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Southern Space Studies Series Editor: Annette Froehlich Annette Froehlich Editor Outer Space and Popular Culture Influences and Interrelations, Part 3 Southern Space Studies Series Editor Annette Froehlich, SpaceLab, University of Cape Town, Rondebosch, South Africa Associate Editor Dirk Heinzmann, Bundeswehr Command and Staff College, Hamburg, Germany Advisory Editors Josef Aschbacher, European Space Agency, Paris, France Rigobert Bayala, National Observatory of Sustainable Development, Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso Carlos Caballero León, CP Consult, Lima, Peru Guy Consolmagno, Vatican Observatory, Castel Gandolfo, Vatican City State Juan de Dalmau, International Space University, Illkirch-Graffenstaden, France Driss El Hadani, Royal Center for Remote Sensing of Morocco, Rabat, Morocco El Hadi Gashut, Regional Center For Remote Sensing of North Africa States, Tunis, Tunisia Ian Grosner, Brazilian Space Agency, Brasília/DF, Brazil Michelle Hanlon, For All Moonkind, New Canaan, CT, USA Torsten Kriening, SpaceWatch.Global GmbH, Berlin, Germany Félix Clementino Menicocci, Argentinean Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Buenos Aires, Argentina Sias Mostert, African Association of Remote Sensing of the Environment, Muizenburg, South Africa Val Munsami, African Space Leadership Institute, Pretoria, South Africa Greg Olsen, Entrepreneur-Astronaut, Princeton, NJ, USA Temidayo Oniosun, Space in Africa, Lagos, Nigeria Xavier Pasco, Fondation pour la Recherche Stratégique, Paris, France Elvira Prado Alegre, Ibero-American Institute of Air and Space Law and Commercial Aviation, Madrid, Spain Fermín Romero Vázquez, Fundacion Acercandote al Universo, Mexico City, Mexico Kai-Uwe Schrogl, International Institute of Space Law, Paris, France Dominique Tilmans, YouSpace, Wellin, Belgium Robert van Zyl, Cape Peninsula University of Technology, Bellville, South Africa The Southern Space Studies series presents analyses of space trends, market evolutions, policies, strategies and regulations, as well as the related social, economic and political challenges of space-related activities in the Global South, with a particular focus on developing countries in Africa and Latin America. Obtaining inside information from emerging space-faring countries in these regions is pivotal to establish and strengthen efficient and beneficial cooperation mechanisms in the space arena, and to gain a deeper understanding of their rapidly evolving space activities. To this end, the series provides transdisciplinary information for a fruitful development of space activities in relevant countries and cooperation with established space-faring nations. It is, therefore, a reference compilation for space activities in these areas. The volumes of the series are peer-reviewed. Annette Froehlich Editor Outer Space and Popular Culture Influences and Interrelations, Part 3 Editor Annette Froehlich University of Cape Town Rondebosch, South Africa ISSN 2523-3718 ISSN 2523-3726 (electronic) Southern Space Studies ISBN 978-3-031-25339-3 ISBN 978-3-031-25340-9 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-25340-9 © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors, and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. This Springer imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland Contents Mexican Mars: Narrating Spatial Futures from the Margins ............. 1 Anne Warren Johnson Jellyfish from Outer Space: Tentacular Creatures and Cosmic Responsibility in Environmental Art and Pop Culture ................... 17 Anna-Sophie Jürgens and Anne Hemkendreis Space Travel: Human Cosmic Hitchhiker Concept ....................... 33 Christoffel Kotze Africa: Home of Space Art and Indigenous Astronomy .................. 67 Barbara Amelia King v Mexican Mars: Narrating Spatial Futures from the Margins Anne Warren Johnson ABSTRACT This chapter looks at a series of events and encounters organized by the Mex- ican space art and science collective Marsarchive.org between 2020 and 2022. The workshops Imagining Martenochtitlan, Martenochtitlan: Myth, Rite and Site and Mars in Guererro were developed with the goal of creating speculative narratives and visual representations of imagined Mexican (“Neo-Tenochca”) settlements on Mars. Focusing on the collaborative processes, national iconog- raphy, and contemporary preoccupations from which the workshops emerged, the text analyzes the ways in which these encounters and their products offer alternative visions of human futures in outer space, in contrast to the neocolo- nialist and extractivist proposals of representatives of space agencies and the private space sector. 