comes only with an idea of purity, through fatality. Dying 

for one's country, which usually one does not choose, assumes a moral grandeur which dying 

for the Labour Party, the American Medical Association, or perhaps even Amnesty International 

can not rival, for these are all bodies one can join or leave at easy will” (2006, p. 144) 

Said practical inevitability of nationality is here instrumentalised by Bush. He perfectly links 

the death of the seven astronauts to the life of every American citizen, as if those had died for family 

members, when in fact, they can only said to have died being part of an essentially imagined community. 

“There are many reasons to explore the universe, but ten very special reasons why America 

must never stop seeking distant frontiers: the ten courageous astronauts who made the ultimate 

sacrifice to further the cause of space exploration. They have taken their place in the heavens 

so that America can take its place in the stars” (GB, #446ff.) 



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That way, the dead astronauts become deeply authentic representatives of the entire nation, and 

at the same time greatly heroised individuals (see Hersch, 2012). He draws on similarly heroic 

imaginations about astronauts as they appear in pop culture (see chapter 2.2.), while his depictions are 

not for purposes of art, but seek to evoke national unity through constructing a national legacy. This 

legacy is depicted as being centuries old, beginning with the myth of Columbus, and, by his way of 

including Challenger, just as well thematically taking up the myth West and its idea of the possible 

setbacks that have to be overcome for eventual success. He continues drawing upon a number of other 

historical figures, climaxing in said Challenger, perfectly showing the great flexibility and adaptability 

of mythologies. However, even with the inclusion of Challenger, the legacy is framed very positively 

by evoking pride instead of grief. By telling a tale of the American flag “that still flies proudly in the 

ancient lunar soil” (GB, #327) he rhetorically, narratively, and logically evokes the collective connected 

by pride of a shared history. An imagined community emerges, that, as a cohesive entity, takes part in 

the ‘necessary adventure’ that spaceflight is rendered into. It is every American’s flag up there, including 

those who have not even been alive when the flag was being planted. Finally, he rounds off the 

heroisation by heroising the American people as such, too. Historically, “Apollo's success was made 

possible by the drive and daring of an entire nation committed to a dream” (GB, #366f.). And, equally, 

today, “the pathway to the stars begins, as it did 20 years ago, with you, the American people” (GB, 

#405ff.). 

All of this constructs an image of America as an unquestionable, organically grown idyll, 

strongly resembling the mythical idea of the West (see Paul, 2014), as still in his introduction, he reminds 

the audience that “a nearly full moon will rise out of the darkness and shine down on an America that is 

prosperous and at peace” (GB, #322ff.). As Bush constructs his narrative, the US has come a long, linear, 

plausible way, consistently driven by the same inherent values and traits. Conflicts are excluded from 

history, societal and technocultural achievements are utilised to fit the narrative, and mythology 

functions as both, origin and confirmation of the American idyll. Finally, ambitious goals in spaceflight 

are what he deducts from the narrative of boundless cultural success. 

7.3.3. An American Future: Space Romance and the Aggrandisement of Spaceflight 

Through various means, every talk lets arise a very specific atmosphere. Comparing these 

atmospheres, performance analysis allows to see how Bush’s talk is achieving a very different 

atmosphere as for example the talk delivered by Kennedy. While Kennedy, as I showed above, uses 

strong dualities and images of war, Bush’s performance may be described as exceedingly calm, romantic 

and perhaps even dreamy towards the general topic. Gestures and inflexion heavily differ compared to 

Kennedy, but also to Obama. For example, Kennedy almost yells that “we do not intend to stay behind, 

and in this decade, we shall make up and move ahead” (JFK, #121f.), whereas Bush makes his romantic 

statement about the ‘nearly full moon‘ would shine down “on an America that is prosperous and at 

peace” (GB, #323f.). The American idyll he constructs from the past through the present, together with 



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the nation’s linear success story, lets future successes appear inevitable. Vague hopes become 

trustworthy promises, and the future becomes presented in a way as if it has almost already happened. 

In Šabanović’ (2014) words, he is creating a feeling that, necessarily, ‘things will have been’. Both 

foundation and consequence of that atmosphere is the explicit romanticising of space and the 

aggrandisement of spaceflight technology. By involving and linking different generations of Americans, 

Bush tries to evoke cross-generational enthusiasm for spaceflight, for which heroisations and cultural 

elevation of all American people are pivotal, because, narratively, he is rendering this past-oriented 

argumentative construction into the perfect reason for a specific desirable future. He draws all American 

people into spaceflight, making of the imagined community an imagined interest group, with a joint 

feeling of duty and the same unspecifically specific expectations of the future in space. 

I have already termed one of Bush’s strategies ‘simplistic romanticism’ when he is talking about 

the (American) past. The atmosphere he achieves yet allows him to be just as simplistically romantic 

about the future as well. Humans “dream of distant shores” (GB, #451), and NASA sets the American 

people to be on “the pathway to the stars” (GB, #405f.) - strikingly poetic depictions of what Kennedy 

in contrast presented as a potential “theater of war” (JFK, #75). In Bush’s words, it was not a rocket 

launched in July 1969, but “[t]he sun [that] rose a second time [...] as the awesome fireball of the Saturn 

V lifted these three pioneers beyond the clouds” (GB, #333ff.). Using this pictorial description also lets 

the technology involved appear not only in a simplified way but elevates it on a level that I want to call 

the aggrandisement of technology, in this case of rocketry. While always linking it directly to past 

cultural experiences, simplistic romanticism and the aggrandisement of technology shape Bush’s 

depictions of the future; “[S]pace is the inescapable challenge to all the advanced nations of the Earth. 

[...] What was once improbable is now inevitable” (GB, #379ff.). Spaceflight is elevated above virtually 

all other challenges, be it of technological, societal, or any other nature. Spaceflight is the future. By 

adding how it once was improbable, that is, a dream, but now inevitable, he does several things at once: 

evoking pride of the technocultural advancements, romanticising and naturalising (technological) 

progress, and simplifying inherently non-linear technocultural developments. He now claims to make 

the imaginary a reality, and thereby heavily participates in (re-)creating the very imaginary of 

conquering space. Especially the construction of certain future’s inevitability is also achieved through 

past-based simplifications and romanticism, for example by saying that “humans will again leave their 

home planet for voyages of discovery and exploration” (GB, #380f., my emphasis). Here, he draws on 

the historic mythological ideas of discovery and exploration, that ultimately links spaceflight with the 

voyages of Christopher Columbus (see Paul, 2014), and other explorers like Meriwether and Lewis, that 

George W. Bush would remind his audience of 15 years later. “We will travel to neighbouring stars, to 

new worlds, to discover the unknown” (GB, #458f.) are very strong and linear depictions of what will 

be. Especially in this last sentence, the technology that is necessary to achieve these goals is made 

invisible, for they are natural, and naturally will be there. The reasoning to undertake steps to this 



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supposedly inevitable future is just as simplistic and romantic as its very descriptions, for at one point 

he simply claims that “history proves that we have never lost by pressing the limits of our frontiers“ 

(GB, #391f.). While only moments earlier drawing on the Columbus myth, he now relatively explicitly 

draws on the myth of the West, as the narrative of the ‘frontier’ distinctly shows. Subsequently, he once 

again draws on a past national hero, Apollo 11 astronaut Michael Collins, using his quote that “the moon 

is not a destination; it's a direction” (GB, #378f.). At the very end of the talk, the romantic, simplistic, 

past-based projections of an inevitable future is interestingly connected to, and enhanced by yet another 

set of past incidents, which are the ten astronauts NASA lost until that day (three in 1967 and seven in 

1986). Although having stated, that ‘we have never lost’, he still draws on said deceased astronauts. He 

constructs them as spaceflight’s martyrs who “made the ultimate sacrifice to further the cause of space 

exploration” (GB, #448f.), which is only consequential, as he did use before the West-mythology and 

the connected manifest destiny. In a very dramatic, figurative way, he claims that “[t]hey have taken 

their place in the heavens so that America can take its place in the stars” (GB, #t449f.). This is arguably 

the strongest, and most simplistic romanticism in all of the talks. He may be strongly heroising the dead 

astronauts, starkly resembling the heroisation of astronauts in pop culture, yet he does this on the basis 

of an imagined community. He invokes a ‘they-for-us’ kind of logic, to construct the narrative that 

America owes them to keep being spacefaring, and to even start being more, be even more daring and 

innovative, that is more explorative. The community narrative thus not only serves to explain and 

experience the past, but also to make the future understandable and easily attainable, allowing to emerge 

an inner telos of the overall endeavour. 

It is also this simplistic romance towards the future in space that receives approval by the 

audience, which applauds for example after the bold and self-confident statement that the US will travel 

"back to the moon; back to the future [...] and this time, back to stay" (GB, #402f.), or when announcing 

"a manned mission to Mars" (GB, #404f.). The audience also approved the statement that a next ‘giant 

leap’, as Armstrong did his, could not be taken "unless we take a single step today" (GB, #462) - again 

connecting a past incident, this time a quote, lineary extracting an inevitable and plausible future from 

it, while building on a shared, national pride of an imagined community that draws on that very same 

past. Lastly, the quite poetic and romantic depiction of the (in fact never realised) Space Station Freedom 

as an easily walkable "bridge between the worlds" (GB, #423f.) received benevolent applause, too (and, 

notably, three years after the Challenger destruction). Hence, the narrative strategy did in fact have the 

intended effects at least on the then present audience. However, primarily because of the planned Mars 

mission, effective narrative work was necessary, as Murray explains. Such a specific goal had not been 

proclaimed since the Apollo days. Hence, “Bush's efforts are an enormously important step towards an 

efficient and rewarding manned US space effort. He has put a lot of political muscle behind that 

commitment. It was not just a throw-away line in a speech” (Murray, 2016, p. 185). Albeit, as poetic 

and romantic as he has presented himself, as strategic and deliberate he was in that, naturally.  



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7.4. George W. Bush - Of the Human Nature and Our Limits to Dream 

“States are as the men, they grow out of human characters.” 

Plato (428/427-348/347 BC), philosopher 

7.4.1. Some Context 

As mentioned above, the policy introduced by George W. Bush in 2004 may be seen as being heavily 

influenced by the Columbia disaster, which took place about a year before the talk. Seen in context with 

the long-lasting changes the 9/11 attacks in 2001 have had on America, its self-image, once again the 

president could utilise spaceflight to communicate a larger message to the people. Expansive plans of 

moon stations in 2020 and manned missions deep into the solar system are indeed scientifically relevant, 

yet also constituted a tailored frame to make statements about very social and societal issues, too. 

7.4.2. The Human Nature, the American Nature, and Other Worlds 

As I have explained, this part is to show what sets the individual talk apart from its counterparts. 

In principle, the talk delivered by George W. is relatively average among the five included in this study. 

He raises all the central themes that his predecessors raised as well, while no theme occurred 

outstandingly more often in his talk than it did in the other talks. However, taking a closer look, 

differences become clear anyway. The first thing that makes this talk special is the circumstance, that 

he does not only characterise the American culture, but also does some work in characterising the 

general human nature on several occasions, most clearly at the following instance: 

“[T]he human thirst for knowledge ultimately cannot be satisfied by even the most vivid 

pictures, or the most detailed measurements. We need to see and examine and touch for 

ourselves. And only human beings are capable of adapting to the inevitable uncertainties posed 

by space travel” (GWB, #616ff.) 

Framing the human being in such a way nicely serves the purpose of justifying the exploration-

oriented policy. He stresses his explorative conception of human beings again later in the talk saying 

that “we know this: human beings are headed into the cosmos” (GWB, #623) , and again in the very last 

paragraph: “Mankind is drawn to the heavens for the same reason we were once drawn into unknown 

lands and across the open sea. [...] So let us continue the journey” (GWB, #664ff.), smoothly connecting 

the supposed human with the supposed American nature. Dramatically positioning this argument within 

the last sentences of the talk already shows this conceptualisation to arguably be the most tangible, 

specific reason for exploration that Bush presents throughout the entire talk. It becomes the main driver 

in the narrative of discovery that he tries to draw the audience into in the beginning of the talk: 

“[Meriwether and Lewis] made that journey in the spirit of discovery, to learn the potential of vast new 

territory, and to chart a way for others to follow” (GWB, #530ff.). Although “America has ventured 

forth into space for the same reasons [like Meriwether and Lewis explored unknown territory]” (GWB, 

#533), and although the “desire to explore and [to] understand is part of [the US American] character” 



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(GWB, #534f.), both is not rendered something that inherently sets the US apart from the rest of the 

world. Contrary to the other presidents, to Bush this spirit of discovery is not something particularly 

American, but essentially human, although bringing it up serves the same purpose: it naturalises 

spaceflight. The conquest of space is not something that can happen, but something that is to happen. 

For Bush, it seems, the US is not superior in a temperamental sense, but rather in the sense that especially 

the US simply is capable of living up to these human traits in space as well, and exceptional in the sense 

that the US is the not less, but also not more, than the herald of the supposedly coming “era of discovery” 

(GWB, #644), or as Kennedy termed it 40 years before, the “age of space” (JFK, #57). The Meriwether-

Lewis allegory can also be seen as perfect example of Bush’s generally rather egalitarian approach. 

