Nasa/Trek: Popular Science and Sex in America [Hardcover]

Constance Penley (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0860914054 | ISBN-13: 978-0860914051 | Publication Date: June 1997

This is an investigation of the role of space travel in popular imagination, arguing that the relationship between space and sex is more complicated than it first appears. NASA itself, in a scramble to protect its funding, has turned to icons of popular culture which play fast and loose with sexual stereotypes. Nowhere is this more evident than in the space agency's open borrowing from "Star Trek". The test model for the shuttle was named after the star ship "Enterprise, NASA personnel name their computers after Spock and NASA hired Lieutenant Uhura to assist in its recruitment of women and minorities. Meanwhile, "Star Trek" is reshaped by networks of women fans producing samizdat porno-romance fanzines which star Spock and Captain Kirk in a homosexual relationship. Completing the orbit, the subversions of the fans are re-integrated by the show's producers. In one episode, Kirk approaches Spock, arms extended for a manly embrace. "Please Captain, " the ever proper Spock demurs, "not in front of the Klingons." The book illustrates "Star Trek" fans' criticisms of the show's inability to include women - and issues of sex and sexuality - in the world of science and technology. NASA, too, fails in the same way. To counter official versions of science, the fans propose instead a popular science that boldly goes where no one has gone before, but which remains answerable to human needs and social desires. Constance Penley is the author of "The Future of Illusion: Film, Feminism and Psychoanalysis", and the editor of "Technoculture" with Andrew Ross.

Editorial Reviews

From Kirkus Reviews

A clever and iconoclastic dual portrait of the NASA space program and Star Trek fandom from a feminist perspective. Penley (Film and Women's Studies/Univ. of Calif., Santa Barbara) grew up near Cape Canaveral, and her childhood was shaped in large part by predawn dashes with her father to watch rockets being launched. These unusual excursions, mixed with a heavy dose of Kennedy-era liberalism, led to Penley's lifelong love of NASA and of the whole notion of space exploration. But her vision of the program, while positive overall, is hardly idealized. Using the Christa McAuliffe/Challenger tragedy as a base for her extensive criticisms in the first half of the book, Penley shows persuasively that women in the space program have consistently been held to a different--usually higher--standard; that the choice of McAuliffe and the publicity surrounding her training were sexist and demeaning; and that NASA covered up the full extent of the disaster and then memorialized the event poorly. The second half of the book deals mostly with the homoerotic cottage porn industry that has grown up around Star Trek. Penley is sufficiently insightful and persuasive to make this leap in the narrative entirely convincing. Captain Kirk and Mr. Spock are seen in these fantasies (which are largely invented by heterosexual women, according to Penley) as gay lovers. NASA/Trek offers a witty illumination of the strong relationship between the cultures of NASA and Star Trek, arguing that it exists not just in each co-opting the other's symbols and characters (Nichelle Nichols, Lt. Uhura on the original show, was a successful recruiter of women and minorities for NASA), but in their sharing of themes and goals for the future. Boldly--and successfully--goes where no one has gone before. (20 b&w photos, not seen) -- Copyright ©1997, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

Review

"Going into space with NASA/TREK is a good read and a good ride into uncharted regions of technoculture. In Pentley's hands, popular science is a place to launch an inquiry into moral cultural and political stakes in a world 'where no man has gone before'." - Donna Haraway "NASA/TREK is happily both enjoyable and insightful, and explores some intricate correspondences between science and sex. Among other things it offers a new a persuasive analysis of a populist subgenre: 'slash' fiction". - Samuel R. Delany --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 169 pages
• Publisher: Verso Books (June 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0860914054
• ISBN-13: 978-0860914051
• Product Dimensions: 8 x 5.8 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11.2 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #7,206,581 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars For anyone interested in how popular culture affects society, February 26, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: NASA/Trek: Popular Science and Sex in America (Paperback)

