The Interplanetary School of IR

Abstract

From the late nineteenth century through the end of World War II, a new theory emerged regarding the future of international relations. Growing out from the budding science-fiction genre popularized by figures such as H. G. Wells, and maturing in the popular interwar space movements of Russia, Western Europe, and the United States, this theory proposed that human spaceflight would have a transformative impact on world society. Rocket engineers, sci-fi authors, and philosophers on both sides of the Atlantic argued that 1) space exploration would provide a vessel through which to channel aggression and violence; 2) the cost and technical difficulty of opening space would force once rival nations to cooperate; and 3) spaceflight would transform human consciousness itself, making of homo sapiens a more magnanimous, egalitarian, and pacific species. This article traces the rise and spread of what I call ‘interplanetary’ theory across time, nations, and professional disciplines, as well as the ways in which that theory departed from prevailing convictions about international relations after World War I.