Space Age Nostalgia (The Naked City)
Back in 2008 Australia was supposedly the only OECD country that did not have a national space agency apart from Iceland with previous space programs abandoned by the Government in 1996. These days we do have the Australian Space Agency, a relatively low key specialist division of the Department of Industry, Science and Resources. As well as various research activities it hosts the Space Discovery Centre in Adelaide, an educational facility where kids can pick up a $30 ‘Purra The Kanganaut’ at the gift shop.
The cuddly toy is billed as “…the cutest space explorer down under! This lovable kangaroo is decked out in an Australian Space Agency space suit, ready for cosmic adventures. Purra is not only an adorable plush companion but also a symbol of Australia’s space ambitions.” Maybe when we stop slaughtering kangaroos for pet food and their skins, there will be one or two left to rocket into space.
The so called ‘Space Age’ began in 1957 when the Russians got the jump on everybody and launched Sputnik 1. They also claimed a victory when Yuri Gagarin became the first astronaut to orbit the earth and send happy snaps from Vostok 1 in 1961. The ‘space race’ was officially on with Kennedy in the US calling for the human exploration of the moon. When Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin set foot on the moon in 1969 the world was captivated and ready to cash in.
In the following years we were flooded with Space Age toys, confectionaries, amusement rides, movies, TV shows and restaurants – all celebrating a kind of optimism and pride based on our conquering of this new frontier. In Sydney kiddies could enjoy a rocket ride outside the local supermarket, a slice of moon cake in the galactic wonderland of the Mars Bar in Pitt Street or even a ‘Skylab’ protective helmet for their birthday. The latter was marketed as a novelty, a prophetic one at that, just before pieces of the US spacecraft rained down in Western Australia in 1979.
These days the conquest of space appears to have been hijacked by the likes of Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos and Richard Branson with their big boys toys. Apart from the pampering of monstrous egos you have to wonder what’s their real motivation as they invest billions in rockets and other space gadgetry.
Judging by a number of recent surveys the public at large has lost interest in the current sorties into outer space. It might have been big news in China when their Zhurong rover landed on Mars but the rest of the world let out a big yawn. Likewise every time we see a story on the International Space Station, with the astronauts bouncing around like mindless buffoons in zero gravity, we have to wonder just what the hell they are doing up here. There appears to be more curiosity in how they recycle their urine than any real technological advancements they might be making.
When it comes to joy flights in space, tickets on Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic or Jeff Bezos’s Blue Origin start around the million dollar mark and I have heard the in flight catering is average. In two hundred years’ time you might be able to fly from Sydney to Bali via the moon but nobody is holding their breath.
Maybe the world is just too screwed up at the moment with wars in Ukraine and the Middle East, increasing environmental degradation and a multitude of other serious problems. Any suggestion that we may one day colonize Mars is treated with a scepticism that borders on anger, given the failure of governments to clean up their own earthly backyards. The hope and positivity for the future that was once generated when we first set foot on the moon has turned into a total fizzer.
When was the last time you saw a kiddy’s rocket ride at the local shopping centre? And if you happen to visit the Space Discovery Centre in Adelaide maybe $30 for a fluffy ‘Kanganaut’ is not such a bad investment. In twenty or thirty years’ time when we still haven’t set foot on Mars, but all the roos are wiped out, it could be a valuable novelty. In the meantime, try binging on twenty four episodes of ‘The Jetsons’ from the early 60s when we still naively believed that the Space Age was going to change the world.
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