Although he is projecting the ancient explorers ‘charting a way for others to follow’ on current 

proceedings, taking the somewhat same line of American superiority as the other presidents, he 

explicitly “invite[s] other nations to share the challenges and opportunities of this new era of discovery” 

(GWB, #643f.). Although America is constructed as destined to discover, destined to lead, the 

superiority is tied more to exceptionality than singularity. As rhetorically implied, others should follow 

the US beaten path, but not necessarily be outpaced and eventually left behind. Nevertheless, 

interpreting the Meriwether-Lewis metaphor as allegory is still one of the strongest incidents of meshing 

national/cultural American exceptionalism with the mythical representations of discovery. The allegory 

invokes a clear hierarchy of nations yet emphasises superiority more than singularity. 

Overall, however, George W. Bush seems to take a more humble, balanced stance when 

introducing his space policy. This observation gets strengthened by another observation, as coding 

showed. Namely, although indeed framing the American character in a favourable way, he does it 

slightly differently than the other presidents in yet another way. He is not adding something particular 

to his notion of Americanness but leaving out a notion that is expressed very frequently elsewhere: the 

inherent greatness of America and Americanness. This is not to say that Bush is belittling the US. He 

simply is less explicit in communicating the country’s greatness in comparison to other countries, other 

(sociotechnical) cultures, and their technological capabilities and motives. For instance, he claims 

NASA to have “increase[d] the sum of human knowledge” (GWB, #546), yet does not claim that other 

space agencies did not do that as well. He plans to establish “extended human presence” (GWB, #600) 

on the moon, not an American presence. He finds, that it is America who will “return with peace and 

hope for all mankind" (GWB, #597f.) to the moon, yet he does “invite other nations to share the 

challenges and opportunities” (GWB, #643f.), and stresses his strong approval of “the joint efforts of 

the Russians with our country to explore” (GWB, #517f.). A purely statistical perspective supports that 

point again. In the five talks together, ‘lead’ as single word or as part of a word, appears 21 times. Bush 

only uses it twice, and in both instances, the use is barely connected to the speech’s greater narrative or 

its protagonists. There is little doubt that at its core national interests are one driving force of all activities 



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in space, and that this is no different for the Bush administration. However, the point here is, that the 

narrative framing is considerably different. It is less US-focused, less aggressive, less competitive. 

As part of this line of argumentation, I want to briefly work out how George W. Bush tended to 

use expressions of exploration in a rather communal and collective sense. As a comparison: Kennedy 

spoke of American satellites that provided knowledge to humanity. Even Nixon spoke of a specifically 

American beach-head in the sky. George W. Bush’s father proudly mentioned the American flag on the 

moon. And, as we will see later on, Obama spoke of “strengthen[ing] America’s leadership here on 

Earth” (BO, #965f.). Bush, in 2003, however, tried to appeal to much greater collectives than that of the 

US. The list below shows the most striking incidents, as in all of these incidents, instead of speaking of 

‘man’ or ‘humanity’, he could have also used an American framing.  

a. “carry man forward into the universe, to gain a new foothold on the moon, and to prepare for 

new journeys to worlds beyond our own” (GWB, #508ff.) 

b. “no human being has set foot on another world” (GWB, #556) 

c. “the main purpose of this spacecraft will be to carry astronauts beyond our orbit to other worlds” 

(GWB, #586f.) 

d. “we will then be ready to take the next steps of space exploration: human missions to Mars and 

to worlds beyond” (GWB, #611ff.) 

e. “a new plan to explore space and extend a human presence across our solar system” (GWB, 

#561f.) 

After this thematic approach revealed the importance of these aspects, performance analysis can 

confirm them, showing that they mattered greatly not only to the president, but also to the audience. The 

audience applauded five times during the talk, with every instance being connected to one of the topics 

mentioned until now, although surely also due to the fact that the audience consisted of people working 

in the spaceflight industry, and thus being prone of having similarly spaceflight favourable perspectives. 

The particularly explicit claim that "we know this: human beings are headed into the cosmos" (GWB, 

#623f.) received applause as much as did the claim that "human missions to Mars and to worlds beyond" 

(GWB, #612f.) would take place in the foreseeable future. Likewise, notions of the American nature 

were explicitly approved as well, as for example the declaration, that "America will make those words 

[on returning to the moon] come true" (GWB, #597f.), was followed by a particularly long applause. 

The audience also supported the claim that the Columbia crew "did not turn away from the challenge 

and neither will we" (GWB, #662f.), a sentence that clearly implies and projects age-old ‘American 

values’ that I have discussed in the context of especially the myth of the West. To conclude this section, 

the American character is again constructed in a very positive, favourable way, and receives strong 

approval by the audience. However, contrary to the other talks, and as already put above, the American 



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ways are much stronger connected to how general human ways are constructed, showing less inherent 

deviance between them. 

7.4.3. High Hopes and the Obligation to Carry On 

As I have outlined above, in national political respects the undertone of this talk is calmer and 

less competitive. Instead of constructing the imaginary of a global conflict, or the idea of purely 

nationally driven rationales, Bush achieves to invoke an atmosphere of anticipation and primarily 

technological - not quite national - pride. This might seem an unlikely mixture considering that the talk 

took place just about one year after the loss of the space shuttle Columbia. But how does he exactly 

achieve this positive spirit despite of the ominous preconditions?  

First, just like his father did 15 years before him, he employs the narrative imperative of the 

‘spirit of discovery’, which he renders imperative through his conceptualisations of the human nature 

(see above). While George Bush explicitly mentioned Columbus twice, his son made reference to the 

Lewis and Clark expedition, which took place from 1804-1806: “[Lewis and Clark] made that journey 

in the spirit of discovery, to learn the potential of vast new territory, and to chart a way for others to 

follow” (GWB, #530ff), achieving the same message: the US is historically and hence temperamentally 

bound to ‘explore’. Second, he invokes technological pride and excitement, based on relevance. 

Spaceflight is “mighty important to the country and to the world” (GWB, #527f.). He proceeds claiming 

that “that quest [of spaceflight] has brought tangible benefits that improve our lives in countless ways” 

(GWB, #535f.), just as the Space Exploration Vehicle will be “the first spacecraft of its kind since the 

Apollo Command Module” (GWB, #587f.); a logical and compulsory sequel. Within that technological 

sequel (a few years later, Obama would use the expression of the ‘next chapter’), robots and probes are 

not just inanimate objects, but anthropomorphised “trailblazers - the advanced guard to the unknown” 

(GWB, #614), sending “spectacular images” (GWB, #616) back to earth. Third, to let everything appear 

close and urgent, he reminds the audience that “[a]t this very hour, the Mars Exploration Rover Spirit is 

searching for evidence of life beyond the Earth” (GWB, #553f.). Most prominently, then, the sixth 

sentence of the speech simply reads “America is proud of our space program” (GWB, #501), which 

even adds a communal touch to it. Without exceptions whatsoever, it is the entire country that is proud 

of its space programme. Fourth, drawing upon the technological pride and excitement, he stirs up high 

hopes. Under the precondition, that “much remains for us to explore and to learn” (GWB, #555), he 

frames the current investments as “only a beginning” (GWB, #653), assuring the audience that “along 

this journey we'll make many technological breakthroughs”. The evocation of well-grounded hope 

becomes most clear in a moment when his words become just as flowery as they become imprecise and 

vague: “We may discover resources on the moon or Mars that will boggle the imagination, that will test 

our limits to dream” (GWB, #627ff.). Regarding future benefits of spaceflight, general uncertainty turns 

into merely unassessable certainty, and something that must not be disregarded. At this point, the line 

of argument is already coherent and effectively functional. However, Bush again uses a similar narrative 



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strategy like his father. Namely, fifth and finally, he turns a complete and fatal failure into a reason. I 

have pointed out above the rather sad circumstance of the talk, that of the Columbia disaster that 

happened less than one year before the talk. As relevant as the issue actually might be perceived for 

American spaceflight, he essentially mentions Columbia only in the very end of the talk, turning the 

disaster into a reason to expand even more aggressively. Just like his father constructed it around the 

Challenger incident, George W. Bush narratively constructs the situation so that the US is owing more 

expansive spaceflight to the Challenger crew: “‘The legacy of Columbia must carry on - for the benefit 

of our children and yours.’ The Columbia's crew did not turn away from the challenge, and neither will 

we” (GWB, #660f.). The reason, thus, is not just a good reason, but a historically and (techno-)culturally 

grounded American obligation - a manifest destiny.  

7.5. Barack Obama - Back into the Future 

“Issues are never simple. 

One thing I'm proud of is that very  

rarely will you hear me simplify the issues.” 

Barack Obama, 44th president of the US 

7.5.1. Some Context 

This last talk took place in April 2010 in the assembly building of Kennedy Space Center (KSC), 

which was named after John Kennedy, whose seminal space talk was investigated above. The KSC and 

the associated Cape Canaveral Air Force Station is a central institution in American spaceflight, having 

been the launching place of all Apollo and space shuttle missions. Hence, the place was again intended 

to ‘speak’ as well, adding relevance and weight to what was to be communicated in the talk. One 

important political as well as economical and societal context was the financial crisis that had great 

impact not only on the US, but on global economies. It is a context that Obama himself even makes part 

of the speech. He delivers the longest of the five talks included here, the main reason being that he goes 

at length into NASA as an employer. He, hence, is addressing issues of people losing jobs due to the 

termination of the space shuttle programme the year after his talk, which is another central part of the 

talks’ initial situation. These issues are not particularly interesting in itself, yet they hint at something 

that Obama evokes more intensively than his predecessors: communality, with NASA being one 

communal collective. He addresses “worries of folks concerned not only about their own futures but 

about the future of the space program to which they’ve devoted their lives” (BO, #795ff.), and is later 

‘challenging’ NASA to ‘break barriers’, while adding that “I know you will [break those barriers], with 

ingenuity and intensity, because that’s what you’ve always done” (BO, #919f.). He invokes a culture 

within NASA as an entity, that is quite central to the talk and shows his sensitivity as towards his 

audience. 



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7.5.2. Lacking Vision: Shadows of the (Recent) Past 

After the two positive and solely encouraging talks of George Bush and George W. Bush, 

Obama in comparison performs a rhetorical sweeping blow, in the first half of the speech heavily 

criticising much of what had been done before, primarily by the governmental side of American 

spaceflight. A central theme of Obama’s talk is that of vision, and the question who has one, who does 

not, and what it is or should be. He is attesting especially the administration of George W. Bush and the 

consequential programme Constellation a general lack of vision. He depicts much of the rather recent 

past as being dominated by lack of direction, by inconsistency, and by sheer incompetence. I believe the 

following statement to be very central for the entire talk:  

“But we can also see it in other ways: in the reluctance of those who hold office to set clear, 

achievable objectives, to provide the resources to meet those objectives, and to justify not just these 

plans but the larger purpose of space exploration in the 21st century” (BO, #804ff.) 

Much is to be found in this statement alone, yet I want to focus on three aspects. First, as did 

the other presidents before, and as I will also discuss at length in chapter 7.6.6., he assumes a clear 

trajectory in spaceflight and its proceedings, that is supposedly fostered and eventually only enabled by 

sets of ‘clear objectives’. Second, by stating that it was American politics who failed to provide resources 

to follow a certain trajectory, he takes away any blame for past omissions from the entity that NASA 

and the spaceflight industry in general is constructed to be. Third, he addresses a ‘larger purpose of 

space exploration’, which previous administrations assumedly did not address sufficiently. These three 

steps constitute what I summarised under the term of the ‘shadows of the past’. The reason for the past 

administration(s) hindering progress in spaceflight is constructed in a simple way: “People in 

Washington [may be] driven sometimes less by vision than by politics” (BO, #800f.). While on the one 

hand, this proves my previous point of spaceflight indeed constituting a mere political instrument, on 

the other hand, at the same time it makes an interesting move in explicitly trying to decouple American 

spaceflight with the country's politics. Additionally, adding legitimisation, through positioning himself 

as someone who understands these tensions, Obama renders himself into an indulgent spokesperson for 

NASA, depicting it as optimally politico-independent institution, and makes that the basis for NASA 

being able to live up to a supposed vision again. He tries to strengthen this positioning by adding that 

his accusations are “not just my assessment; that’s also the assessment of a panel of respected non-

partisan experts” (BO, #878f.), which distributes responsibility for any future action. Regarding the 

vision in spaceflight, then, it is right that thematic analysis indeed showed ‘visions’ to be not as urgently 

and recurringly mentioned in other talks as in Obama’s. Nevertheless, to “live and work in space for 

longer periods of time more safely” (BO, #865f.) is a version of the sociotechnical imaginary of 

conquering space, that, in the end, is neither very specific, nor exclusively Obama’s. As I have shown 

above, it was already Nixon who aimed for “a real working presence in space” (BO, #223f.). George 

Bush imagined a “future where Americans and citizens of all nations will live and work in space” (BO, 



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#385), and George W. Bush proposed the “goal of living and working [in space] for increasingly 

extended periods” (BO, #594). Hence, the overall argumentation can to a large amount be seen as 

political self-legitimation and narrative strategy to strengthen his position. Additionally, it achieves to 

frame the Obama-shaped future in spaceflight as much less politically driven, but driven more by a 

general vision of the technoscientific future.  

