Naked Into the Cosmos: Future Shock in Space

Barry Vacker

“How strange, therefore, that when we hurl a man into the future, we take few pains to protect him from the shock of change. It is as though NASA had shot Armstrong and Aldrin naked into the cosmos.”

—Alvin Toffler

Published in July 1970, one year after the Apollo 11 moon landing, Alvin Toffler’s Future Shock rocked the world of the human species, many still basking in the euphoric triumph of Apollo 11. At that moment, all things seemed possible via science and technology, with NASA and global television providing the events and imagery to momentarily unite one billion people watching on TV on planet Earth. Yet, as Apollo 8 showed with its Genesis reading from lunar orbit, humanity was venturing into the cosmos intellectually unprepared, philosophically naked for our first steps among the starry skies. Fifty years later, the human species still has no space philosophy worthy of Apollo and the Hubble Space Telescope—and the universe they revealed. Apollo 11 astronaut Neil Armstrong took a small step and great leap, but we’re still going “naked into the cosmos.”

In Future Shock, Alvin Toffler foresaw this existential and philosophical challenge, among many others. Future Shock provided profound insights into the accelerating waves of scientific and technological transformation sweeping the planet. The book detailed our ability/inability to successfully adapt to these changes, individually and as a society. Importantly, Future Shock did not claim that a dystopian future was certain to come, filled with the doom and destruction that dominates science fiction films. Rather, Future Shock diagnosed what Toffler described as “the premature arrival of the future” and offered ideas for successfully adapting to the system-wide changes and cultural effects. Nowhere is Toffler’s thesis more clear than in space exploration and the challenge to develop a philosophy to unite our species as enlightened and peaceful space farers—in a universe in which we are not central or significant.

1 “The Premature Arrival of the Future”

In Future Shock, Toffler detailed how our “super-industrial” society had disrupted the traditional social order so dramatically that humanity had become traumatized—fearful of the loss of yesterday’s traditions and uncertain of the tomorrows to come. Entering a future that was hurtling toward us at ever-increasing speed with ever-expanding patterns of change, we were finding ourselves overwhelmed by the social transformations of the industrialized and electrified world. As Toffler explains:

Future shock is the dizzying disorientation brought on by the premature arrival of the future. It may well be the most important disease of tomorrow… unless intelligent steps are taken to combat it, millions of human beings will find themselves increasingly disoriented, progressively incompetent to deal rationally with their environments … Future shock is a time phenomenon, a product of the greatly accelerated rate of change in society. It arises from the superimposition of a new culture on an old one. It is culture shock in one’s own society. ¹

For Toffler, science and technology have delivered “the future” so fast that traditional values and conventional notions of family, work, education, community, and the like have been drastically altered. It’s as if we don’t recognize our own culture and destiny, plunging us into uncertainty and doubt. In addition, Toffler asserts, the more technology develops, the less stable our culture will be, preventing us from ever feeling fully settled or sure of where we are going. Changes in our concepts of space and time are the one certainty:

In the coming decades, advances in [sciences and technologies] will fire off like a series of rockets carrying us out of the past, plunging us deeper into the new society. Nor will this new society quickly settle into a steady state. It, too, will quiver and crack and roar as it suffers jolt after jolt of high-energy change. ²

Future Shock provided an exhaustive number of examples to support its thesis, although one does not have to agree with all of them to grasp the essential truths. Future shock is the emotional anxiety and existential dread felt toward a future that challenges all previous cultural narratives. And nothing has been more future-shocking than the universe revealed by space exploration.

2 Future Shock in Space: We’re the Center of Nothing

From Galileo’s telescope to the Hubble telescope, humans have long extended their gaze into the Milky Way and beyond. For eons, we looked at the stars gliding above and imagined we were the center of the universe. Most humans still do. It’s the bubble of what I call cosmic narcissism. In this illusory bubble on a tiny planet, we are not merely selfish or in love with our self-image, but rather we are busy imagining and acting as if we (individually and collectively) are the center of the universe, the center of everything—the center of all value, purpose, and meaning.

