Neill Blomkamp’s ‘Elysium’ imagines a 21st-22nd-century future for humanity that builds on an ambivalent vision first described by NASA in the 1970s and formally supported by the White House three years ago.
I first posted this short piece below in April, 2010, after Pres. Obama announced his medium-term plan for off-world colonies in a speech at NASA, in effect the most articulated U.S. plan to deal with climate change up to that point. It shares themes with the film and uses the same, gorgeous NASA/Stanford drawings that the film uses as set design.
'Elysium’ cleverly embeds thoughtful sociopolitical critique into explosive and escapist entertainment. Not enough Hollywood films walk this line. By extending contemporary real-world issues just a few generations into the future, the film strikes close to home in a way that many science-fiction films do not, implictly asking us to question today’s most important real-world political decisions. Minimal suspension of disbelief is required in order to accept Blomkamp’s world as representative of the alarming general direction we seem to be headed in, and for that alone it makes a welcome contribution to the culture. In its dark, cautionary, almost comic book-style depiction of where current policies and technological change are leading society, it presents us with a trajectory and premonition—more extreme inequality and oppression, humans increasingly merging with machines, a completely ravaged Earth—that feels all too real.
While a new—and tragically-flawed—U.S. climate change policy was unveiled by Obama this June (scientifically speaking, it does not go far enough or quickly enough to prevent likely catastrophe in the coming decades), the incredible plan described below for extraterrestrial colonization remains the official longer-term American vision.
Solar System or Ecosystem?
April 18, 2010
By Y. Brody
In a speech to NASA on Thursday, Obama unveiled a bold, new climate change policy for the United States.
Apparently realizing there is no viable consensus on earth science to be had among America’s state-corporate leaders, Obama appears to have gone straight to Plan B: He’s pulling out the national credit card to hire aerospace corporations to help conquer the solar system, mine for treasure, and scout potential new homes. The first manned missions to asteroids, and then Mars, should pave the way to the first human space colonies in the second half of the 21st century.
“Our goal is the capacity for people to work and learn and operate and live safely beyond the Earth for extended periods of time, ultimately in ways that are more sustainable and even indefinite.”
–Barack Obama, April 15, 2010
Images from http://settlement.arc.nasa.gov/
NASA had been looking into colonization and resource mining for decades before Obama gave these ideas the full weight of his support and moved up the schedule. For example, NASA’s recently updated Space Settlements website explains that since the Earth will some day become uninhabitable, masses of ordinary people will, at some point or other, have to make the move to “a nice place to live” on orbiting spacecraft and/or celestial bodies. Orbital colonies are envisioned as “California beach town”-style communities with “fantastic views” and “great wealth,” while those on asteroids, the Moon, and Mars offer unlimited living space:
“The asteroids alone provide enough material to make new orbital land hundreds of times greater than the surface of the Earth, divided into millions of colonies. This land can easily support trillions of people.”
Among other advantages to getting off Earth, according to NASA: Space pilgrims “might prefer to live away from 'non-believers,’” new social and political structures can be developed more easily than they can on Earth for those who might “wish to experiment,” and penal colonies would effectively become escape proof. If NASA is correct, once humans begin breeding extra-terrestrially, the Earthling population may eventually find itself in the minority. In frank and unsettling terms, the reasons are explained:
“Those that colonize space will control vast lands, enormous amounts of electrical power, and nearly unlimited material resources. The societies that develop these resources will create wealth beyond our wildest imagination and wield power – hopefully for good rather than for ill.”
With future prospects for a global agreement on climate change looking effectively buried with the grand failure at the Copenhagen summit and the international splintering that has taken place in its aftermath, I’m afraid this may be the most realistic climate change program the US is likely to get this year.
Yet, it’s not too late to act collectively to save life on Earth!
Join the world’s largest organized grassroots movement at 350.org today.
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