Institutionalizing Outer Space: A sociotechnical explication of the Comsat-Intelsat actor-network

Abstract

Humans once again stand poised to institutionally transcend possible harmful economic and social stagnation arising from earthbound limitations by becoming a space faring species. The resurgent public interest in the economic and cultural potential of outer space reflects the convergence of actants such as advancements in technology, deepening public interest in expanding human presence, and concern about the earth’s sustainability. Yet there exists limited institutional research about this important phenomenon. The aim of our sociotechnical research is to explicate critical institutionalizing effects of the historic Comsat actor-network since it was the first-ever attempt by humans to commercialize outer space. We use actor network theory (ANT) coupled with discourse analysis as our method. Our findings suggest that the Comsat-Intelsat network is a positive deviant case in that it is a unique public-private network which successfully initiates an institutional pathway to outer space. Our work provides a robust typology of institutions, syndicates, and actors involved in space commercialization. We highlight several Insights about various translation phases, actor relations, and assembling challenges. Moreover, we delineate and describe a framework of fourteen controversies then construct an anatomy of institutional work with five discourse topics and embedded narrative themes: Commercialization, stabilization, prognostication, systematization, and universalization. We theorize that successful space commercialization initiatives require all five discourses to be robustly and concurrently activated across multi-constituent heterogenous actor-networks.