However, it is for the most part the political sphere that Obama criticises. On several points he 

praises NASA’s skills and expertise, as he speaks of  “harness[ing] the ingenuity of [America’s] people” 

(BO, #763), finds that “our capabilities in space will continue to serve our society” (BO, #784) as a 

whole, and explains the purpose of the ISS to be “conducting advanced research that can help improve 

the daily lives of people” (BO, #825f.). Finally, he describes Apollo 11 as an “endeavor that pushed the 

boundaries of our knowledge, of our technological prowess, of our very capacity as human beings to 

solve problems” (BO, #987ff.). In the past, following Obama, the US was prevented from having a 

worthy spaceflight programme, an analysis starkly resembling how the Augustine Commission framed 

the outcome of its study that was conducted to inform the president about current affairs in spaceflight. 

It was published under the title Seeking a Human Spaceflight Program Worthy of a Great Nation 

(Review of U.S. Human Spaceflight Plans Committee/NASA, 2009). Now, speaking of ‘shadows of the 

past’ implies a present, and, even more so, a future. Of course, he depicts this future as well, introducing 

it in captivating words: “We want to leap into the future; we want major breakthroughs; a transformative 

agenda for NASA” (BO, #873f.) - a quote that leads to the second part of this individual analysis.  

7.5.3. Commitment and Society: The Grand Future 

There is one remark Obama makes the central prerequisite for future spaceflight: “The bottom 

line is nobody is more committed to manned space flight, to human exploration of space than I am” 

(BO, #885f.), a statement that he confirms again later on: “I am 100 percent committed to the mission 

of NASA and its future” (BO, #782f.). Part of reasoning his excitement about spaceflight is quite 

interesting, as it is private, driven by his very much personal emotions and memories: 

“I have been part of that generation so inspired by the space program. 1961 was the year of my 

birth - the year that Kennedy made his announcement. And one of my earliest memories is sitting 

on my grandfather’s shoulders, waving a flag as astronauts arrived in Hawaii” (BO, #764ff.) 

An interesting foundation for allocating billions of dollars, and also a stark contrast to how 

he  presents the recent past in spaceflight and spaceflight in society. It once was celebrated, glorious, 

now it is hindered and ineffective. Hence, he does not want to continue, but to lead NASA back into 

these glorious times again, as the narrative goes, although Obama expressed it a little more casual: “we 

can’t just keep on doing the same old things that we’ve been doing and thinking that somehow is going 

to get us to where we want to go” (BO, #887ff.). The shadows of the past want be overcome via 



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implementing vision and milestones. However, the perceived lack of vision lets arise the question: What 

“visions” does Obama now bring up to counterpart the supposed lack thereof?  

Obama’s vision is very much informed by conceptualisations of spaceflight and society, and 

how the former improves the latter: 

“Because broadening our capabilities in space will continue to serve our society in ways that 

we can scarcely imagine. Because exploration will once more inspire wonder in a new 

generation - sparking passions and launching careers. And because, ultimately, if we fail to 

press forward in the pursuit of discovery, we are ceding our future and we are ceding that 

essential element of the American character” (BO, #783-789) 

Despite his previous emphasis on ‘clear and achievable objectives’, these intentions may indeed 

be achievable, yet hardly clear, let alone verifiable. Contradicting the basic idea of objectives, he 

proceeds speaking about similarly unspecific rationales why spaceflight is a solution to societal issues, 

all being hardly controllable, reachable, or plannable. “Science [...] will garner tangible benefits, helping 

us to protect our environment for future generations” (BO, #821f.), the purpose of the ISS is described 

with “advanced research that can help improve the daily lives of people here on Earth, as well as testing 

and improving upon our capabilities in space” (BO, #825f.), and a new vehicle that three billion Dollar 

will be invested in will simply “transform not just where we can go but what we can do when we get 

there” (BO, #856f.). It is right, that Obama also puts out achievable milestones like a manned mission 

on an asteroid, and a manned mission to Mars in the 2030s. However, besides these two destinations, he 

does not provide any clear objectives, but promotes, as he himself puts it, generally “groundbreaking 

technologies” (BO, #863), that is basic research. It is also the scientific and explorational goals that 

ultimately are targeted in the name of societal progress: “For pennies on the dollar, the space program 

has fueled jobs and entire industries. [It] has improved our lives, advanced our society, strengthened our 

economy, and inspired generations of Americans” (BO, #974ff.). Obama trying to conceptually tie 

spaceflight closer to society than to politics becomes also clear when taking into consideration the 2009 

global circumstances. Through stressing that he intends to raise NASA’s budget while freezing many 

other institutional budgets, he strengthens the supposed societal impact of spaceflight for the entire 

country and turns an economic crisis into a plausible reason for explorational spaceflight. Especially 

him presenting ‘inspiring generations of Americans’ as a way to counterpart a massive crisis, is an 

argumentative logic supporting some formerly made claims of mine: spaceflight possesses 

communicative power, and it is ascribed with inherent societal and political weight, through carrying 

and reifying basic cultural values. 

Also, performance analysis perspectives are rewarding here, as they reveal the contradictions as 

well as the perfectly working rhetorical strategy of Obama. The depiction of him as a polit ical 

spokesperson who is giving freedom of research back to NASA seems to be accepted and embraced 



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judging by the audience applauding after both statements assuring Obama’s commitment. Just as 

reliably does the audience spend applause when any explorational goals and measure is announced, for 

example sending "many more astronauts to space in the next decade" (BO, #896f.), promising "future 

deep space missions" (BO, #849) and "increasing NASA’s budget" (BO, #809). Also, unspecific ‘major 

breakthroughs’ and the announcement of building a new heavy lift rocket are warmly approved. It shows 

that the talk, similarly to the others, is primarily conveying a general narrative, not trying to explain any 

details and specific reasons. To get general support for the new policy, its goals want to be embedded 

in larger social contexts. For that purpose, the talk lets arise an atmosphere of demanding optimism. 

Very symbolic for that atmosphere may stand the extremely determined face Obama puts on after boldly 

stating that “I expect to be around to see [a manned mission to Mars]” (BO, #913). Four times applause 

is given in the paragraph heading to that statement alone, the whole act is very much performed, lived 

even perhaps, together by audience and speaker, informed by one goal: to enable a US exceptional and 

superior future in space.  

7.6. Common Narratives: Why to Conquer Space 

“The human being is in the most literal sense a political animal,  

not merely a gregarious animal, but an animal which can  

individuate itself only in the midst of society.” 

Karl Marx (1818-1883), philosopher and economist 

In the previous five sections I have extensively laid out what sets the individual talks apart from 

each other, what makes each narrative special. However, not just reading between the lines could we 

see that despite being delivered over a time span of about five decades, the speeches are deeply and 

peculiarly connected not only by the overall topic and intent, but just as much by their individual 

conceptualisations, reasonings, and whole lines of argumentations. Hence, what I have worked out until 

now are not fundamentally different approaches to American spaceflight, but merely narrative variations 

and different emphases. Kennedy was focused on dualities, based very much on the political impetus of 

the Cold War, and its consequential space race. Nixon stressed that reducing costs was essential, but 

still emphasised America’s (ongoing) leadership in space. George Bush senior turned out to be a space 

romanticist, that honoured the past just as much as he anticipated the future. His son, George W. Bush, 

similarly driven by a spaceflight catastrophe like his father, found reason to conquer space not only in 

American, but in human nature. And even though Barack Obama found harsh words for past spaceflight, 

his subsequently presented vision was still based on very ‘American’ values and perspectives. This sixth 

section now aims at bringing together what was brought up strikingly frequently in each talk. I will 

again divide this section thematically (see Riessmann, 2005) into six different sections; unity, 

exceptionality, history, destiny, hierarchy, and trajectory. These six steps may be seen as constituting 

the overall narrative strategy to excite audiences for the idea of conquering space and embed the 

sociotechnical imaginary of conquering space in the American society. 



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7.6.1. Unity: The Spacefaring Nation 

NASA has “always reflected the finest values of our country - daring, discipline, ingenuity, and 

unity in the pursuit of great goals” (GWB, #498, my emphasis). Here, in his fourth sentence already, 

George W. Bush proclaims what is necessary for both, exploratory spaceflight, and an effective narrative 

to receive sufficient support for it: national unity. How this unity gets evoked at other occasions, too, 

and why this is a plain necessary strategy, is discussed in this section. The most often used, and in a way 

at the same time most obvious and subtle rhetoric means, is the presidents almost always speaking of 

we, or of us, of the one community that everybody can refer to and draw on. Practically, it is neither 

Kennedy, nor NASA, deciding to ‘go to the moon’, but ‘We choose to go to the moon’. Each of the 

presidents used very similar narrative tactics of mobilisation through unification. Nixon, the exception, 

for example, indeed began his talk saying that “I have decided” (RN, #191) to build the shuttle, yet also, 

he, in his last sentences, demanded that “we must sail, and not drift, nor lie at anchor” (RN, #269). 

George Bush assumes that “like Columbus, we dream of distant shores we've not yet seen” (GB, #451f.), 

and his son, George W. Bush, felt that “we have undertaken space travel because the desire to explore 

and understand is part of our character” (GWB, 533ff.), and that conquering space “lifts our national 

spirit” (GWB, #666). Obama, finally, set about meeting his goals “as a nation” (BO, #749f.), and 

announced that “we will push the boundaries not only of where we can go but what we can do” (BO, 

#958f.) - it is not about what robots or astronauts do, but what we do there. And these are just some 

examples. In all talks, the currently about 330 Mio. citizens of the US become rhetorically homogenised, 

and one entity, one very much definable public to speak to. And although this study uses qualitative 

methods, one may, rather anecdotally, refer to one simple quantitative measure here, too. Namely, the 

word we appears a whole 200 times in all talks, about 50 times it is referred to an undefined us, 

strengthening my point of the strong feeling of community and togetherness that is evoked. Additionally, 

unity through greatness is often being connected with the place the talk is given from, respectively at. 

As Barker finds, “[l]eaders surround themselves with objects which ‘acknowledge’ their importance” 

(2001, p. 53), which is also used by all presidents, perhaps most vividly by president Kennedy: “We 

meet at a college noted for knowledge, in a city noted for progress, in a state noted for strength” (JFK, 

#9f.), a statement that achieves to evoke unity through locality, while speaking to a factually intrinsically 

disconnected crowd, that is even more disconnected from the rest of the country’s citizens. Still, they 

all become one unit through relating the smaller to the larger circles; the college with the city with the 

country - narratively becoming nothing but one entity with an intrinsic logic. The talks obviously try to 

make people wish or feel good about belonging to something, that is the United States of America. This 

belonging becomes possible through the evocation of an imagined community whose members share a 

unified collective identity (see also Yuval-Davis, 2006, p. 204f.). 

 For unity, a special role do those incidents play, in which acute crises are considered, which was 

particularly the case for George Bush and George W. Bush. Against the backdrop of these incidents, the 



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presidents evoke something that goes even deeper than sheer community. I already hinted at above (see 

section 7.3.), how George Bush made the Challenger disaster appear like an awful family drama. The 

astronauts are portrayed as having died for all other Americans, an argumentative strategy that George 

W. Bush copied: “The Columbia's crew did not turn away from the challenge, and neither will we” 

(GWB, 662f.). Following the point, the dead crew members were essentially convertible with ‘regular’ 

citizens; an ‘it-could-have-been-you!’ logic. What emerges, is not only community, but fraternity (see 

Anderson, 2006, p. 7) between people who do not know each other at all. The fraternity, the imagined 

and inherent human closeness, is rendered the cause of basic values that all Americans supposedly 

possess. All are the same, were the same, and will be the same, everybody is united under the stars and 

stripes. In other words, the talks evoke a strong ‘ethnocultural homogeneity’, a term I also lend from 

Anderson (2006, p. 95). In essence, speaking about spaceflight does not mean to speak about a few 

individuals going to space, but to draw the picture of one entire spacefaring nation. Additionally, it is 

constructed a concept of an inherently logical home, of heimat, that it is worth to work for, and 

sometimes even worth to die for (see Bush’s Challenger reference, George W. Bush’s Columbia 

reference, and principally also Kennedy’s Mallory reference, as Mallory died on Mount Everest). 

Concluding this section, we can state that the presidents talk about the country’s activities like 

the country was one completely homogenic construct, one entity, one unit. Now, as we will see, the five 

presidents ascribe this unit of the United States and its people with values and treats that pop culture 

likewise is ascribing astronauts with. Put the other way round: astronauts come to embody 

Americanness. To illustrate my own narrative here, I will now characterise and describe the self-

understanding of the US that the presidents undertake by characterising a fictive person, an astronaut, 

using it as a metaphor of how the US is constructed as one single character. I will call it the US-tronaut. 

What emerges, is the said very consistent picture of the US, that unity lends eventual substance to. 

