Following the Path That Heroes Carved into History: Space Tourism, Heritage, and Faith in the Future
Departments of Anthropology and Integrative, Religious, and Intercultural Studies, Grand Valley State University, Allendale, MI 49401, USA
Religions 2020, 11(1), 23; https://doi.org/10.3390/rel11010023
Received: 29 November 2019 / Revised: 23 December 2019 / Accepted: 28 December 2019 / Published: 2 January 2020
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Faith in Spiritual and Heritage Tourism)
Human spaceflight is likely to change in character over the 21st century, shifting from a military/governmental enterprise to one that is more firmly tied to private industry, including businesses devoted to space tourism. For space tourism to become a reality, however, many obstacles have to be overcome, particularly those in finance, technology, and medicine. Ethnographic interviews with astronauts, engineers, NASA doctors, and NewSpace workers reveal that absolute faith in the eventual human occupation of space, based in religious conviction or taking secular forms, is a common source of motivation across different populations working to promote human spaceflight. This paper examines the way faith is expressed in these different contexts and its role in developing a future where space tourism may become commonplace.
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Keywords:
anthropology; tourism; spaceflight; NASA; heritage; exploration
This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited
MDPI and ACS Style
Weibel, D.L. Following the Path That Heroes Carved into History: Space Tourism, Heritage, and Faith in the Future. Religions 2020, 11, 23.
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