This book is an excellent critical look at the intersections between popular science, sexuality, and Star Trek. The first section looks at the dialogic interaction between the fiction of Star Trek and the reality of NASA. It is fascinating both for those interested in the history of women in the US space program and for Trekkers, giving little known facts about NASA and providing insightful, well-written analysis. The second half of the book analyzes slash fan fiction, using actual stories and images to explore how and why women express their own utopian longings through the sexual relationship of Kirk and Spock. Penley's book is thouroughly researched, clearly presented, and well-written throughout.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars "Not in Front of the Klingons": What does NASA and Star Trek have in Common?, August 18, 2006

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Roger D. Launius "Historian" (Washington, D.C., United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: NASA/Trek: Popular Science and Sex in America (Paperback)

In many ways this is a very unusual book by Constance Penley (Professor of Film Studies, University of California, Santa Barbara), but one that offers a fascinating feminist analysis of NASA, spaceflight, and the culture of science fiction. Penley describes first what can only be called a love triangle between the American public, NASA, and "Star Trek." She finds it an essential element of American society from the 1960s to the present, and despite betrayals and sometimes rocky straits this relationship has endured.

Penley analyses this love triangle in what is essentially a two step process. The first section (pp. 11-96) involves an exploration of the place of women in the institutional setting of NASA and the human spaceflight endeavor that it has managed throughout its history. Most close observers would probably agree with Penley that NASA's approach to women in space has been strained from the beginning. For the longest time its leaders resisted incorporating women into the astronaut corps, reflecting both the larger mores of society and the "boys with their toys" attitudes of engineering and machineshops. Finally, the agency selected several women as astronauts in 1978, among them Sally Ride and Judith Resnick. Ride finally broke down that barrier in 1983 by flying on the Space Shuttle in STS-7, 24 years after the creation of NASA. Other women went on to fly on the shuttle, including the teacher Christa McAuliffe who died in the Challenger accident in January 1986.

Penley expends considerable effort unpacking the relationship of NASA to the general public in this story. She finds that NASA is not so much a chauvinistic organization as it is a reflection of the deep ambivalence of society toward women and technology. She notes that this is present in NASA, in the military, and even in such daily activities as automobile purchasing and servicing. She points to the efforts of the women astronauts to fit into the larger NASA culture and to be one of the team. Judith Resnick, who also died on Challenger in 1986, typically said: "I am an astronaut. Not a woman astronaut. Not a Jewish astronaut. An astronaut" (p. 29). This attempt to fit in, to colonize the male domain of spaceflight, presents Penley with a remarkable opportunity to discuss the manner in which American culture intrudes on the supposedly cold logic of technological decisions.

The second part of the book (pp. 97-145) discusses the role of "Star Trek" in American society, with some analysis of how the popular television show was also related to NASA and its efforts. Penley especially delves into the trekker culture of K/S "slash" novels, erotic literature in which Kirk and Spock have an ongoing romantic involvement. Engaging in this, as well as a range of other fan behavior, allows participants to appropriate the crew "family" aboard the Star Ship Enterprise, the ideals of the United Federation of Planets, and the challenges of moving beyond the humdrum of existence on Earth to a more exciting and rewarding life within the broader cosmos.

Penley suggests that the homosexual relationship of Kirk and Spock in these various fan-produced stories stand in for a utopian vision of relationships and a positive future. Spock, she notes, occupies a place in relation to Kirk that women would like to occupy in relation to men, as both are essentially equal and not subject to powerful lovers. Perhaps, the relationship between NASA and "Star Trek" is similar to the K/S relationship. Both need and respect the other, and like Kirk and Spock neither publicly acknowledges this relationship. NASA/TREK, therefore, offers an analysis of a critical symbiotic relationship in modern society. As Penley persuasively argues, the relationship of society/science is also fundamentally illuminated through this study.

This is an engaging, provocative book that deserves serious consideration by any student of spaceflight and society.