7.6.2. Exceptionality: Valuing the United States of America 

To begin with, this is not a piece of work to be located in American studies. Some literature 

from that field provided me with valuable insights, but this work does not claim to find out who, what, 

and how the United States of America are. What I can and will do, however, is to see how the United 

States are depicted and valued within the scope of my material, in which a great number of incidents 

occurred, containing traces of how the US is constructed by the very person who was, at the time of 

speaking, the US’ highest representative. The words used to describe the US-tronaut are partly even 

identical, and their root is the same - it is American exceptionalism. Every talk contains traces of it, 

some of them tiny and subtle, others strong and perfectly unambiguous, easily traceable back to classic 

American themes and myths. Remarkably congruent are the presidents’ concepts of origin and 

inferences of that identity, too. In the following, some of my sentences may sound excessive or sarcastic 

even, yet the entire paragraph is nothing but a literal accumulation of presidential American self-



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representations in the talks. To clarify how this characterisation is indeed directly derived from the talks, 

I have put in italics the words and expressions de facto used in the talk. 

The carefully assembled ‘US-tronaut’ perceives himself as fundamentally superior, and 

superior to any person sharing his near and far surroundings, and especially to any person sharing his 

occupation. What he does, he always does to the fullest, with remarkable discipline and perseverance, 

inspired by his deeply inherited trait to never rest, but to move forward, and not letting progress come 

to a halt. The progress he ensures is guided by his general ingenuity, he is always being ready for new 

adventures. Ambition, paired with courage, daring, boldness, and the willingness to take great risks, are 

some of the deepest, and finest values that drive him on his personal pathway to the stars. Being first is, 

what he aims at, always. He unquestionably achieves this through great commitment when facing the 

challenges that he regularly poses to himself, reaffirming creativity and various other unparalleled 

capabilities. It was his knowledge alone, and his sheer technological prowess, that made and keep him 

being the best in what he is doing, and also made him the richest individual of them all. What he dreams, 

he does, whatever ability is needed. He will learn and grow with the challenge, as, ultimately, he is the 

embodiment of mental and physical strength. In all that, though, the US-tronaut takes pride in his 

confidence to always follow quite noble intentions. Among them is the discovery not only of new 

knowledge, the urge to understand nature as it is, but also to ensure peace for him and everyone else. 

Although interested in cooperation, he will always be palpably greater than any counterpart, and 

asserting to leadership is always priority. Subsequently, it is clear that only the US-tronaut who can 

ensure true peace. Others need him. Hence, whatever he tackles, he can be confident about his eventual 

superiority not only capability-wise, but also morally-wise. However, it is always only going to be a 

carefully regimented share, as the US-tronaut’s thinking is not limited to the present, but also includes 

the future. And in this future, he will, just as he does today, lead, by right, by destiny. His very character 

does not allow for anything else, aiming lower would simply mean ceding essential elements of his 

character, hence factual self-deceit. Meanwhile, he still takes pride in his openness, and how his 

approach to life makes him utterly free. In consequence, through being superior but still being open and 

caring for the less able and differently minded, letting them also profit from his noble efforts, he 

perceives himself unquestionably on moral high ground. Living a life following his values, he is sure 

of, maybe dangerous and hazardous, but the world’s greatest experiment in freedom. From his 

viewpoint, he has every reason to be more than proud of himself. After all, he and his traits are but the 

best of all mankind - the world’s best hope. 

Two specific quotes may round up this section. George Bush in 2004 vividly depicts how 

American exceptionalism is used in the talks, and thematically related to spaceflight: 

“To this day, the only footprints on the moon are American footprints. The only flag on the 

moon is an American flag. And the know-how that accomplished these feats is American know-



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how. What Americans dream, Americans can do. [And] Space Station Freedom [will be] an 

investment in the growth, prosperity, and technological superiority of our nation” (GWB, #416-

425) 

At the heart of it, however, is NASA, carefully weaved in into the narrative of communality. 

NASA is constructed as not just some governmental research institution but is rendered the nucleus of 

the US as one spacefaring nation, and thus one nucleus of the American identity. An interpretation that 

Barack Obama put into his own words in 2009: 

“For me, the space program has always captured an essential part of what it means to be an 

American - reaching for new heights, stretching beyond what previously did not seem possible. 

And so, as President, I believe that space exploration is not a luxury, it’s not an afterthought in 

America’s quest for a brighter future - it is an essential part of that quest” (BO, #767-772) 

Throughout the talks, a very specific Americanness gets constructed, grounded on values that, at least 

within the context of spaceflight, do not vary much over the course of the time span my study covers. 

Especially exploratively used and manned rockets become elevated from being - admittedly quite 

sophisticated - technological devices to vivid technological expressions of the supposed national 

character of the USA.  

7.6.3. History: The Traditionalisation of Values 

Any character, individual or national, needs a past that formed it. But how far does one have to 

go back in time to find the origins of one’s nature? In this study, I am interested in the American 

character, how it is depicted and grounded in the case of the US presidents promoting their space 

policies. In that specific context, origins of the US national character are constructed to lie back as far 

as 500 years in the past. It derives from a history that is rendered linear and plausible, illustrated by 

many past ‘American’ heroes. Many glimpses in recent and far away pasts are undertaken in the talk, 

and a number of historical figures are introduced and narratively utilised. Past developments are 

reconstructed and then projected into the present and future.  

Two of the five speakers already draw on history regarding the locality of their talk. George 

Bush mentioned the National Air and Space Museum, keeping the “testaments to Apollo and to what 

came before - the chariots of fire flown by Armstrong, Yeager, Lindbergh, and the Wrights” (GB, 

#368ff.), and the National Archives “preserve[ing] the founding documents of the idea that made [the 

United States] possible” (GB, 371ff.). Obama referred to the KSC, stating that “[i]t was from here that 

NASA launched the missions of Mercury and Gemini and Apollo. It was from here that Space Shuttle 

Discovery [...] carried the Hubble Telescope into orbit, allowing us to plumb the deepest recesses of our 

galaxy” (BO, #728ff.). That circumstance may already hint at what table 3 and four finally reveal; 

historical references are pivotal for the president’s lines of argumentation favouring the conquest of 



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space. It shows in (partially disputable) chronological order
4
 a timeline of all historical references 

included in the five talks. Obviously, the individual categories for Type and Context are far from being 

absolute. They overlap and are inherently interdependent, yet provide a first glimpse into what contexts 

the talks provide: 

Table 2: Color codes explaining tables three and four. 

Reference Type Context Presidents 

General Temporal Reference American Kennedy (JFK) 

Invention/technical development Global Nixon (RN) 

Discovery 
 

Bush (GB) 

Human icon(s) 
 

W. Bush (GWB) 

Specific moment or time span 
 

Obama (BO) 

  
Multiple 

 

Table 3: Time specific historical references made in the talks. 

Type American? President 

Stone age, usage of animal skins 
  

Writing and invention of the wheel 
  

Foundation of Christianity 
  

Leonardo da Vinci   
 

Printing press 
  

Christoph Columbus 
 

GB, GWB, BO 

William Bradford/Plymouth colony 
  

US founding documents 
  

Newton/gravity 
  

William Bradford/Plymouth Bay Colony 
  

Industrial Revolution 
  

Louisiana purchase 
  

Meriwether Lewis and William Clark 
  

                                                   
4 Primarily when it comes to processes rather fixed dates, the exact order may be disputable. That, however, is 

not of much interest for the points I try to take from it.  



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Oliver Wendell Holmes 
  

Steam engine 
  

Electric light 
  

Telephone 
  

Automobile 
  

William Jennings Bryan 
  

Wright brothers 
 

JFK, GB, GWB 

Penicillin 
  

George Mallory/Attempted Mt. Everest ascend 
  

Charles Lindbergh 
  

Television 
 

RN, JFK 

Nuclear power 
  

Chuck Yeager 
  

Sputnik 
  

Eisenhower/NASA foundation 
  

President Kennedy/moon talk 
  

Project Gemini 
  

Space Race 
 

JFK, GB, GWB, BO 

John Glenn flight/Project Mercury 
 

JFK, BO 

Apollo programme 
 

RN, GB, GWB, BO 

The Apollo 11 crew 
 

GB, BO 

Moon landing 
  

Neil Armstrong 
  

Buzz Aldrin 
 

GB, BO 

Michael Collins 
  

Eugene Cernan 
  

Michael Jackson 
  

Challenger crew 
 

GB, BO 

Columbia crew 
  



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Table 4: Not time specific references made in the talks. 

Unspecific references American? President 

US westward expansion 
  

The Oregon Trail 
  

Weather forecasting 
 

RN, GB 

Communication 
  

Computing 
  

Rescue technology 
  

Robotics 
  

Electronics 
  

Satellite communication 
 

RN, GB 

GPS system 
 

RN, GB 

Imaging in CAT scanners 
  

MRI machines 
  

Monitoring nature resources 
  

Pollution control 
  

 

The length of this list alone can tell us about the importance that is given to historical context 

when presidents talk about spaceflight. The presidents and everyone who was involved in the process 

of crafting the talks could have used any words they wanted to, they could have spoken solely about the 

future. But even when considering the past, they could have included any past incident. Yet the table 

shows what the presidents considered relevant, something Asdal and Moser (2012) called ‘contexting’. 

It is this specific context they want to see the imaginary of conquering space embedded in, and it appears 

consistently over each of the five talks. Contexting never happens by chance, but it is something deeply 

deliberate. Hence the question arises: What do all these incidents stand for? Why is the (far away) past 

so important in political considerations about spaceflight in the (far away) future? 

To find out about the why, we shall first look into the how. In the individual discussion of George 

Bush’ talk, I introduced the idea of simplifying romanticism. This narrative technique, essentially the 

deliberate and purposeful reconstruction of the past, perhaps becomes most obvious in the cases of 

Christopher Columbus and the myth of the West (see chapter 2.5.1.). First, although Columbus might 



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indeed have “dream[ed] of distant shores” (GWB, #451), today, historians have come to know that his 

intentions were not all excessively romantic and fundamentally noble. Nevertheless, for the purpose of 

the talk, the ‘good’ Columbus wins over the ‘bad’ Columbus (see Paul, 2014). He finds his way into the 

talks, becomes a reason for American identity, and thus for ‘conquering space’. Something very similar 

applies to the myth of the American West. George W. Bush, even intermeshing both myths, said that 

“[m]ankind is drawn to the heavens for the same reason we were once drawn into unknown lands and 

across the open sea” (GWB, #664f.). Regarding the ’unknown lands’, however, he completely conceals 

the at least very questionable happenings taking place during that westward movement, primarily 

concerning the confrontation of expansionists with native American people. Just like it is the case with 

Columbus, for the sake of cultural plausibility, and probably against better judgement, the past gets 

bended. What counts is the positive construction of the local cultural frame; appropriate is, what 

endorses the imagined community’s’ noble values. Anything that opposes these values may simply be 

ignored for the sake of the argument’s plausibility.  

That being said, many other direct quotes now aid us in finding out in detail why history matters 

to the narrative so much. As the section’s title already implied, I found the principal intention of 

including history to be the grounding of cultural identity. Ascribing historical events and figures with 

supposed American values lends linearity and thus an inner logic to them. In essence, it traditionalises 

Americanness. Connecting history to identity, George Bush saw “a monument to our nation's 

unparalleled ability to respond swiftly and successfully to a clearly stated challenge” (GB, #358ff.) in 

the Apollo programme. The work of one governmental institution, by then done about two decades ago, 

is not only constructed as a success of a past version of the nation, but just as well as something that 

Americans today can and should be proud of. That invitation includes “those who were not yet born or 

then too young to recall” (GB, #328), as they, too, are asked to “join us in a great dream, an American 

dream, a dream without end” (GB, #329f.). Values are passed on to them, they are part of the inevitable 

American cultural heritage, resulting in a dream, that is to be dreamed out of tradition (on the ‘invention 

of tradition’ see Hobsbawm and Ranger, 1983). A similar approach is taken specifically when talk is 

about what I summarised under inventions and technical developments (see table 1). Although some of 

the inventions and moments are not specifically American and are not always directly constructed to be 

so, they always embody central American values reproduced in the talks. Kennedy, for example, used 

George Mallory’s ‘Because [Mt. Everest] is there!’ as one of his central arguments to conquer space, 

although Mallory was an Englishman. However, with his attempted Everest ascent, he can still serve as 

an endorser of American values, despite his English descent. He perfectly embodied the characteristics 

of the timeless imagined American community. The National Air and Space Museum, that shows many 

artefacts of spaceflight history, is, by George Bush, literally described as “a symbol of American courage 

and ingenuity” (GB, #309f.). Ultimately, as it became more and more established over time, spaceflight 

itself became traditionalised, too: George W. Bush, despite the backlashes of the Columbia disaster, said 



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that “America has ventured forth into space for the same reasons. We have undertaken space travel 

because the desire to explore and understand is part of our character“ (GWB, #533). The traditionalised 

identity leads to traditionalised practices, in turn making any future undesirable, in which space is not 

conquered by American efforts. 

