NASA History Listserv Readers:
For those interested in tuning in on Thursday, the National Air and Space Museum will be hosting a Contemporary History Seminar by Alexander
C.T. Geppert entitled “Astropoleis: Imaginary Infrastructures in Outer Space.” See instructions below for watching the event on Microsoft Teams.
Regards,
Brian
Brian C. Odom, PhD
NASA History Division (Detail)
Office of Communications
NASA Headquarters
256-541-8974 (cell)
___________________________________________________________________________________________________________
This seminar will be held virtually via Microsoft Teams. See below for instructions on how to tune in and participate.
National Air and Space Museum
Seminar on Contemporary Science, Technology, and Culture
Thursday, June 18th, 4:00 pm (EDT)
The 2019-2020 Contemporary History Seminar will conclude virtually on Thursday, June 18th in Microsoft
Teams. The speaker will be:
Alexander C.T. Geppert
Charles A. Lindbergh Chair in Aerospace History, National Air and Space Museum
Associate Professor of History and European Studies, and Global Network Associate Professor
New York University, Shanghai and New York City
“Astropoleis: Imaginary Infrastructures in Outer Space”
Real and imagined infrastructures have played a key role in thinking the cosmos. Long before the launch of the first artificial satellite, the heavens were long cluttered with gigantic mirrors, rotating wheels and
large-scale habitats. For about forty years, from the early 1920s through the early 1960s, landing on the moon was not the primary objective of human spaceflight. Rather, it was the prospect of positioning an outpost in Earth orbit that captured the imagination
of experts and the public alike. European space personae including Hermann Oberth, Guido von Pirquet, Heinz Gartmann, Harry E. Ross, Wernher von Braun, Heinz-Hermann Koelle, Albert Ducrocq and many others worked under the assumption that a staging post
in space was an indispensable first step towards a much anticipated future in the stars. Accordingly, they propagated numerous competing designs, ranging from mirrors to rotating arms and wheels. Employed to make far-fetched expansion promises look viable,
these infrastructures acted as discursive knots in a complex debate about technopolitics, futurity and the human condition. Based on extensive archival research, this talk demonstrates the centrality of the unbuilt imaginaire to the production of space through
what our speaker calls twentieth-century astroculture.
You can click
here to join the seminar at 4pm on the 18th. If you have Teams installed on your computer,
the link will take you to Teams. Attendees can also attend via a web browser by following the same link. (Be advised, Safari and Firefox do not
support Microsoft Teams. You may be asked to set up a free Microsoft account to join.)
For further information, or to be put on the seminar’s mailing list, please contact: Matt Shindell at 202-633-5897; ShindellM@si.edu
Matthew Shindell | Space History Curator
Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum
P.O. Box 37012, MRC 311 | Washington, D.C. 20014-7012 | 202-633-5897
