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How will religious and political ideologies define the future of human expansion into space?

In collaboration with Future Tense, Jack Traphagan, Interplanetary Initiative’s 2023-2024 fellow, led the first Space Intersections symposium in Washington, D.C. with leading global experts. The exploration will culminate in the publication of “Religion and Space Exploration in Cross-Cultural Perspective.” 

Explore project website

Discussion topics:

• The spirit of space exploration in China and the West.
• Cosmism, atheism, and socialism: Millenarian cosmologies of the Soviet space program.
• Postcolonial endeavor in outer space: Cosmic projections of national ideologies.
• Ideology and Chinese space expansionism.
• Look to the heavens: Religion and space exploration in the U.S. and Russia.
• Why are Shingon Buddhists launching a temple satellite?
• Does NASA know what’s good for the world?
• Japanese space expansion, religious ideology and society 5.0.
• Orthodox icons in the space age: Saints and cosmonauts.
• The space flown body: How medical spaceflight researchers manifest the destiny of human biology.
• There will be war.
• Space strategy, strategic culture, policy and goals: China and India.