The Astronautical discourse in an English primary school during the Principia ESA mission: A critical analysis

Abstract

ESA and the UK Space Agency have gone to considerable efforts to promote the Principia mission of Astronaut Tim Peake to school children in the United Kingdom. This paper describes a “Space Day” at an English primary school where, with the consent of the Head Teacher and Class Teachers, children aged around 10 or 11 years old received a modified presentation of the standard Principia presentation, and responded with drawings and written personal statements addressing the question “I want/do not want to be an Astronaut because …”. Accepting the validity of these ephemeral items as an expression of epistemology, these statements and drawings were subjected to a content analysis. In a further process of Critical Grounded Theory the key groupings were compared with established characteristic domains in space exploration (e.g. explorer or advocate). A construct found to be helpful is Foucault's concept of a “heterotopia”, which is discussed in reference to installations of space technology and especially the orbiting space stations. The conclusion looks forward to further application of heterotopia to the popular perception of space travel.