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Link – Constellation Affirmative
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Link – Constellation Affirmative[____] [____] Using hegemony and economic leadership to justify American space activities reflects an underlying frontier mentality. Ray Williamson, Professor of Space Policy and International Affairs in the Space Policy Institute, George Washington University, October 1987 “Outer Space as Frontier: Lessons for Today,” Western Folklore, Within a few months of the Princeton meeting, I confronted for the first time the extent to which the myth of the frontier had been subsumed into the immediate drive to expand this nation's capacity for working in space. At a briefing in my office, representatives of a large aerospace firm argued that exploitation of outer space was a means for maintaining U.S. national power and prestige, and stressed the use of outer space as "America's Frontier for Growth, Leadership and Freedom."'7 In other words, fully exploiting space will pull the United States out of its national and international doldrums and give it a new economic and political edge over other nations. Without this outward growth, they argued, we as a nation are likely to become stifled. It is part of our heritage as Americans that "exploration and growth have been synonymous."'8 Our ancestors explored, conquered, and settled the "new" land just beyond the boundaries of civilization, and in doing so, each time they moved the boundaries out just a bit further. So, in a sense, by living on the edge of the unknown,19 as a nation we became accustomed to being unsettled, became inured to the continually new, were ever ready to move on and out. But the American spirit is not characterized solely by continual physical movement and expansion. We have also made scientific research and engineering development our hallmark. And we have manifested that emphasis to ourselves and the world by highly visible, well-publicized exploits in outer space. First we traveled to the moon and then developed a reusable orbiting space shuttle. By becoming masters of the space spectacular, covered extensively on television and radio, we have maintained our place on the edge of our collective seats.20 Link – SETI Affirmative[____] [____] Searching for aliens as a solution to Earth’s problems perpetuates the idea of space as the next frontier. M. Jane Young, Professor of American Studies at the University of New Mexico, October 1987, “Parables of the Space Age-The Ideological Basis of Space Exploration,” Western Folklore, Thus, not only is outer space the "new frontier" in the sense of physical exploration, it has also become an arena for the projection of fantasies. Mary O'Drain suggests, for example, that the gods of early Western mythology have given rise to the extraterrestrials of today, those benevolent beings who will have the knowledge and resources to repair the mistakes we have made.5 The answers are located "out there," rather than within ourselves. Another example of this reliance on a "fantastic" solution to earth's dilemma is the tendency in recent times to translate faith in a myth sequence or the tenets of religion into overweening faith in "the wonders of Science." Among modern, technologically-oriented Americans, not only has the belief in UFOs and extraterrestrial beings become the folkloric expression of traditional ideologies, but science has replaced myth as the sacred charter, the system of beliefs that mediate between the known and the unknown. [____] [____] The belief in extraterrestrial life is a product of the frontier myth. Howard McCurdy, Professor of Public Affairs at American University, 2007, Societal Impact of Spaceflight, p. 14 Two recent developments help to illustrate this situation. The first is the so-far disappointing pursuit of extraterrestrial life. The widespread expectation that spaceflight will result in the discovery of extraterrestrial life permeates the early literature on spaceflight, from the contemplation of environmental conditions on Mars to the presentation of alien forms in science fiction.'4 In a rashion similar to other metaphors imposed on space travel, the vision of a universe teeming with life derives much of its force from the widespread expectation that expeditions in the extraterrestrial realm will be similar to earlier ventures in the terrestrial one. Terrestrial explorers returned with tales of exotic species and strange cultures, fueling expectations that extraterrestrial journeys would reveal the same. Throughout the first 50 years of spaceflight, at least, this expectation has not been fulfilled. Confounding widespread expectations, robotic spacecraft have revealed the surface of Mars to be essentially sterile, not the "abode of life" that writers such as Percival Lowell and Willy Ley portrayed. Inspection ofVenus, which was often portrayed in pre-Space Age writings as a Paleozoic planet, has exposed a hellish place much too warm to permit the development of complex life.2"1 Link – Mars Colonization Affirmative[____] [____] The drive to colonize Mars gets its inspiration from manifest destiny and the colonization of the American west. Catherine Gouge, Associate Professor of English at West Virginia University, Fall 2002, “The Great Storefront of American Nationalism: Narratives of Mars and the Outerspatial Frontier” Americana: The Journal of American Popular Culture (1900-present), Fall 2002, Volume 1, Issue 2 One of the "First Hundred" colonists in Robinson's Red Mars, John Boone (whose name seems to recall somewhat ironically the mythical American, Daniel Boone), calls the transposition of the American frontier analogy to the Martian frontier a "false analogy": Oh come on [...] You all have to get it through your heads that this whole [Martian] revolution scenario is nothing but a fantasia on the American Revolution, you know, the great frontier, the hardy pioneer colonists exploited by the imperial power, the revolt to go from colony to sovereign state—it's all just false analogy! (348) The historical analogy breaks down, according to Boone, because the "fantasia" is not "real," and the characters to whom Boone is speaking are merely transposing their fantasy of American history onto the very real Martian frontier experience. In so doing, these characters narrativize their experience such that they become the underdog heroes of history: the exploited pioneers who eventually gain autonomy and power. The trilogy suggests that if we project such a fantasy onto the Martian frontier, if we treat the fantasy as if it were reality, no matter how long one may have been there, Mars will remain, "the place you have never seen" (Green Mars 189). Indeed, "seeing" Mars is key to surviving there since, as Boone explains later in the passage, one of the key differences between Mars and the originary American frontier is that, without a long process of terraformation, the Martian terrain cannot sustain colonists as he imagines the originary American frontier did. Robert Markley notes that the necessity of terraformation is represented by the trilogy as fundamental to the transformation of the frontier subject: "The impossibility of fitting Mars into paradigms imported from Earth forces characters to move beyond false historical analogies and, consequently, to take moral responsibility for the complex changes—social as well as biospheric—initiated by terraformation" (787). The ecology of Mars both forces Robinson's characters to take "moral responsibility" and is responsible, according to the trilogy, for teaching colonists to be more humble about their place in history, to accept responsibility for their actions and yet to resist the impulse to stake too large a claim for themselves in history books. 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