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.