This short essay briefly revisits some of the key issues and controversies associated with drafting the Outer Space Treaty (1967) and the Moon Agreement (1979). Drawing on Hannah Arendt’s critique of the Space Age, author argues that both treaties were a concerted attempt to think through the effects and process of space exploration not from the standpoint of the scientist for whom reaching the Moon and exploring the cosmos represented another stage in the progress towards an abstract universal standpoint. Rather, the treaties represented an attempt to read history into the future and to generate a radical normative break with historical patterns of colonialism and domination—a chance to inject equity and justice into the future of humankind.
