There is a fiery about a new movie, First Man, which recounts NASA鈥檚 mission to put a human on the moon. The film omits Neil Armstrong, played by Ryan Gosling, planting the US flag on the moon.
US senator Marco Rubio called this exclusion 鈥溾��. Fellow senator Ted Cruz the film of being 鈥渨rong鈥� and 鈥渄enying American exceptionalism鈥�. Others, including Gosling, have the decision to omit the flag-planting as a reflection of Armstrong鈥檚 belief that it was an achievement for all humanity rather than a purely American one. Despite the politicians鈥� distress, the film will go on.
Human space flight, as opposed to space flight dedicated to scientific endeavour, has long inspired the flexing of national muscle. And what better symbol of national muscle than a flag?
Advertisement
Given that past national glories are front and centre in a lot of US politics today, the flag fuss was predictable. The patriotism row over First Man fits this trend perfectly. It too is a reaction to the fact that governments are losing dominance, this time in space.
Supreme rulers
The US and Russia once ruled supreme beyond Earth, but the reality is that we are in an era of space entrepreneurialism that is uncoupling from national identity. The biggest names in space exploration now include business moguls , , , and . Whereas during the cold war it was competition between superpowers that spurred exploration, now it is competition between international corporations.
This all echoes the wider globalisation trend, a process that some US politicians are railing against. Senators Rubio and Cruz know it is coming for space too.
OK, getting into space still requires securing approval from some government agency or other. Bureaucrats must sign off on launches. Governments also still exert control via dominance of space communication. This is especially so for deep space communication 鈥� NASA owns the , for instance, which means Washington鈥檚 interests have to be considered for many deep-space operations.
But these mechanisms of authority are on the wane. There are already plans to create deep-space communication hubs in the and the . Private operators are likely to build their own hubs eventually. Would SpaceX, if it ever sends people to , want to rely on an antiquated state-run network that is ?
National declines
Government authorisation also poses less of a barrier. We are no longer in an era where just the big players can launch rockets. is becoming significant. And countries ranging from to the to all have plans to play larger roles. Firms are likely to be able to shift across borders to do what they want.
We have already seen erode national dominance in other industries. As companies plug into international production networks, they become less responsive to governments, which in turn respond by ratcheting up and rhetoric about national identity.
As companies extend their activities beyond our planet, leaving sovereign territory behind, their potential to behave independently will only grow. Those Apollo era US flags on the moon may turn out to be the last of their kind. When we set foot on other planets in the not too distant future, the flags we plant there are more likely to be flying corporate colours than the stars and stripes.
Read more: No more space race rhetoric: it鈥檚 not just about the US any more