1 Marsarchive.org In 2016, a few years after the creation of the Mexican Space Agency, the Inter- national Astronautical Congress (IAC) was held in Guadalajara. Well-known astrocapitalist Elon Musk gave the keynote speech, “Making Humans a Multi- planetary Species,” in which he invoked the planet Mars as “possible…something that we can do within our lifetimes.”1 He argued that humanity can follow one of 1 “Making Humans a Multiplanetary Species.” YouTube, uploaded by SpaceX, 27 September, 2017, www.youtube.com/watch?v=H7Uyfqi_TE8 (all websites cited in this publication were last accessed and verified on 26 July 2022). B A. W. Johnson ( ) Universidad Iberoamericana, Mexico City, Mexico e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 1 A. Froehlich (ed.), Outer Space and Popular Culture, Southern Space Studies, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-25340-9_1 2 A.W.Johnson two paths: stay on Earth and, one day face extinction, or leave Earth and become a space civilization and multiplanetary species. The second path, Musk insisted, is the only way to survive. “I hope you all agree with me, yes?” The audience yelled and clapped. The image of Mars appeared behind him, a red sphere filling the screen. “This is what we want.” More cries and applause. Musk spoke of his desire to construct a self-sustaining city on Mars, referenc- ing Mars’ closeness to Earth and its geophysical characteristics, as well as the changes that Mars would have to undergo for humans to be able to find water, thicken its atmosphere, plant crops, and build a city. He explained how to achieve this dream. Right now, he said, a voyage to Mars would cost ten billion dollars per person. It would be difficult, but costs could be lowered through a series of technological innovations. He explained the technical requirements of rockets and ships, fuel composition and the infrastructure that would be necessary to maintain a Mars system. He presented a digital simulation scored by inspiring music, demonstrating the how the SpaceX Mars rocket launch and landing would work. The rocket’s design would be based on the Falcon rockets and Merlin motors, and the ship would be based on the Dragon vehicles that already exist. At the end of the presentation, the digital planet revolved, transforming itself from a red, dessert sphere to a red, blue, and green sphere with an atmospheric halo indi- cating its inhabitability. This last image, a disquieting hybrid of Mars and Earth, accompanied Musk for the rest of his speech. To sustain a civilization on Mars, Musk warned, we will need a population of one million people. With a hundred people per trip, the quantity of cargo, passen- gers and crew that will fit into the enormous rocket, it would take ten thousand trips to fulfill this dream, and, he estimated, it would take about one hundred years. Eventually, there will be “many ships…a thousand ships or more waiting in orbit, so the Mars Colonial Fleet would take off en masse. A little like Battlestar Galac- tica, if you’ve seen that thing. Good show.” And Musk considered that the cost of a trip to Mars, including life support and the consumption of food, could end up being less than one hundred thousand dollars. “It’s not just a dream, but something that can be made real.” Marcela Chao, museologist, and cultural promotor, saw the conference on YouTube, and was captivated by Musk’s passion, if not his billionaire persona. In 2016, Chao was working in Mexico City at the Center of the Image on projects that combined science, technology, and art. She founded the organization that would later become Marsarchive.org2 with her friends and friends of friends as a way of intervening artistically in the photographs generated by NASA’s Mars rovers, but the project eventually expanded to include reflections on “the reactivated space race” led by space agencies and the private sector. Just in that moment, Elon Musk came to Mexico and, as Marcela recounts, “I got archive fever.”3 She decided 2 See the organization’s website, “Marsarchive.org: Vivir Marte desde la Tierra,”www.marsarchi ve.org. 3 Interview with Marcela Chao, Amadís Ross and Juan Claudio Toledo, 1 December 2020. MexicanMars:NarratingSpatialFuturesfromtheMargins 3 that Marsarchive.org would compile all existing information about Mars, like a contemporary version of the General Archive of the Indies in Seville, to “gener- ate accountability” because everything is changing so fast in the space industry and, “how long before the millionaire gets bored, right?” She contacted various space actors in Mexico, included the Mexican Space Agency (AEM), the Center for Digital Culture (CDC), and the Space Generation Advisory Council (SGAC),4 and Marsarchive.org began to grow and expand. An interdisciplinary group formed around Chao, made up of students and professionals in, among other fields, art, literature, engineering, and astronomy. Between 2017 and 2018, Marsarchive.org presented events such as the curatorial program MartePop, a Wikipedia editathon, a series of projections of movies about Mars and a virtual reality exhibition. They continued with the first edition of the Christmas Posadas marcianas, a series of podcasts and La