That’s why the telescope might well be the most radical technology ever, precisely because it empirically removed us from the center of the universe and punctured our bubble of cosmic narcissism. Future shock in space—space shock!

Over the past century, humanity’s space shock has been ramped up exponentially. In the 1920s, the stars of the Milky Way still represented the entirety of the known universe because telescopes lacked the capacity to see beyond our galaxy. That changed with the Hooker telescope in California, used by Edwin Hubble to make two landmark discoveries that forever changed our view of the universe:

1 The universe is much older and larger than previously assumed, with the Milky Way being just one galaxy among many;

2 The other galaxies and clusters of galaxies are moving apart from the Milky Way and from each other in what is known as the “big bang” model of the expanding universe.

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For eons, we looked at the stars gliding above and imagined we were the center of the universe. Most humans still do. It’s the bubble of what I call cosmic narcissism.

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In the big bang model, the galaxies are not propelling themselves through space—rather, the voids of space are expanding and taking the galaxies along for the ride. Powered by mysterious “dark energy,” these voids are shaped like massive space bubbles, bordered with clusters and networks of galaxies. Based on data from the Hubble telescope and others, NASA’s latest estimates suggest the observable universe contains two trillion galaxies and stretches across 100 billion light-years. And the number of stars exceeds three sextillion (3 followed by 21 zeros). We’ve discovered an epic universe—at once awe-inspiring and all-too-terrifying for many. Talk about space shock!

We humans apparently can’t handle the paradoxical meaning of our greatest scientific achievement and most important philosophical discovery: The universe is vast and majestic, and our species is insignificant and might be utterly meaningless. There may well be no meaning or purpose to our existence in the immensity of the cosmos that spans billions of years in the past and trillions upon trillions of years in the future. Rather than the center of everything, we are the center of nothing. As a species, we have ventured into the sublime of the universe and retreated from the possible nihilism, our minds blown but our philosophy paralyzed with future shock.

Future Shock saw this challenge coming:

In the awesome complexity of the universe, even within any given society, a virtually infinite number of streams of change occur simultaneously. All “things”—from the tiniest virus to the greatest galaxy—are, in reality, not things at all, but processes. There is no static point, no nirvana-like un-change, against which to measure change.³

If there is any meaning to our existence, perhaps it is because we are one way the universe is aware of itself. Our species is one process for generating knowledge of the universe itself. This non-static existence suggests a radically different philosophy for space exploration, an approach filled with wonder and admiration for the places we visit and life-forms we encounter—in contrast to plundering, polluting, and waging war.

3 Space Shock: 2020 and Beyond

Science and technology are propelling humans into a beautiful and sublime universe, with trillions of galaxies stretching across billions of light-years. Yet our popular narratives seem philosophically paralyzed and most humans remain in future shock, still turning to tribalism, nationalism, and consumerism for meaning, purpose, and identity. Centuries-old virulence and violence, ancient tribal and religious warfare—these are all replicating on Earth, in social media, and are destined for Mars, the moon, and beyond. Toffler anticipated these conditions:

The greatest and most dangerous marvel of all is the complacent past-orientation of the (human) race, its unwillingness to confront the reality of acceleration. Thus man moves swiftly into an unexplored universe, into a totally new stage of eco-technological development… He stumbles into the most violent revolution in human history (and) simply refuses to imagine the future.⁴

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Landing on the moon “For All Mankind” has been re-placed by conquering “For All My Kind”—illustrated by the corporate-nationalist agendas of militarizing space, strip-mining the moon, and terraforming Mars into a suburb of Earth, along with space theocrats yearning to baptize extraterrestrials and colonize the Milky Way.