When Obama, for example, talked about the moon landing, he claimed that it “wasn’t just the 

greatest achievement in NASA’s history - it was one of the greatest achievements in human history” 

(BO, #989ff.). This could have been said about almost every other incident in table 3. In the end, all 

historical references simply substantiate Americanness. Although some of the past heroes might have 

lived hundreds of years ago, and although also some of the incidents occurred just as long ago, the values 

they embodied endured through time. My first early conclusion here, is, that the historical references all 

in all convey three basic themes: ingenuity, progress, and courage. All of them are themes constructed 

to be deeply American. But it gets even more interesting when looking into what this historically 

grounded Americanness is again turned into. The specific figures and incidents achieve to turn an 

arbitrary selection of reinterpreted past events into a linear array of interrelated and interdependent 

moments - exactly what Commager called the construction of a ‘usable past’. I posed before the question 

why history is such a central theme in the talks concerned with events up to several decades in the future. 

The answer is simple. The argumentative strategy, namely, is to turn a shared history into an inevitable 

legacy, which has to be fulfilled. From history emerges destiny, which is what the following section will 

examine. 

7.6.4. Destiny: Expanding into the Future 

“Space: the final frontier.” 

First words of the Star Trek title sequence  

We do not know if Anderson had in mind specifically the US when originally writing his book 

in 1983, yet what he wrote about nationalism seems tailored for the United States: “It is the magic of 

nationalism to turn chance into destiny” (2006, p. 12, my emphasis). We have discussed before the 

meaning of the (manifest) destiny in the American context, and indeed, the national identity in the talks, 

that is derived from a plausible history, is in fact turned into a future- and action-oriented destiny. 

“Standing between these twin legacies, is a fitting place to look forward to the future” (GB, #373f.), 

found president George Bush, making clear his destiny-evoking temporal inferences, something that he 

is far from alone with, as I will show in the following. 

Already president Kennedy claimed that “[t]his country was conquered by those who moved 

forward—and so will space” (JFK, #42f.), laying out the conceptual foundations of necessities for 

progress. George W. Bush, about 30 years later, took very much the same line, although relying more 

on naturalisation than on compulsion. He claimed that all people are ‘dreaming of distant shores’, and 

became quasi complemented by his son about 15 years later, who explained to the audience that 



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“[m]ankind is drawn to the heavens for the same reason we were once drawn into unknown lands and 

across the open sea” (GWB, #664f.). The common national character gets re-invoked, and action lineary 

derived. Without an exception, the presidents summon a national cultural “destiny to strive, to seek, to 

find” (GB, #452f.), which is rendered being an unquestionable, natural thing, since “the desire to explore 

and understand is part of our character” (GWB, #534f.). This general idea is sometimes specifically 

American, sometimes generally human, yet a natural trait either way. Even Nixon, proposing goals not 

as explorative as the other four presidents, drew on American author Oliver Wendell Holmes Senior 

(1809-1894) to convey the same message of historically and culturally grounded compulsory 

participation in international future spaceflight undertakings: “We must sail sometimes with the wind 

and sometimes against it, [...] but we must sail, and not drift, nor lie at anchor” (RN, #269f.). 

All these instances connect past and future in a peculiar way; history is first tied to identity, then 

turned into an (American) legacy to be fulfilled, implying an inescapable obligation for American 

citizens. Underlying is always the same undisputed optimism that George Bush expressed in the simplest 

way: “[W]e have never lost pressing the limits of our frontiers” (GB, #391f.), “and must never stop 

seeking distant frontiers” (GB, #447). He willingly and completely denies any possible repercussions of 

expansionist behaviour and normalises it by traditionalising and romanticising it. Rocketry, then, is now 

merely the technological means to take up again the age-old theme of expansion, of ‘pressing frontiers’, 

justified by the national and manifest destiny. Numerous incidents, as shown, imply the explicit 

exceptionality of the US, and the implicit technocultural obligations that it entails; “Destiny is not a 

matter of chance; it is a matter of choice. It is not a thing to be waited for; it is a thing to be achieved” 

(GB, #412ff.) said George Bush, quoting William Jennings Bryan. Finally, introducing his talk in 2009, 

president Obama said, that “[h]ere at the Kennedy Space Center we are surrounded by monuments and 

milestones of those contributions” (BO, #727f.), constructing a simple, yet demanding self-

understanding; just as the Americans before them, today’s and future Americans must follow their 

inherited destiny, and produce monuments and milestones themselves - though, this time, in space. 

As may have become clear already, it is also the plain language that is reminiscent of that within 

the manifest destiny, including the myth of the West and the Columbus myth, as for instance the first 

three talks included the metaphor to ‘sail’ in(to) space, revealing five overall occurrences. Nixon 

described spaceflight as a ‘voyage’, and in addition, George Bush wanted to “build new ships to carry 

man forward into the universe” (GB, #507f.), another striking connection to the American mythology 

that is carried by traditionalised images of discovery, conquering, and progress. Interesting is 

particularly Kennedy’s use. “As we set sail we ask God's blessing on the most hazardous and dangerous 

and greatest adventure on which man has ever embarked” (JFK, #181f.), as the same could have been 

and may well be said about any explorative manned mission to follow. The destiny lives on, and will 

keep on living, even if Mars is reached by humans one day. The idea of the expansionist destiny is itself 

potentially infinitely expandable and tailored to give substance to the idea of ‘carrying man forward into 



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the universe’. For political narratives, the past has to be constructed in ‘careful, general detail’, and so 

it is for the future. Conquering space is a goal specific enough to be followed by political and 

technoscientific action, yet unspecific enough to deny its worthwhileness with certainty. Through 

romance and simplicity, the future as well as the past become something incontestably.  

To conclude this section, in the talks the supposed American identity is depicted as deeply 

exceptional, holding on to the overarching idea of American exceptionalism. This exceptional self-

understanding and self-depiction are being carried by ideas of cultural homogeneity, and illustrated by 

American mythology, cornerstones of the inevitability that the resulting American destiny is laden with. 

Serving its rather specific purpose, in the talks, spaceflight is presented not only as appropriate, but as 

unavoidable technological means to live up to the inherited national destiny and desire to expand. It is 

the proper way to prove to others and itself, how America is exceptional.  

Now, in the last sections we explored how four themes in the talks were apparent; national unity, 

national values, its historical grounding, and the inferred national destiny. All this does not only say 

something about the US, but also about how the US presidents position the country in the world, 

continually invoking the fifth common aspect I want to explore: hierarchy. 

7.6.5. Hierarchy: America in the World 

“It is the policy of the United States to seek and support the growth of democratic movements 

and institutions in every nation and culture, with the ultimate goal of ending tyranny in our world” is a 

quote of George W. Bush from his 2005 inauguration speech (Inaugural Address, 2005). However, it 

could probably have come from any other president as well, and quickly reveals a much-discussed part 

of American self-understanding: the tendency to develop a protective instinct out of the perceived 

cultural superiority that we have already discussed at length. This superior self-understanding, rooted in 

American exceptionalism, can be seen as one root of today’s postcolonial circumstances. President 

Obama may illustrate the overarching postcolonial thinking. He first normalised a hierarchical mindset 

in Kennedy’s era: “Americans were dumbfounded [by Sputnik]. The Soviets, it was perceived, had taken 

the lead in a race for which we were not yet fully prepared” (BO, #743f.). He confirmed the legitimate 

US expectations to, first, always be prepared for (technological) races, and, second, always lead them. 

Kennedy, in his talk during the politically heated space race, actually had one quote that induces cultural 

hierarchy and perceived superiority of values or motives in the most unambiguous way: 

“We set sail on this new sea because there [are] new rights to be won, and they must be 

 won and used for the progress of all people. For space science, like nuclear science and 

 all technology, has no conscience of its own. Whether it will become a force for good or 

 ill depends on man, and only if the United States occupies a position of preeminence 



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 can we help decide whether this new ocean will be a sea of peace or a new terrifying 

 theater of war” (JFK, #69ff.) 

I have mentioned in the individual analysis the social constructivism enclosed in this quote, and 

it linking the social in an interesting way with the national, valuing different nations and cultures very 

dualistically; the good and the bad; the theatre of war and the sea of peace; the US and everyone else 

(although in Kennedy’s situation, primarily the US and the Soviet Union). Even Nixon, although he 

reminded the audience of “the imperatives of universal brotherhood and global ecology” (RN, #262f.), 

and proposed “learning to think and act as guardians of one tiny blue and green island in the trackless 

oceans of the universe” (RN, #263f.), is far from being a perfect exception of hierarchical invocations. 

He still constructs an exceptional US, naturally spearheading others, as he concludes his talk stating that 

spaceflight is “a voyage the United States of America has led and still shall lead” (RN, #271f.). One 

might think that particularly Kennedy’s above quote was heavily informed by the space race, and that, 

as time went on, rhetorics would become less hierarchy-inducing. And yet, the opposite is the case. 

Although perhaps a little subtler, George Bush for example took a very similar avenue, claiming that 

“[Meriwether and Lewis] made that journey in the spirit of discovery, [...] and to chart a way for others 

to follow” (GB, #530ff., my emphasis) - just what the US is to do in space. The exceptional self-image 

of the country, its history, and thus its future leads to a metaphor in which the imagined US community 

exercises power by taking decisions and actual steps for others, instead of with them. This very strong 

demarcation of who is good, rightful, and able, ultimately re-invokes the century-old idea of the US 

being ‘the world’s best hope’. The original idea of the world’s best hope was reduced on the US political 

system. Today, however, it is technopolitical leadership, that is being technologically superior to all 

other nations in space, that becomes the driving force to speak of the world’s best hope, and also the 

means to represent and embody that (not further defined) hope. As Kennedy said: “[O]nly if the United 

States occupies a position of pre-eminence can we help decide whether this new ocean will be a sea of 

peace or a new terrifying theater of war” (JFK, #73ff.). Moreover, it is not just that this unsolicited 

assumption of responsibility is seen as natural through superiority. It is also conveyed as undoubtedly 

righteous. The first humans on the moon, the Apollo 11 crew left a plaque there, which reads “Here men 

from the planet Earth first set foot upon the moon. July 1969 A.D. We came in peace for all mankind” 

(Boen, 2009, my emphasis). In the end, these words may be taken in the most literal way: Americans 

had come to the moon for the others, in their mind embodying “the best of all mankind” (JFK, #82f.). 

All this, though, does not follow the classic colonial scheme. After all, in space there does not 

exist any culture to be oppressed by another, invading culture. To use Bush’s inauguration talk; there is 

no ‘tyranny’ to end in space. The hierarchies are evoked and lived differently. They come to be not by 

exploiting, but by excluding. What the talks obviously declare a goal is the conquering and establishing 

of new lebensraum through making space habitable. NASA’s goal is declared to make people to “live 

safely beyond the Earth for extended periods of time, ultimately in ways that are more sustainable an d 



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even indefinite” (BO, #962f., my emphasis). This conquering yet does not happen in particularly 

democratic and equal ways. The US-focused spirit becomes very clear by Barack Obama’s rationale to 

“not only extend humanity’s reach in space [but to] strengthen America’s leadership here on Earth” 

(BO, #964f.). With NASA as institutional, sociotechnical agent, the nation comes together under the 

stars and stripes, to do good for the world through doing good for itself. Or, as George Bush put it, to 

‘chart a way for others to follow’ - instead of walking the path together. Hence, the (post-)colonialism 

can well be observed in both, earlier and current approaches to spaceflight, perhaps most vividly 

apparent in the American flag that was put in the moon’s soil in 1969. Especially when taking into 

consideration that they had ‘come for all mankind’, as Armstrong said on the moon, the astronauts could 

have left there any other object (or flag), yet it was an American flag that they planted there. And what 

is a flag rammed into untouched soil a sign for, if not for at a least a discreet claim of ownership and 

thoughts of having conquered something for a specific nation? Obama, in his talk, asked why to do 

spaceflight at all, providing the answer himself; spaceflight is “not an afterthought in America’s quest 

for a brighter future - it is an essential part of that quest” (BO, #771f.). What that ‘quest’ means in and 

for the community of states, however, is neglected, subordinated under the impetus of American 

progress. 

Decades after colonialism was (officially, or formally) brought to an end, the enforcement of 

own values, narratives, and rationales on other cultures lives on, and the speeches introducing space US 

policies are, at times, very ‘postcolonial moments’ (see Verran, 2002). However, in spaceflight, the issue 

is not exactly exploitation, but exclusion. The US approach to spaceflight proposed in the talks is 

actively silencing voices of other nations and cultures. Although claiming democracy to be one seminal 

part of the US, and although the origin of the idea of ‘exceptionalism’ is even to be found in the 

American interpretation of democracy, democracy seems to lose value for the US once low earth orbit 

is left behind. 

