America in Space: The International Relations of Star Trek and Battlestar Galactica

Abstract

Popular culture can be used as a mirror to reflect on how societies think about themselves. Here Star Trek and the recent version of Battlestar Galactica are used to reflect on how America views its own destiny, its relationship to technology and its place in the universe. Space and ‘final frontiers’ are particularly resonant in American culture, and these two television series provide numerous benchmarks by which to contrast the optimistic and outgoing America of the 1960s with the darker and more paranoid America of post-9/11. Can an America that has given up the goal of returning to the moon still claim to own the future, and is the US becoming inward- and backward-looking — a new Middle Kingdom?