Bendita primavera marciana (“Blessed Martian Spring”) during the annal celebrations of Yuri’s Night that commemorate Yuri Gagarin’s voyage to space in 1961. Some members of the group had more “scientific” perspectives, and so decided to “go down another road,” while within the group, according to Marcela, “the craziness kept going like we wanted it to.” The collective started to think about other topics, like the passage of time on Mars. To celebrate the Martian new year, which occurs every 687 days, they created the Martian Calendar, a collaborative project led by Marcela and Juan Claudio Toledo, astrophysicist at the National Autonomous University (UNAM). The dual calendar was meant to be a repre- sentation of the Martian “Year 35” which took place between March 2019 and February 2021 of the Gregorian calendar. It was illustrated by images of Mars obtained by NASA rovers, curated by Marcela, and explanations of the areolog- ical conditions of the planet written by Juan Claudio. The project was meant to reflect on how, on the one hand, time is determined by our origins in the solar system and how, on the other, time is a cultural construction influenced by political and historical realities. Martenochtitlan was born after a discussion between Marcela and Juan Claudio about the possibility of founding a Mexican city on the site of the Mars landing of the rover Curiosity and was visualized as a “Neo-Tenochca futurist meme.”5 They decided that the meme deserved further attention and began to develop a workshop that would take up the possibilities of a Mexican inhabitation of Mars. Would the first Mexican Martian city be built on a lakebed racked by earthquakes, like the construction of Tenochtitlan and, later, Mexico City? And thinking about 4 The Mexican Space Agency (AEM; aem.gob.mx) was founded in 2012 as part of the Secretary of Communication and Transportation; the Center for Digital Culture (CCD; centroculturadigital.mx) is part of a project sponsored by the Mexican government to promote digitally mediated artistic productions and disseminate technological and artistic knowledge. The Space Generation Advisory Council (SGAC; spacegernation.org) is an international organization for young people interested in participating in the space industry. They maintain an active group in Latin America. 5 “Tenochca” is the word for the inhabitants of the Aztec capital Tenochtitlan, the site of present- dayMexicoCity. 4 A.W.Johnson Fig. 1 Codex “Martenochtitlan: Mito, Rito y Sitio”, creative commons Elon Musk’s plans for Mars, should we terraform Mars or should we transform ourselves?6 2 Imagining Martenochtitlan In 2020, Marcela and Juan Claudio met up with their friend Amadís Ross, a researcher at the National Institute of Fine Art and Literature (INBA) and expert in science fiction. Until then, Marcela told me, everything they did with respect to Mars was “universal,” but “really when I say universal, well, everything was very American, you know?” For Marcela, this “universal” perspective would change through her participation in the seminar Aesthetics of Science Fiction, organized by the INBA’s National Center for Plastic Arts Research, Documentation, and Information (CENIDAP), and coordinated by Amadís, who was convinced of the importance of a decolonial view, and “creating science fiction from where you are.” According to Marcela, this perspective was fundamental because marsarchive.org was meant to imagine futures somewhere else, “although this future wasn’t realist, I mean, one hundred percent scientific.” Amadís was inspired by the name Marcela and Juan Claudio had given to their imaginary city because, “the name Tenochtit- lan has great power in the Mexican imaginary…it touches the heart of Mexicans.” The group is aware of the problems generated by focusing on the center of Mexico and the Aztec image to the exclusion of other pre-Hispanic populations: it could have been, they say, “Marte-Chichén Itzá.” But, as Amadís recounted, other names wouldn’t have the same mythical or sonic force. “Martenochtitlan” opens the door for an appropriation of the mythic symbolism of the nation’s center, allowing for “dialoguing with the universe” and imagining new futures (Fig. 1). They decided to present the workshop in three parts: in the first, coordinated by Amadís, participants would work with the mythic aspects of the narrative to be produced; in the second, they would develop the architecture and urban planning of the imagined city; and finally, they would write up a social contract to guide the Martenochcas in their new civilization. However, by the end of 2020, they had only been able to fully develop the first part of the workshop, which was sponsored by the UNAM’s Program for Art, Science and Technology (ACT). Around sixty 6 I was able to observe the second and third editions of the workshop. For the description of the first edition, I rely on conversations with the organizers and access to the myth and codex.