7.6.6. Trajectory: Of Logical Paths 

We have discussed already before the plausible history that is constructed around the nation as 

such. The last common narrative within the talks that I want to touch upon is that of the stable and 

unalterable trajectory, which not only US spaceflight, but the entire US is supposedly following from 

its founding days on. Literally describing the history of NASA as a ‘story’, Obama announced that 

“today, I’d like to talk about the next chapter in this story” (BO, #773, my emphasis). Time itself, and 

all the sociotechnical developments taking place within them, add up to one stringent storyline, in which 

everything has its own, specific, very much established and adamant place. In terms of traceability and 

reasonableness, history and future become symmetric. While the past is thought to be merely the 

ideological origin, the present is upvalued to constitute the factual origin of all that is to happen after it, 

dictating the future in (careful, but general) detail. As George Bush put it: “We cannot take the next 

giant leap for mankind tomorrow unless we take a single step today” (GB, #461f.), leading every 



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president to the same desired future, namely one in which the US ‘leads’. The planned ‘ramping up of 

capabilities’ “[i]s how we will ensure that our leadership in space is even stronger in this new century 

than it was in the last” (BO, #928f.). Through this thinking and argumentation, spaceflight is objectified 

and, as a dynamic system, very much simplified. Through ideas of trajectory, spaceflight becomes 

something plannable, and hence culture becomes plannable, controllable and expressible through future 

technological means. These means, however not existent yet, are constructed to be perfectly foreseeable.  

Springing from this thinking, timeframes can be chosen exclusively to evoke urgency. 

Kennedy’s goal, for example, was to send men to the moon “before the decade is out” (JFK, #162f.), 

flattening out any possible drawbacks in that given timeframe. Then, it worked. But even as time went 

on, and goals became more and more diverse, dependent on more and more factors, the timeframes and 

temporal reasonings remained simple, and very much plannable. Kennedy, for instance, went back far 

in time, and included several past developments to convey a logical future that was to be decided on 

today:  

“Those who came before us made certain that this country rode the first waves of the industrial 

revolution, the first waves of modern invention, and the first wave of nuclear power, and this 

generation does not intend to founder in the backwash of the coming age of space” (JFK, #54ff.) 

For George Bush, ‘entering a new century’ is an actual reason to undertake something. Not 

having developed an explorational vehicle ‘for almost 25 years’ means that ”it is time for America to 

take the next steps” (GB, #560). ‘Entering the next century’ is something to prepare for, chiefly by 

progressing in spaceflight technology. This way, very much constructed points in time, time spans and 

rhythmicities are turned into specific and logical reasons to take great investments, fuelled by thinking 

in terms of a traceable temporal trajectory. The basic temporal paradigm when introducing space policies 

may be expressed best by president Obama, who closed his speech with the following words: “[T]he 

question for us now is whether that was the beginning of something or the end of something. I choose 

to believe it was only the beginning” (BO, #992ff.). The now, embedded in past and future, is always 

the beginning, bearing the future, allowing it to gain momentum through simple ideological, temporal 

logic, and urgency. 

These techniques now allow the speakers to construct very credible versions of the future, as 

objectifying time also includes objectifying and principally operationalising spaceflight as well as 

American values and the idea of being American. Current Americanness is the logical consequence of 

past Americanness, just as today’s actions will ensure that future Americanness will not differ much 

from both. Technologically, this means, that time will necessarily lead to an “extended human presence 

on the moon” (GWB, #600), and to people “living and working in space” (GWB, #594). It also does not 

matter a lot, that space is inherently “hostile to human beings” (GWB, #569), as technology will make 

it habitable. In that, space is neither exactly something to fight against, nor is it actively cooperating. It 



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is similar to how Turner described aspects of the myth of the West: “at the frontier the environment is 

at first too strong for the man. He must accept the conditions which it furnishes, or perish” (as cited in 

Paul, 2014, p. 324). The alleged American characteristic to strive, adapt, and conquer, which is deeply 

rooted in national lore, is now projected into the future, into space. But in the temporal perceptions put  

forward in the talks, all this is something in that the US inherently cannot fail, partly through its very 

nature, partly because plans put forward are simply too conclusive to fail. Hence, in their proposals, all 

presidents to some extent fall victim to the fallacy of a controllable step-by-step logic. This is not to say 

that no goals set could be achieved, project Apollo and its moon landings impressively prove the 

opposite. However, perceiving spaceflight not as merely technical, but as a great sociotechnical 

endeavour, the technologised trajectories presented in the talks were very much prone to be defeated by 

reality right from the beginning. 

In Felts work (2015), she writes of participants who “recalled past nuclear futures — an activity 

Brown and Michael aptly call ‘retrospecting prospects’— in order to demonstrate the limited 

anticipatory capacity of policy makers and to argue for the legitimacy of questioning such 

developments” (Brown & Michaels, 2003, p. 106). At several moments in my material, the presidents 

are doing just that, or something very similar - they recall not only the past, but past futures, or 

retrospecting prospects. In contrast to Felt’s participants, though, the president use this technique in a 

simplifying rather than in a complicating way. Instead of “acknowledging the complexity and 

uncertainty linked to any activity of ‘futuring’” (Adam & Groves, 2007, p. 11), they did in fact 

conceptualise the future as “an empty space waiting to be filled with our desire, to be shaped, traded or 

formed according to rational plans and blueprints, holding the promise that it can be what we want it to 

be” (ibid.). There is no future without rockets, the presidents suppose, and there must not be a space 

filled with rockets without the US partaking. 

8. Conquering Space: Conclusions 

Jasanoff described one aim of STS as “[b]ringing social thickness and complexity back into the 

appreciation of technological systems” (2015a, p. 2). While the part of bringing it ‘back’ may be 

discussed, my work shares that greater goal of acknowledging the complexity of our world, rather than 

gullibly believing in eventual simplicity. In the study, I could demonstrate how spaceflight is far from a 

merely technical endeavour. It is very much guided and fuelled by political and social rationales, 

together producing both the technical and social realities tied to spaceflight. Thus, on the most general 

level, I showed how a divide between the technological and the sociocultural is not only useless but may 

very much be counterproductive when trying to understand developments in both of them. The realms 

are deeply interwoven and can only be understood when looking at them together. With this study, I 

highlighted how the presidents embed the ‘super technology’ systems involved in spaceflight within the 

social, subtly invoking reciprocal relationships of reinforcement: spaceflight serves to prove higher, very 



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sociocultural conditions, and, vice versa, sociocultural beliefs serve to reason technological progress in 

spaceflight. These findings very much support what for example Hecht found out about French identity 

making. Whereas she looked at nuclear technologies, in the US it was spaceflight that was “establish[ed] 

as an arena for defining [the nation’s] future and identity” (Hecht, 2009, p. 331). 

In contributing to the sociotechnical imaginary of conquering space, the study showed how the 

presidents, aware of the emotional power of language, were using a strategic language of power. 

Knowing the position they were speaking from, and the influence their words could have, they carefully 

framed spaceflight in very specific ways, embedding it in carefully constructed and very much socially 

informed narratives; each one in their own, yet all grounded on the same conceptual root: an inherited, 

historically verifiable, cultural exceptionalism. In this last chapter, I will summarise and further clarify 

what my analysis has revealed. To that end, I will divide it into three parts. The first part will discuss 

the technocultural identity of the US as presented in the talks. Building on that, the second section will 

be concerned with the actual sociotechnical imaginary of conquering space. I will close this work with 

some short reflections, additional thoughts and implications. 

8.1. Technologies and Nations: Technocultural Identities 

“From out there on the moon, international politics looks so petty.  

You want to grab a politician by the scruff of the neck and  

drag him a quarter of a million miles out and say,  

‘Look at that, you son of a bitch.’” 

Edgar Mitchell, Apollo 14 astronaut (Edgar Mitchell’s Strange Voyage, 1974) 

Following Yuval-Davis (2006), identities eventually are narratives, and throughout the 

speeches American identity is equally evoked and rehearsed narratively. It becomes illustrated through 

little stories and past heroes, all part of the carefully crafted greater narrative of the US’ place and 

meaning in space and time. This one traceable as well as projectable America includes and supposedly 

describes all American citizens of the past, present, and future, as the country's history becomes rendered 

into one steady, linear narrative itself. I have described or characterised the US as ‘US-tronaut’ before 

in a quite condensed manner. ‘It’ consisted of words and expressions that have been explicitly used in 

the talks. I now want to take a step back and see what this US-tronaut, the presidentially crafted version 

of American identity, can tell us about the overarching US American technocultural identity. In other 

words: How is the American tied to the technological? To understand that, we shall first quickly 

recapitulate what was found out about the depiction of an American identity. 

8.1.1. America 

On the most general level, I found the presidents repeatedly drawing on a shared national history 

that yields a shared national identity. Drawing on history supposedly proves that being American is to 

be put synonymous with being exceptional. To effectively let the conquest of space appear as national 



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necessity, hundreds of millions of people want to be united and mobilised. Subtly, the existence of an 

imagined community gets declared. The evocation of an imagined community and the confirmation of 

American exceptionalism is one great cornerstone of the American president’s version of the 

sociotechnical imaginary of conquering space. The US population is constructed as clear-cut 

community, exactly what Anderson (2006) titled an imagined community. It is not a real community of 

people knowing each other, but a loose number of people who draw on the same ideological and 

historical resources. In this case, the presidents draw on different myths (Columbus, the West, Apollo) 

and themes (discovery, unity, courage, ingenuity), many of them already being widely accepted proofs 

for Americanness (see my characterisation in section 7.6.2.). The myths, amplified by a number of 

historical quotes and figures (see table 3 and 4) provide context for and constitute the ‘repeated assembly 

of a cultural model’ (see Šabanović, 2014). The cultural model, traversed by these classic themes evoked 

in the inside worlds of the talks, justifies the US’ universal cultural validity. In that, however, it is 

striking how not necessarily the same, but very comparable cultural resources are drawn upon, and how, 

as a result, basically convertible lines of arguments and characterisations of the US emerge. Together 

with the heredity and cultural continuity that is evoked through historical references, the America n 

technoscientific identity becomes one of eternal, natural, and hence inevitable, progress. In the talks, the 

US inherited urge for progress is the most basic tenet and reason that individuals and collectives likewise 

have to consider facing technoscientific decisions. Accompanied with courage and logical ingenuity, 

progress is both, reason and outcome of the cultural superiority that dominates the technoscientific self-

representation in the talks introducing new space policies. 

It is not only those presidents I focused on that refer to myths when it comes to spaceflight 

technology, who define the US’ technoscientific identity through carefully selected past incidents. For 

example, in a nationally broadcasted address just hours after the Challenger disaster, Ronald Reagan 

claimed that “[i]n his lifetime the great frontiers were the oceans, and an historian later said, ‘He lived 

by the sea, died on it, and was buried in it.’ Well, today we can say of the Challenger crew: Their 

dedication was, like Drake's, complete” (as quoted by Garber, 2004). Just as Kennedy’s reference, 

George Mallory, Drake was an Englishman, yet is chosen for the same reasons: it fits American values. 

Additionally, ‘dedication’, here, is to be understood in two accounts: first, a supposed personal 

dedication towards sailing and discovering, and second, dedication towards the expansion of English 

territory and sphere of influence. Drake, as well, is someone who ‘pushed frontiers’ via the then most 

advanced technological means of transportation (for a detailed analysis of this Reagan address see 

Stuckey, 2006). As legitimate successors of the great adventurers, astronauts are constructed to be living 

a life that could not be more American. They embody a more contemporary version of those once 

moving west, into a then unsure but eventually (and supposedly naturally) prosperous future. 

The US technoscientific identity is reflected in past and present technology. By nature of the 

material, we were able to follow the repeated assembly of a specific cultural model and how it gets tied 



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to a specific technology. Other than Šabanović, however, this case followed actors who are central for 

the technological development as well as for its societal embedding (see Šabanović, 2014). Technology 

and inventions (see table 3) become elevated from mere objects to mythically reasoned, traditionally 

grounded, and almost magical things. American inventions, and others who fit the criteria as well, 

become carriers of values and basic ideas, they let ideals materialise and, literally, travel through space 

and time. 

8.1.2. Developments 

Despite being given over a time span of several decades, the five talks can be seen as one 

continuing, convergent argumentation. The general characterisation of the US and hence the imagined 

future endures. However, I want to point out some differences, or rather, developments, in this ongoing 

presidential argumentation for spaceflight and conquering space. Namely, taking a step back, it becomes 

clear how external, politico-societal circumstances serve as interpretive filter when situating the 

traditional(ised) knowledge collectively produced over the past decades/centuries.  

Kennedy’s rhetoric was inspired greatly by the Cold War, being very drastic and dualistic. He 

needed to emotionally charge the topic of spaceflight to use it as political statement. The world, for him, 

is at crossroads and in bad need of the US as saviour and hero. Nixon’s approach and rhetoric, in contrast, 

made clear that the US ‘won’ the space race, a circumstance that automatically dismissed an American-

ensured world peace as primary reason to keep conquering space in a similarly explorational manner. 

