New UCalgary book explores humanity’s fascination with the vast unknown of space

Did you know the first fictional lunar voyages were chronicled almost 2,000 years ago by the ancient Greek author Lucian?

One of these voyages, in his satiric True Histories, is translated in a chapter of the Calgary Institute for the Humanities' newest book, Mythologies of Outer Space.

Originating from the institute’s 2022 community symposium, the book tackles the question of who owns outer space, with contributions from thinkers of multiple disciplines including a space archaeologist, a Mi’kmaq astronomer, and a science fiction scholar, along with artists, a poet and more.

As science fiction turns more and more into science fact, an interdisciplinary approach is needed when it comes to space, says the institute’s director and book co-editor, Dr. Jim Ellis, PhD.

“Scientists and engineers can tell us how to get to space, but humanists think about why,” explains Ellis, who is also a professor in the Department of English in the Faculty of Arts at the University of Calgary.

Our thinking about space evolved over time

Ellis says humanity has been thinking about space for a long time. For example, the moon has been thought of as a living being by many cultures, and then a shift in western culture occurred where the moon was increasingly seen as a dead zone. In the last century, with the space race and with actual landings on the moon, the theoretical became more practical.

“At that point there was an optimistic view of space travel, and we had important treaties from the UN establishing space as a place of international co-operation,” says Ellis.

However, a new era that these treaties could never have seen coming has arrived.

“All of a sudden anybody with the money, and especially rich tech bros, can go to space,” says Ellis. “There’s no real international agreement about who should go to space, how you should get to space and what your responsibilities are once you get there.”

Space mysteries viewed through multiple lenses

This new era of space exploration raises questions around the moon as a dead zone or as a site for the extraction of resources. In an afterword, Robert Thirsk, BSc’76, former UCalgary chancellor and astronaut, talks about the need for bringing interdisciplinary inquiry and the lens of humanity to some of these technological questions.

In addition to Dr. Thirsk, there are plenty of other local voices in the book. UCalgary’s Rothney Astrophysical Observatory’s 50-year history is detailed in a chapter by its director, Dr. Phil Langill, PhD, an associate professor in the Department of Physics and Astronomy in the Faculty of Science. The Bob Gibson Collection of Speculative Fiction in the UCalgary archives — a collection of over 35,000 books and hand-crafted anthologies spanning science and speculative fiction from the 1770s to the 1990s — receives a chapter for its space-related fiction from Dr. Stefania Forlini, PhD, an associate professor in the Department of English.

“The Rothney is a unique and distinguished observatory, the site of discoveries by local Blackfoot astronomer Rob Cardinal,” adds Ellis. “The Gibson Collection is simply amazing: it’s odd, and it’s vast, and it deserves to be seen and talked about.”

Urgent new issues emerge

The book, which is available now, aims to show people the rich and diverse ways we have imagined outer space, and the ways these connect to contemporary issues around outer space that are becoming increasingly urgent.

“The stories we’ve told about the moon and our imaginary space voyages have definitely affected how we actually went to the moon, and how we continue to think about issues around space travel and exploration,” says Ellis.

While the marriage of science fiction with science within the pages of the book may seem strange, Ellis says these have always been in dialogue with each other.

“Science fiction thinks about the kinds of philosophical questions that scientists have to grapple with, will grapple with, or haven’t grappled with enough,” he says.