The Space Conundrum: Sacred or Profane?
How has the narrative around space changed, and what political relevance does this have?
It’s been twenty years since I lied.
My responsibility was clear; I had chosen aerospace engineering where the few accepted students and even fewer graduates had careers in the military, aircraft, or space industries. At the time, I hadn’t worked out the consequences. I only knew that I liked the sound of “rocket scientist.” It was enough to get me signed up for classes and into the dorms. But then, we watched the visceral violence of a Boeing 767–200 aircraft on the Twin Towers. It was an irreconcilable collision of air and space.
Quickly, I realized that a simple career of money and security was not the physical reality of planes, bombs, and outer space. Irreconcilable, I still searched toward the stars for existential answers, entering an orbit of insecurity, a trajectory uncharted. In school, the universe became the lived experience I never expected, the mysterium tremendum et fascinans, the mystery that both attracts and repels. For me, that meant withdrawing from my studies of derivatives to pursue archetypes and zeitgeists.
Mircea Eliade explains that they are the two modes of being in the world and human’s existential situation. On the one hand, we have the security of our known world, the profane, and on the other, the abyss of the ‘other,’ sacred, phenomenological experience. The latter is a cosmic experience that defies the laws of our earthly existence by entering a sacred space through rituals and consecration. The manifestation of difference, or ‘otherness,’ is felt when we enter temples and enter cathedrals, perform the rituals of birth, marriage, and death, and evoke the deities for protection in moments of vulnerability or gratitude. The sacred is revealed at thresholds of the unknown making the rule of the profane obsolete.
Rather than go into space in pursuit of the sacred, something that both informs and exceeds the human experience, we have gone to space and decided to mold it into our likeness. Archetypally, the mystery that both attracts and repels is found in the cosmos. The night sky is a source of terror and solace. Nightly, when we look up at the night sky, we see the same map that our ancestors saw, allowing us to navigate our paths and create our futures.
Thirty per cent of Americans believe in astrology, making cultural references to how a Saturn Return impacts identity or how Mercury Retrograde slows down communication less about a scientific understanding of how the universe works and more a method for understanding society and identity.
Likewise, the first space race held a transcendent fervor and mystery that crossed the threshold from developing new technology into sacred rituals. Undoubtedly, the space race was part of the Cold War; it charged the night sky with a new political, existential terror. The integration of new aerospace and computer technology transported man into an unimaginable and inhospitable environment. It was an experience outside of the profane day-to-day experience and inspired the mystery of the sacred.
While there are commonalities between entering a sacred space and conflict, they are not the same. There is an ‘otherness’ and lawlessness found in conflict that enables atrocities. However, violent acts are not even part of our human nature; they are just behavioral decisions that we still must unlearn.
The eruption of space into something cosmic, unknown, and chaotic is not just reserved for ancient or religious traditions; it is also found in science and culture, continually expanding to include tomorrow and yesterday.
As humans entered space for the first time, the initial awe and expectation of sacredness were not sustainable. The iconic earth-rise image taken during this period captures a vulnerability and barrenness that only piercing the Earth’s exosphere could reveal. Since then, the fascination with finding intelligent life in the universe reflects our need not to be alone, barren. The stars and planets are at once a continuous companion in the night sky and an insidious reminder of our isolation, insecurity, and persistent unknowing.
The eruption of space into something cosmic, unknown, and chaotic is not just reserved for ancient or religious traditions; it is also found in science and culture, continually expanding to include tomorrow and yesterday. In fact, the universe is only 13.8 billion years old, but we can see back in time 46.1 billion light-years, you can now own a fine wine that has been aged orbiting the earth, and planetary nail art is trending in pop culture.
But, instead of returning to the original call to adventure that inspired the imagination of a generation: “to seek out new life and new civilizations, to boldly go where no one has gone before,” or onto the exploratory imagination to create new sacred deities such as the Flying Spaghetti Monster, the latest space news has been met with profane banality.
The triumph of journeying to Mars has not been explored as one would enter a temple, alternatively, it has been zoned and subdivided like a housing development. We have not pondered its enormity, gaped at the unknown possibilities, or been paralyzed by sheer fear. Specifically, concern for space traffic, satellite billboards, space waste, military expansion, tourism opportunities, asteroid mining, and private space entrepreneurship are overwhelmingly the hot topic of the day. Not to forget the “planet B” actionable, though the doubtfully democratic, project to colonize Mars.
We´ve found the humdrum of human necessity, a familiarity in profit, and the accommodation of desire. As a threshold to the unknown with the potential for the sacred and the profane, space also holds potential for conflict. International Space Law faces many of the same twenty-first-century challenges that international law has encountered: rhetorically and ethically well-intentioned, the question of how and what to enforce persists. The movement toward privatizing space has discovered that the commercialization of space has infinite opportunities to be lucrative through the same options that are making it pedestrian.
Similar to the most conflict-torn countries on earth, space lacks a viable infrastructure to defend its long-term interests, with an elite few being able to reap the profits while the majority face the consequences. Frequent examples of such violent conflicts include the fight for blood diamonds in central Africa, the struggle for oil in the Middle East, demand for opium in Afghanistan, and the politics and profit of the drug cartels in Latin America.
However, as the impact of climate change increases, so does the number of conflicts surrounding natural resources. Unpredictable weather patterns include effects such as droughts, fires, cold waves, worsening hurricanes, and animal and plant extinction, food insecurity, and social unrest, not to mention pandemia. Every day, our world is becoming less and less predictable and familiar. Just as we worry about making space into our profane image, the security that we thought was earth has become our sacred space: the Awe! Terror! Mystery! Numinosity!
Do you remember when I told you I lied? It was only once, but it is crucial. Twenty years ago, I lied when I left aerospace engineering. The deception was that the humanities were sacred. Many people have made and will continue to make this same fiction; it is the myth of media and politics. The sacred often manifests itself in moments of terror, anxiety, fear, and overwhelming discomfort. We search continually for the truth and clarity that these moments define, but our profane routines obscure.
Yes, I lied to you and myself. But, what should concern you is the calm you feel when you should feel fear. Awe, terror, and mystery allow us to understand what is sacred, what is other, and what we do not know. Perhaps distinguishing between the sacred and the profane is as simple as the fight or flight response, knowing when to run away, or standing and fighting for something valuable. Except for this time, we’ve upped the ante and put our planet on the table.