Instead, he suggested a more practical, non-explorative, and less symbolic approach. The Cold War still 

influenced technopolitical decision making, but specifically the continuing war in Vietnam, which had 

almost led to budget cuts in Apollo already, made money a scarce resource. Eventually, there was no 

immediate narrative like the space race in which further Apollo-like investments could be embedded in 

and justified with. The flag on the moon was planted; in the early 1970s, space, so it felt, was indeed 

conquered by the US. Fifteen years onwards, George Bush considered the US ‘prosperous and at peace’ 

- a strange assessment to be made, as it was still somewhat disconnected from global political, Cold War 

informed, circumstances. His strikingly romantic account was even more surprising as NASA was still 

emotionally recovering from the Challenger accident and is hence more to be seen as a rhetoric feat of 

simplistic romanticism in actual times of doubt and crisis. George W. Bush was then influenced by two 

catastrophic events, the attacks on the World Trade Center and the disintegration of the Challenger 

shuttle, and, similarly to his father inferred cultural obligation and stirred up hope for a better world, 

which is to be achieved by spaceflight technology. A few years later, Barack Obama had to face a 

devastating economic crisis, which he also instrumentalised by particularly stressing NASA’s cultural 

worth and value, as well as evoking general overhauls - in society, politics, and spaceflight. Thus, the 

political situations naturally differed, but crises as well as suggested states of ‘prosperity and peace’ are 

reflected and turned into arguments for technoscientific decision making. Symbolically, spaceflight 

gives the nation a direction, either out of the crisis, and/or further into an (even) brighter future.  



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These observations strongly point at the significance of co-productionist principles. Science, in 

this case spaceflight, is inherently part of politics and culture, just as spaceflight works as politicum and 

cultural carrier, altering the political landscapes and cultural self-understanding; technoscientific 

entanglements again prove to be always multilateral. Due to the US’ technoscientific identity, and as 

proof for this very identity, the sociotechnical solution for all situations stays the same: conquering 

space. 

8.1.3. Rockets 

I have worked with the 

presumption, that especially 

expansive spaceflight is also quite 

expensive, and that it is expensive 

even for the “richest nation on earth” 

(GB, #387). Hence, the general 

assumption, here, is, that spaceflight 

cannot be done just for the sake of it. 

It can also only hardly be justified as 

“a [general] spiritual quest in the 

broadest sense, one promising a 

revitalization of [all] humanity and a 

rebirth of hope”, as former astronaut 

Buzz Aldrin and author Wyn 

Wachhorst (2004, p. 38) described it 

in the scholarly journal Mechanical 

Engineering. However, it is being 

done nevertheless, because for the US 

and NASA, rockets afford to embody 

a vivid technoscientific expression of 

an exceptionalist, superior and singular US American identity. Rockets, for the presidents, are 

constructed as the culmination of American technoscientific ingenuity and hence cultural superiority. 

The urge to express and prove the own identity, the values ascribed to the imagined community, is 

reason and benefit enough to invest the monies necessary. It leaves the country, government and citizens, 

with no alternative but to favour the conquest of space. 

The analysis spanning over several decades nicely showed the “continually rearticulated 

awareness of order in social life [...] and a resulting commitment to that order’s coherence and 

continuity” (Jasanoff, 2015a, p. 26). The American society is ordered around a desired future in which 

space is conquered, in which living in space is somewhat normal (note that I will look at the problems 

Figure 6: Aerospace engineer Wernher von Braun in front of the Saturn V. 
NASA, 2004. 



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of the term ‘conquering’ in section 8.2.2.). In their talks, the presidents do not simply evoke the general 

American (technoscientific) identity, but they closely tie it to spaceflight and rocketry. Jordan already 

noted, that the “symbolic flagship of a lunar landing depended as much on rhetorical as on technological 

ingenuity” (Jordan, 2003, p. 211), which can be said just as much on all other missions and goals 

proposed in the talks of this analysis. Rockets, thus, first rhetorically, then factually, become a metaphor 

for America itself. Their boosters also ‘boost’ US American cultural self-confidence. In a sense, the 

noun also turns into an adjective; spaceflight is typically American, but America also is spaceflight. In 

that, practical spaceflight may be seen to be represented on three levels: a technological (rockets), an 

organisational (NASA), and an iconical (astronauts), all of them being narratively rooted in the US 

culture and its ideals. Obama called Apollo 11, which includes technology, astronauts and NASA, “one 

of the greatest achievements in human history” (BO, #990f.). The wording ‘achievement’ alone is 

interesting here, because even compared to other (unmanned) missions  Apollo effectively did not 

produce much. Although some rocks were collected, and some measurements taken, in all 

argumentations the scientific part of the mission seldomly made the central part of the moon landing 

(see chapter 5). It is the mere achievement of it, and hence the confirmation of the mere capability, the 

proof of an identity standing the test of time. 

8.2. Columbus and the Mars Mission: Sociotechnical Imaginaries 

“It’s not where you take things from - it’s where you take them to.” 

Jean-Luc Godard (*1930), film director 

8.2.1 Origin & Embedding 

We will now finally discuss concisely the specificities of the imaginary, and particularly how 

the talks embed rockets, that is spaceflight, in society. To begin with, the real origins of an imaginary 

are notoriously difficult to identify, but Jasanoff herself finds that "[t]echnological innovation often 

follows on the heels of science fiction” (2015a, p. 1). I have briefly shown above, how this may well be 

applicable on spaceflight, too. Early experiments were not taken quite seriously, but only when the 

possibility of rocketry, of actually entering and one day possibly conquering space, found its way in 

popular culture, it was finally taken as indeed a technological possibility (see Kirby, 2010). We may 

conceive of these processes already as some early and non-institutional ways of embedding. The 

eventual institutional embedding of the imaginary in the US, however, may be seen in the founding date 

of NASA in 1957, factually the starting point of this study.  

Jasanoff describes “imagining as a social practice” (2015a, p. 322f.), and the talks may be seen 

as socially informed imagining of both, pasts and futures. The president’s talks are socially informed 

practices in two respects. First, through giving a speech to which audiences are actively listening and 

reacting, and, second, through how the technological decisions to be made are framed, namely, as we 

have seen, as very much socially/culturally grounded. The speakers all invite their audiences to imagine 



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worlds with the speaker. Particularly in the context of spaceflight it may really be described vividly as 

a “saga of an imagined and invented world” (Jasanoff, 2015a, p. 24). Inherently, defined as “visions of 

desirable futures” (Jasanoff, 2015a, p. 4), sociotechnical imaginaries are a way of world making (see 

Goodman, 1978), and future making, practices laying the conceptual groundwork for the futures 

collectively imagined. Are current and future worlds imagined in peaceful ways? Are they endangered? 

Both is apparent in the speeches I analysed here. Kennedy’s future world is in great danger, threatened 

by a clear-cut enemy, although a peaceful (American dominated) future is possible. Especially George 

Bush’s world, in contrast, is imagined peaceful and idyllic. In principle, however, the entire future, either 

desirable or undesirable, is heavily characterised, if not dependent, by the technological and manned 

conquest of space. Most basically, this is the way rockets are embedded in society and its future, the 

way society gets conceptually ordered. The solution to any desirable imagination of tomorrow, however, 

is, that the US must invest in spaceflight, and take over technological leadership. My point, as I have 

stated above, now, is, that we are still in the phase of (institutional) embedding. We have not yet seen a 

phase of “complete and radical transformation” (Jasanoff, 2015b, p. 330) regarding the general approach 

to spaceflight and the idea to ‘conquer space’. The talks may thus be seen as what Paul (2014) called a 

‘ritualistic enactment’ of exceptionalism, ideologically sustaining the imaginary, smoothly (re-) 

embedding it in societal contexts. But what exactly is constructed through the imaginary, what underlies 

the imaginary, and what does it stand for? In other words: What is the imaginary actually embedded in?  

Felt (2015) showed in her investigation on the relationship of Austrianness and the nuclear, how 

the flexibility of an existing ideological foundation could be exploited to reify the very foundation itself. 

As Jasanoff concluded: “Embedding also occurs through [...] remembered pasts and desired futures” 

(2015b, p. 328). Throughout the decades that this study covered, the master narrative of American 

exceptionalism, rooted in pasts remembered together, was found to be perfectly supportive of the 

imaginary of conquering space. In Felt’s study, the Austrian people achieved to “becom[e] distinctive 

as a nation precisely by refusing to embrace” (Felt, 2015, p. 104), whereas in in this study, the presidents 

achieve to promote the nation’s distinctiveness by warmly embracing a technology - a way of embedding 

spaceflight clearly informed by US American self-understanding. Similarly, as “[t]he Chinese 

government [which] draws on its own long history of state-sponsored rice cultivation when it buys into 

a genomic vision of plant breeding” (Jasanoff, 2015b, p. 327), the US government draws on its 

(constructed) own long history of exceptionalism, courage, and discovery, when it promotes 

explorational spaceflight, that is the idea of conquering space. The sociotechnical imaginary hence is at 

the same time very much a sociocultural imaginary. Technology is one tangible means to express the 

culture’s identity, and through its capabilities, position the nation and its united technoculture within a 

dynamic political world.  

The ‘collective remembering’ in order to make sense of the future to be realised, that Jasanoff 

stated to be central for the phase of embedding, happens - unexceptionally - in all talks, achieving to 



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arrive at a ‘usable past’. This collectively remembered and usable past is fuelled by myths, past stories, 

and its heroes. They allow the presidents to depict spaceflight as a modern interpretation of the myth of 

the West, with the most basic goal to conquer land and expand. As Obama said about the idea of the 

moon as destination: “I just have to say pretty bluntly here: We’ve been there before. Buzz [Aldrin] has 

been there. There’s a lot more of space to explore, and a lot more to learn when we do” (BO, #922ff.). 

The idea of conquering space hence is to be seen as a reinterpretation and narrative sequel of ancient 

American myths. When the spaceflight movies of the 1920s and 1930s were often simply about 

surviving a visit in space, institutional efforts from the 1960s on achieve the general idea of going to 

space to be translated in completely new, and yet old, cultural contexts. The nation as such becomes one 

stringent narrative, that has always pointed at the conquest of space. The cultural trajectory began 

centuries ago, and it leads to space, achieving spaceflight, in essence, to be traditionalised. Considering 

the ‘politics of discovery’ here, is important: Columbus, for example, believed himself to be “an 

extension and an expression of the Spanish royal authority that he simply assumes“ (Paul, 2014, p. 47). 

Spaceflight in a sense is the next logical step that has to follow if America is to stay true to its history 

and therefore to their mythically derived unique character, that is superior and singular. At heart, the 

American presidents in their talks claim that the nation owes explorational spaceflight to the history and 

its figures. Casually put, the United States owe Christopher Columbus a mission to Mars. And, indeed 

interestingly, it seems to be not only those presidents I could retrieve talks of, that refer to history and 

myths when it comes to spaceflight and identity. We have seen Ronald Reagan’s account, and also 

Donald Trump already went down that narrative avenue (The White House, 2017). 

Imaginaries, or the technologies that they entail, are said to be able to “generate economic or 

social value” (Jasanoff, 2015b, p. 327) when they enter the stage of embedding. Considering the risk 

and costs that conquering space brings with it, the necessary explorative manned spaceflight seems to 

generate primarily social value, in that it proves American ways and is tried to be constructed as 

something that allows cultural belonging through evoking a supposed cultural heredity. Only who 

supports spaceflight can be truly American. These findings also correspond with those of similar studies 

in other technological fields. As Burri has shown, “American policy documents assessed the presumed 

benefits of nanotechnology more highly than possible negative consequences and put great[...] emphasis 

on achieving economic and political leadership” (Burri in Jasanoff, 2015, p. 334). In the talks that I 

analysed, presidents often promise both, economic and social benefits, but at least partially in 

remarkably nebulous ways: “We may discover resources on the moon or Mars that will boggle the 

imagination, that will test our limits to dream” (GWB, #627ff.). As in Burri’s analysis, claiming 

leadership is another strong driving force utilised in American spaceflight. 

8.2.2. Resistance & Extension 

But let us turn towards a (supposed) stage of resistance. After all, sending people to space may 

be happening regularly nowadays, but launching rockets still is not a ‘normal’ thing. Not yet official 



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numbers suggest that, internationally, of about 100 rocket launches in 2018, three have been failures or 

partial failures, including one manned Russian rocket. The numbers of 2017 are even worse. Every 

launch still is to be described as experimental, and explorative manned missions have not been taking 

place since the Apollo days at all. While acknowledging the problem of defining ‘conquest’, one could 

also argue that resistance against the imaginary of conquering space is taking place since the end of 

Apollo through insufficient funding. In that case, once government institutions achieve missions to 

Mars, the imaginary may also be taken as in the state of extension. Obviously, stages of imaginaries can 

best, or even only, be described in hindsight, so perhaps only time can tell. However, until now, no 

greater and specific societal act of resistance against spaceflight or expansion to the planets took place. 

The only ‘resistance’ are potentially expressed through the allocation of budgets that cannot afford for 

manned missions ‘to worlds beyond our own’. 

