RICE UNIVERSITY American Extreme: An Ethnography of Astronautical Visions and Ecologies By Valerie A. Olson A THESIS SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE Doctor of Philosophy APPROVED, THESIS COMMITTEE: !#*»- J^mes D. Faiibiojh, Professor Anthropology jU^tT) Amy Ninette, Assistant Professor Anthropology Gyrus C. Mrlvlody, Assistant Professor History HOUSTON, TEXAS MAY 2010 UMI Number: 3421439 All rights reserved INFORMATION TO ALL USERS The quality of this reproduction is dependent upon the quality of the copy submitted. In the unlikely event that the author did not send a complete manuscript and there are missing pages, these will be noted. Also, if material had to be removed, a note will indicate the deletion. UMT Dissertation Publishing UMI 3421439 Copyright 2010 by ProQuest LLC. All rights reserved. This edition of the work is protected against unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States Code. ProQuest LLC 789 East Eisenhower Parkway P.O. Box 1346 Ann Arbor, Ml 48106-1346 Copyright Valerie A. Olson 2010 Abstract American Extreme: An Ethnography of Astronautical Visions and Ecologies by Valerie A. Olson This dissertation is a coordinated ethnographic case study of environmental science, medicine, technology, and design in an American human spaceflight program. Its goal is to investigate how astronautics contributes to shaping "the environment" as an extensive contemporary category of knowledge, politics, and social action. Based on fieldwork conducted primarily at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA)'s Johnson Space Center in Houston Texas from 2005 - 2008, the study argues that, in practical and meaningful ways, ecology and cosmology are co-constituting in American astronautics. Using participant observation and archival data, the study evaluates how astronautics practitioners know and work with "the human environment" on a scope that includes vehicle habitats and the heliosphere and on scales ranging from the molecular to the cosmic. In this work, people shore up and break down unusual human/environment boundaries, making sense of what it means to do so in technoscientific as well as sociopolitical, symbolic, and transcendental terms. The four cases analyzed are: (1) how space analogue missions operate as simulations but also make arguments that extreme environments foster progress through confrontation with adversity, (2) how space biomedical subjecthood is fundamentally environmental rather than biological, (3) how "habitability" works as a key elaborating concept among space architects so that they can connect extraterrestrial and terrestrial habitation problems and solutions, and (4) how Near Earth comets and asteroids have moved from being obscure astronomical objects to objects of environmental policymaking that extends into the heliosphere and into the far future. The study's analysis brings social theory about the spatial politics of knowledge into dialogue with conceptual frameworks from the social studies of science, technology, and environment. As an ethnography of outer space as extreme environment rather than territorial frontier, the study highlights astronautics' connections to broader domains of environmental science and technology, and by discursive and practical extension, to a spectrum of American environmentalisms and engagements with extremity. In doing so, the study elaborates astronautics' role in making ecological knowledge, and attendant concepts like adaptation and evolution, cosmologically scalable. Acknowledgements To the many kind and generous people who made this dissertation project possible, I am gratefully and permanently indebted. I entered JSC and the NASA institutional network through inviting encounters with Mark Craig, Dr. Judy Robinson, and Eileen Hawley. Edna Fiedler believed in and helped to develop this project. The National Space Biomedical Research Center and its senior managers, Dr. Jeffrey Sutton and Dr. Jeanne Becker, gamely and kindheartedly agreed to hire me as a research intern and gave me the encouragement as well the requisite tokens of permission I needed to come and go at NASA centers. Pam Baskin was my friend and constant NASA guide, helping and sometimes even pushing me, with caring and wit, to go where I needed to. The staff, participants, collaborators, and institutional networks of the NEEMO program accepted me (and my incessant questions) with grace and good humor, and they let me dive. Wendell Mendell, John Charles, Rob Landis, and the NEOphiles gave more than "one or two" interviews and brought me into their orbits, and I hope I had something to offer in return. The "Exploration Faithful" accepted me in as an observer and exploropologist; these pages are shaped in part by their