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THE ENTROPY OF ENLIGHTENMENT IN SPACE: Fifty years after the unifying moment of Apollo 11, there is still no popular narrative that integrates humanity with its origins and destiny in the all-too-majestic cosmos. There is no philosophy that unites the human species as a peaceful and enlightened space-faring civilization. For those born after Apollo 11, Neil Armstrong’s “one giant leap for mankind” is but a faint echo on YouTube. Landing on the moon “For All Mankind” has been replaced by conquering “For All My Kind”—illustrated by the corporate-nationalist agendas of militarizing space, strip-mining the moon, and terraforming Mars into a suburb of Earth, along with space theocrats yearning to baptize extraterrestrials and colonize the Milky Way.⁵

There is no way this can be called “enlightened.” Science will be an irrelevant sideshow, unless it serves the above imperatives. Art and a new philosophy are nowhere on the agenda. Beauty, majesty, and sublimity—all will be seen as meaningless in the new human space agenda. Eyes open, but vision blinded by the narcissism, we are still going naked into the cosmos.

APOLLO MOON LANDING CONSPIRACIES: Is there a better example of 21st-century future shock than the endless conspiracy theories that NASA faked the moon landings? With the help of filmmaker Stanley Kubrick, no less! According to a 2016 Chapman University survey, 24 percent of Americans believe the landings were faked.⁶ But it’s not that the conspiracy theorists are merely crazy, it’s that the success of Apollo taps into their existential dread that they’re not as cosmically special as they think they are. That we know NASA went to the moon is explained in a popular essay on Medium.⁷

PSEUDOSCIENCE AND PARANORMAL WORLDVIEWS: Despite the explosion of knowledge in all scientific fields, pseudoscience and anti-science are proliferating—from fundamentalists to flat-Earthers, creationists to Apollo conspiracy theorists, anti-vaxxers to “Ancient Alien” theorists.⁸ Powered by the hit series Ancient Aliens (2009-), over 40 percent of Americans believe Ancient Aliens have visited Earth in the distant past, a belief that is fast becoming a new space religion.⁹

THE WEAPONIZATION/MILITARIZATION OF SPACE: China, Russia, and the United States are very busy weaponizing and militarizing space, preparing to wage war for resources and religious colonization of the moon and Mars. The Cold War is back and getting hotter—an atomic future shock seems possible again on planet Earth. There’s a reason Star Wars is so popular. The human species seems to love war.

TERRAFORMING MARS AND STRIP-MINING THE MOON: Terraforming Mars and strip-mining the moon for products to consume on Earth are perfect examples of humanity’s cosmic narcissism and a surefire prescription for war in space. None of these plans will make life better on Earth. Elon Musk says we need a backup planet for our species, but he’s philosophically off base. If we can’t protect and care for our own planet, then what gives us the cosmic right to terraform Mars into a suburb of Earth? Nothing other than our narcissism and a backward 19th-century industrial vision of plunder and pollution.

Why not treat celestial bodies with reverence and admiration for their beauty and majesty, like we do with national parks and wilderness areas? Instead of warriors and strip-miners, we should send artists, scientists, ecologists, and philosophers to Mars and the moon.

4 Toffler: Countering Future Shock in Space

With clear foresight, Toffler sensed the post-Apollo challenge and sketched out possible rituals and holidays to unite humans in the wake of our first steps into the cosmos.

CELEBRATING UNITY AMONG HUMANITY: Toffler wrote: “We might create a global pageantry based on man’s conquest of outer space. Even now the succession of space launchings and capsule retrievals is beginning to take on a kind of ritual dramatic pattern. Millions stand transfixed as the countdown begins and the mission works itself out. For at least a fleeting instant, they share a realization of the oneness of humanity and its potential competence in the face of the universe.”¹⁰

Rather than rituals celebrating the “unity” and “oneness” of humanity, we have Star Wars openings and superhero films, where gods-in-human-form save us from the monsters of the universe. Can we even imagine some kind of social unity in the aftermath of Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube? Unity seems impossible, precisely because social media cultivate tribes, create echo chambers, and keep humanity at the center of the universe, the center of everything meaningful and valuable. Social media are the perfect consolation for the discoveries of the Hubble telescope.¹¹

