ABSTRACT
Indeed, like the red-line zoning laws and patriarchal family life experi
enced in the mass-produced suburbs, the space race was predicated on racist
and sexist barriers that effectively grounded “racially” marked Americans and
women in general. This is especially paradoxical given the fact that space
exploration was conducted in the name of democracy and a 1960s version of
m ulticulturalism best encapsulated by Gene Roddenberry’s Star Trek. After
the Soviet launching of Sputnik in 1957, and the subsequent establishment of
the National Aeronautics and Space Adm inistration (NASA) in 1958, U.S.