debates, insights, humor, and hopes. People within the National Space Biomedical Research Center, Johnson Space Center, Ames Research Center, National Undersea Research Center, NASA Headquarters, and Space Frontier Society who gave of their time, thoughts and dreams, chairs at tables, office space, documents, dive gear, and lunch money are legion. I would list them individually but being named herein may or may not be a welcome tribute, so I will simply say: thank you, so very much, with all of my heart. I will acknowledge them iv in terms of the teams I came to respect for their astonishing persistence and coordinated productivity in the face of constant uncertainties: the Life Sciences Directorate, the JSC Astronaut Corps, the Habitability and Environmental Factors Division, the Lunar Habitat Design brainstorm team, the Habitability Design Center, the JSC archive team, the Public Affairs Office, Ames Research Center, the Astromaterials Research and Exploration Science Office, the NASA History Office, and the JSC Oral History project team. In addition, I wish to thank the European Space Agency for allowing me to work as a staigiare at the Noordwijk Technical Center in the Netherlands and for accepting my visits at the European Astronaut Center in Koln, Germany. My time there gave me a vital comparative perspective on astronautical theories, discourse, and practice. Rice University the Anthropology Department accepted me as a non-traditional student and encouraged an unusual project; I will always reflect on this with great gratitude and lingering incredulity. Among the Anthropology department professors, George Marcus brought me face to face with the joy and challenge of designing an anthropological project and hovered always there even when far away; James Faubion remodeled my mind and provided the rich analytic frameworks on which to base good questions; Hannah Landecker pushed me to move beyond my writing and intellectual habits; Christopher Kelty gave me thoughts, courage, and words when I lost them; Julie Taylor kindly brought the ethnography up out of me; Amy Ninetto steered me toward the historical roots of my inquiries. Committee member and historian Cyrus Mody provided guidelines for engaging with other disciplines. I will never forget formative moments and helpful encouragement in consultation with these Rice professors: Nia Georges, Stephen Tyler, Libby Vann, Jeff Fleischer, Dominic Boyer, Phil Kortum, Stanley Reiser, and V Jeffrey Kripal. I thank the Anthropology Department's administrative staff, Carole Speranza and Joanne Carpenter, for their help. I was fortunate to acquire a team of outside readers and advisors, generous professors to whom I will always be grateful: Stefan Helmreich provided the careful reading and rereading and practiced guidance that made all the difference at critical moments; Debbora Battaglia buoyed heart and mind above and beyond; David Valentine helped me to see the really big picture and invited me on board as a colleague for his own space project. In addition, I'm grateful to Steven Pyne, David Nye, Joe Masco, Deanna Weibel, Cynthia Selin, and Patrick McCray for encouragement, mentoring, and new ideas. Graduate students build networks that keep us "together," not just as a group but as individuals. Senior students in and outside the department, most now far along down their professional pathways in the world, were reassuring, provocative, and grounding. My deep gratitude and acknowledgements that "you were right" to: Andrea Frolic, Brian Riedel, Jae Chung, Kristin Peterson, and Michael Powell. During my first year in the Anthropology Proseminar at Rice I met the cohort that would be a constant source of impetus and critical feedback: Ebru Kalyaap, Anthony Potocniak, and Elitza Ranova. Among my contemporaries with whom I worked out ideas and problems that are now written deep into these pages are Nahal Naficy who transported me back the poetics, Matthew Wolf-Meyer who generously and compassionately pulled me into the most productive projects and networks, Elise McCarthy who was there at the first interview and co-designed this project, Michael Adair-Kriz who opened up spaces to be/think/rethink with renewed enthusiasm, Lisa Messeri who shared the field with me vi and read my early efforts with unrelenting kindness, Terri Laws who shared her wisdom and grace during our salons dedicated to the self and the real, and Maria Vidart, Cap Bendixsen, Dan White, and Nikki Payne with whom I shared great times and talks. I thank the HRC Dissertation 2009 - 2010 Fellows: Lina Dib, Philip Robichaud, David Getman, Cory Ledoux, and Catherine Fitzgerald Wyatt for the dynamic and thought-provoking meetings. Also, my thanks go to Sven Mesinovic, Michael Mooradian Lupro, Tiffany Romain, and Matthew