A GLOBAL HOLIDAY HONORING APOLLO 11: Toffler wrote: “By regularizing such events and by greatly adding to the pageantry that surrounds them, we can weave them into the ritual framework of the new society and use them as sanity preserving points of temporal reference. Certainly, July 20, the day Astronaut Armstrong took ‘one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind,’ ought to be made into an annual global celebration of the unity of man.”¹²

When I read the Apollo 11 holiday idea, my jaw dropped in amazement. Toffler is absolutely correct. Rather than a global holiday celebrating Apollo 11, we have proliferating Apollo conspiracy theories claiming the great achievement is bogus, along with the transient enthusiasms of Oscars, Super Bowls, and World Cups.

5 “Future Shock” vs. “Explosion of Awareness”

From Apollo to the Hubble telescope, NASA’s grand achievements have collectively destroyed the pre-Copernican narratives humans use to explain their origins and destinies. Again, Toffler was correct—fear, denial, anxiety, and outright ignorance are permeating society. We need a new philosophy (accompanied by art, ritual, and pageantry) that builds on our profound connections to the Milky Way, the Hubble images, and seeing Earth from space. Astronauts who’ve seen Earth from space experience deep feelings of awe, transcendence, and a primal connection to the planet and the universe. Apollo 14 astronaut Edgar Mitchell described the experience as an “explosion of awareness.” Given that we are one way the universe knows itself, this “explosion of awareness” provides an exciting basis for a 21st-century space philosophy, a new worldview to counter the future shock on Earth and in space.¹³ We no longer have to go “naked into the cosmos.”

Barry Vacker, PhD, is an associate professor in the Klein College of Media and Communication, Temple University, Philadelphia. A writer and mixed-media artist, Vacker’s works span the intersection of art, media, science, technology, and philosophy. His most recent books include Media Environments (3rd Ed., 2019), Black Mirror and Critical Media Theory (co-edited with Angela Cirucci, 2018), and Specter of the Monolith (2017), a book inspired by 2001: A Space Odyssey. Vacker’s recent large-scale art installation was featured during the 2019 Media Ecology Convention at the University of Toronto—where Vacker (and co-artist Julia M. Hildebrand) received an international award for “MediaScene: A McLuhan-Inspired Art and Theory Project,” an innovative essay about the future of media theory in the age of the Anthropocene and the Hubble Space Telescope. Connect with him at: https://temple.academia.edu/BarryVacker.

1. Alvin Toffler, Future Shock (New York: Random House, 1970), 13.

2. Ibid., 192-93.

3. Ibid., 21.

4. Ibid., 191.

5. Guy Consolmagno and Paul Mueller, Would You Baptize an Extraterrestrial?:… and Other Questions from the Astronomers’ In-box at the Vatican Observatory (New York: Image Books, 2014).

6. “What They Aren’t Telling Us,” Chapman University Survey of American Fears, October 11, 2016. Accessed May 12, 2019.

7. Barry Vacker, “Apollo Moon Landings: Pseudoscience and 6 Reasons Why There Was No NASA Hoax,” Medium, October 20, 2017.

8. “Paranormal America—2018,” Chapman University Survey of American Fears, October 16, 2018. Accessed May 12, 2019.

9. Steven Kurutz, “E.T., We’re Here,” New York Times, Sunday Styles, p. 1, July 22, 2018.

10. Toffler, Future Shock, 351.

11. Barry Vacker, Media Environments, 3rd Ed. (San Diego: Cognella Academic Publishing, 2019); 27-49.

12. Ibid.

13. For details on such a philosophy, see Barry Vacker, Specter of the Monolith: Nihilism, the Sublime, and Human Destiny in Space—From Apollo and Hubble to 2001, Star Trek, and Interstellar (Philadelphia: Center for Media and Destiny 2017).