Hence, the question of resistance also depends on one’s definition of ‘conquering’. Does a 

continuous presence in low earth orbit equal the conquest of space? Or can you only speak of a 

culture/species having conquered space when it engages in interplanetary endeavours? Do colonies have 

to be founded perhaps? If conquering space means colonising it, then president Nixon may actually be 

seen as representative of a stage of resistance against the imaginary. Although he also funded NASA 

intensively, he did it differently, as did out of necessity some of his other successors. Especially the 

Challenger and Columbia incidents may be seen as moments in which resistance could have come about, 

yet did not. Rocketry, in both instances, was embedded well enough in different cultural contexts, so 

that the exceptionally strong narrative it was weaved in, and the remarkably strong political weight it 

was given through this narrative embedding, did not allow for fundamentally doubting the imaginary of 

conquering space. There may have been discussions along the way, yet resistance almost always 

happened out of necessity, and was of financial rather than principally ideological nature. Investments 

in the scale of Apollo have not been widely neglected because of what it is, what it would be, but because 

of what it would cost. Resistance is hence only exerted against very specific former plans, not against 

the idea, and always informed by current political, social, and financial circumstances. One pivotal 

contribution of the presidents may thus be the avoidance of serious resistance against the sociotechnical 

imaginary of conquering space through their continuous exceptional embedding work. They have turned 

every situation and crisis, in spaceflight and beyond, into a reason to move on with following the 

essentially same goal by essentially the same means. This was achieved by making acts that would rather 

be located in the stage of embedding, sound like acts located in extension. Obama said that, “we can’t 

just keep on doing the same old things that we’ve been doing and thinking that somehow is going to get 

us to where we want to go” (BO, #887ff.), but, with a certain amount of reserve, they did in fact keep 

on doing ‘the same old things’. The seamless embedding of the idea of conquering space into national 

mythology and history prevents the US and NASA from essentially new approaches to spaceflight, and 

especially from more cooperative steps in actually conquering space. All this may be equally true for 



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other space agencies and even private companies, that also aim at being ‘the world’s best hope’, yet this 

is beyond the scope of this study. Current spaceflight is still in the phase of embedding, primarily 

because structural resistance is not permitted. Following Jasanoff, “it is institutions of governance that 

operate as some of the most effective agents of extension” (Jasanoff, 2015b, p. 333), meaning that actual 

extension of the imaginary of conquering space is dependent of the narratives NASA and the 

government will employ in the future. 

8.3. Implications, Thoughts, Next Steps 

“Unus pro omnibus, omnes pro uno.” 

Alexandre Dumas in The Three Musketeers 

There are still some things left to say, some implications that I see in the study, and some things 

to reflect upon. This last section will be dedicated to those additional aspects. First, social science work, 

as probably all scientific work, has something fractal-esque to it: regardless of how far one zooms in, 

never will the outcome be perfectly well-rounded and absolutely terminal. There will always be 

something to ‘zoom in’ on even closer. Probably, there never is the one eventual core to be identified 

and described, and the same is true for my analysis. There are infinite ways to tackle the material I chose; 

my way is just one of them. I left out some aspects and focused on others. The material may be tackled 

in the most various ways, with numerous conceptual foundations, each for sure having its own raison 

d'être. I could have focused on Asdal’s and Moser’s ‘contexting’, on Commager’s ‘usable pasts’, or 

Goodman’s holistic ‘world making’, on ‘retrospecting prospects’ and others, as each of them certainly 

would have generated different, yet equally interesting and valid insights. I stressed some points and 

questions, while not bringing up others, as obvious they might be. Hence, all in all, this study does not 

claim to have found the ‘truth’ about American spaceflight, and not even about the talks. While 

acknowledging the insights it generated, at the same time it also highlighted the great potential for even 

more research on this and related topics. 

As part of that, much more theorising is possible in future studies. What is conquering? How is 

the space conceptualised? Also, what power structures become apparent and how? How are metaphors 

and other rhetorical means exactly used? However, I believe some follow-up studies to be particularly 

interesting to consider. Especially having mind that, just as this study showed, “the centrality of science 

and technology in the making and stabilizing of collectives“ (Jasanoff, 2015a, p. 5), opens up similar 

questions about different cultures. How are similar processes observable in other countries and cultures? 

Obviously, Russia would serve as fruitful site to study, but just as interesting are emerging spaceflight 

nations, primarily India and China. What kind of framing is taking place there? Does it differ from the 

US framing? Additionally, comparative studies with the European space agency ESA are promising, as 

ESA unites 22 European states within one agency - purely nationalist agendas as pushed through by the 

US are barely possible here. It is also worth noting that I have touched upon differences between the 



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talks in terms of language, rationales, and political/cultural circumstances, yet only so far as it was 

necessary for my overall argument, which in the end rather focused on the similarities. There are 

certainly more nuanced ways to investigate differences, and other interesting arguments to make based 

on that, differences that may also be fruitful in cross-cultural and comparative studies. Related to that, 

and especially due to the specific foci I had, this study’s goal was never to analyse eventual public uptake 

and sense-making with what is politically communicated in the talks. That also implies that resistance 

against the imaginary put forward is out of the scope of this study. Identifying and studying it through 

the lens of sociotechnical imaginaries, though, can be immensely rewarding, as several scholars have 

shown before (not only Felt, but also Moon and Barker, all in Jasanoff & Kim, 2015). Future research 

may also turn towards this aspect of (not only) American spaceflight. 

All these things may just as well, in the form of comparative studies, be conducted for other sets 

of (super) technologies. How are (national) narratives employed in central accounts of realms like 

biotech, food production, mobility, information technology, (renewable) energy (see Hecht, 2009), 

health, and perhaps particularly technologies of (national) defence and security. In any case, the concept 

of the sociotechnical imaginary, with the overarching idea of co-production promises valuable insights. 

Finally, the general role of science and technology in the stabilising of collectives is an inherently 

infinite process. We will not experience the ‘end of history’ (see Fukuyama, 1989) until we experience 

the end of society (see Kuzmics & Mörth, 1991). The topic that I investigated here, and those I just 

suggested, will stay just as fruitful over time as they are today.  

Furthermore, Neil Armstrong took his ‘giant leap’ on the moon, Columbus may be said to have 

taken his somewhere in the Caribbean. Someone will probably take another giant leap on Mars one day. 

Still, the question remains: Why conquering space at all? ‘Because it is there’ may be seen as an 

argument, but one that calls for a wider societal consent. Hence, it should be investigated why and how 

spaceflight achieves to spark that much imagination, and what this imagination and inspiration really 

entails from a socio-psychological perspective, and how that knowledge is getting situated in time and 

society. Here, rather than investigating documents, more fieldwork seems sensible, for instance 

interviewing those who enjoy the newly emerging online services offered by state agencies. Do their 

narratives resemble those put forward in politics, or do they differ? Are identical versions of ‘desirable 

futures’ apparent? 

Finally, although not being included in the study, current US president Donald Trump seems to 

follow the same ideological path his predecessors paved: 

“In that magnificent moment [of the 1969 moon landing], the American astronaut embodied the 

incredible spirit of America: the confidence of a cowboy, the skill of a fighter pilot, the ambition 

of a scientist, and the courage of a true, true, brilliant, tough warrior. They bounded fearlessly 

into the unknown to be there first. They did the impossible because they knew that, together, 



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there is absolutely nothing Americans can’t do. When we get together, there’s nobody even 

close.” (The White House, 2018) 

Trump, however, in the same remark on his Space Policy Directive 3, announced something 

else. Namely, the foundation of a ‘Space Force’, intended as the ‘the sixth branch of the armed forces’, 

somewhat challenging article IV of the United Nations Treaties and Principles on Outer Space (see 

United Nations, 2002), which forbids the placing of weapons of mass destruction in outer space or on 

celestial bodies (see also Bourbonnière & Lee, 2008). It was perhaps the most officially announced step 

towards a weaponised space and is reviving aspects of the imaginary of conquering space that have been 

apparent lastly in immediate times of the Cold War. In light of that, we need new and more fundamental 

discourses about spaceflight, and discourses about the sociotechnical imaginaries that spaceflight, and 

conquering space, is part of. That is, we need a discourse that does not only ask about the fundamental 

what, the where and the technical hows, but about the general whys, as well as the structural and systemic 

hows. If the conquering of space is to follow globally democratic and pacific ideals, spaceflight will 

have to be reconsidered and put into new contexts. In a nutshell, also spaceflight as super technology 

needs to become a ‘technology of humility’, that is, a technology regarding which we can sufficiently 

answer the following four fundamental questions: “what is the purpose [of the technology]; who will be 

hurt; who benefits; and how can we know?” (Jasanoff, 2003, p. 240). Only then, it may be justifiable, 

and only possible even, to explore space simply ‘because it is there’. 

 

Figure 7: Astronaut Edgar D. Mitchell planting the American flag on the moon during the Apollo 14 mission. NASA, 1971. 



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10.  Abstracts 
English Abstract 

If you want to break down this work to a – indeed abridging – message, it would probably be this: the 

implementation of spaceflight programmes, and especially of manned, explorative spaceflight, requires 

much more than overcoming challenges of purely technological nature. That is because, just like any 

other technology, spaceflight is deeply intertwined with socio-political and socio-cultural processes. 

Extensively analysing the US-American narratives activated in US-American spaceflight politics, this 

study examines just this inherent entanglement of the social with the technical. The conceptual starting 

point is the idea of the sociotechnical imaginary (see Jasanoff & Kim, 2015), which enables one to 

examine the narrative embedding of technology in social contexts. This work also builds on additional 

literature taken from the American as well as the postcolonial studies. 

In the analysis of five talks delivered by five different American presidents, I basically identify primarily 

nationally oriented narratives, within which the existence of one very specific and timeless US American 

culture is being assumed, oftentimes nourished by American myths and folklore. The analysis shines a 

light on how these narratives over decades stay quite congruent. Over the time span the study covers, 

we can see how the institutionally communicated version of “the” US culture serves as qualitative 

foundation for US politics. The narrative footing, constituted by unity, exceptionality, history, destiny, 

hierarchy, and trajectory, allows political actors to use emotion in order to rationalise, legitimise, over 

time naturalise and ultimately render their actions/spaceflight an inevitable end in itself. Or, as the title 

already suggests: since NASA was founded, the sociocultural and narrative resources of American 

presidents make (explorative) spaceflight appear in a way, that it seems like the United States of America 

owe Christopher Columbus a mission to Mars. 

Keywords: spaceflight; narratives; politics; nation states; United States of America 

German Abstract 

Wenn man diese Arbeit auf eine – sicherlich stark verkürzende – Botschaft herunterbrechen möchte, 

dann wäre es wohl diese: Die Implementierung von Raumfahrtprogrammen, und insbesondere von 

bemannter, explorativer Raumfahrt, erfordert weit mehr als die Bewältigung von Herausforderungen 

rein technologischer Natur. Denn wie jede (Super-)Technologie ist auch Raumfahrt tief in 

sozialpolitische und -kulturelle Prozesse integriert. Die vorliegende Arbeit setzt sich nun anhand einer 

ausführlichen Analyse von im US amerikanischen Politikbetrieb aktivierten Narrative eben anhand des 

Beispiels Raumfahrt mit dem Prozess der Verflechtung des Technologischen mit des Sozialen 

auseinander. Genutzt wird hierzu das Konzept des „Sociotechnical Imaginary“, mithilfe dessen die 

narrative „Einbettung“ von Technologie in soziokulturelle Kontexte (nach Jasanoff & Kim, 2015) 

untersucht und nachvollzogen werden kann. Zudem werden auch theoretische Grundlagen aus den 

Amerika-Studien herangezogen und in dem Zuge auch postkolonialistische Aspekte beleuchtet. 

In der Analyse von fünf Reden fünf verschiedener US-Präsidenten wurden grundsätzlich vor allem 

national ausgerichtete Narrative identifiziert, innerhalb derer das Vorhandensein einer sehr spezifischen 

und zeitlosen US-Kultur angenommen wird, oftmals getragen von „klassischen“ amerikanischen 

Mythen und amerikanischer Folklore. Die Analyse zeigt auf, wie kongruent die in den Reden 

gezeichneten Bilder der US-Kultur über Jahrzehnte bleiben. Über den gesamten Zeitraum kann so die 

institutionell kommunizierte Version „der“ amerikanischen Kultur als qualitative Grundlage für 

Raumfahrt und damit für US-Politik dienen. Das narrative Fundament, bestehend u.a. aus Einheit, 

Exzeptionalität, Geschichte, Schicksal, Hierarchie und einer in sich logischen Zeitschiene, erlaubt es 

politischen Akteuren, ihre Handlungen/Raumfahrt im Grunde über Emotion zu rationalisieren, zu 

legitimieren, im Laufe der Zeit zu naturalisieren und letztendlich aus gesamtgesellschaftlicher Sicht 

quasi zum unangreifbaren Selbstzweck zu machen. Oder, wie der Titel bereits sagt: Die narrativen bzw. 

soziokulturellen Ressourcen amerikanischer Präsidenten präsentieren (explorative) Raumfahrt seit 



Owing Christopher Columbus a Mission to Mars 

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Gründung der NASA auf eine Art und Weise, dass es scheint, als schuldeten die Vereinigten Staaten 

von Amerika Christoph Columbus eine Mission zum Mars. 

Keywords: Raumfahrt; Narrative; Politik; Nationalstaaten; Vereinigte Staaten von Amerika 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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