The Growth of Representation in Space Exploration: How Might the Future Match the Ideas of Afrofuturists

Date of Event

2017-09-12

Title

The Growth of Representation in Space Exploration: How Might the Future Match the Ideas of Afrofuturists

Brief Description

In the novel "After the Flare," Afrofuturist author Deji Olukotun wrote about a future that is bad, sure, but not quite dystopian because it harbored the growth of black people in space. In the past, black people were left out of the vision of space. Some, like Edward Nkoloso had dreams of going to space, but lacked almost everything else. Still, that did not stop him from doing what he could to try and convince the Zambain government to fund his space program. Now, we live in a world where black people have more opportunity than ever, and the thought of a black space program out of Africa doesn't seem so crazy.

Location

Kano, Nigeria

Student creator name(s)

Christopher Brandreth

Afrofuturism Canon

AfricanFuturism

Tag(s)

AfroFuturism

AfricanFuturism

Aliens/Space Travel & Exploration

Abstract

In the novel "After the Flare," Afrofuturist author Deji Olukotun wrote about a future that is bad, sure, but not quite dystopian because it harbored the growth of black people in space. In the past, black people were left out of the vision of space. Some, like Edward Nkoloso had dreams of going to space, but lacked almost everything else. Still, that did not stop him from doing what he could to try and convince the Zambain government to fund his space program. Now, we live in a world where black people have more opportunity than ever, and the thought of a black space program out of Africa doesn't seem so crazy.
The history of black space exploration is short. The first black astronauts to reach space did not do so until the early 1980s, two decades after the first manned spacecraft entered orbit. The countries capable of sending a black man into space just didn’t, and a single black air force pilot who entered the astronaut program left due to the toxic environment. In Africa, Edward Nkoloso, a Zambian war hero had an interest in space. He created his own Zambian space program which planned to send a 17-year-old Zambian girl into space in a tiny aluminum drum. He and his followers took it seriously, even if the Zambian government did not. He had no materials necessary to actually send anything into space, let alone a human, and that’s ignoring the astronaut’s safety. He was crazy, maybe, but he was not a fool. He knew what he wanted, and he just simply had no means to achieve it. He crowned his crew members Afronauts, which is the title used for the movie about this venture.
“After the Flare” is a novel that follows an African American man working at a space complex in Kano, Nigeria, after a solar flare caused a global disaster. The circumstances were not ideal, but the location of Nigeria on the equator and on the globe allowed it to be far enough away to escape the worst of the disaster. One of the largest effects of the flare was the complete loss of electricity for the world powers. This meant that all space programs had been shut down because they had no way of doing anything. This is important of course, because there is an astronaut who had to man the International Space Station while everybody else evacuated after the disaster, and the station is set to fall at any time. The main character, Kwesi Bracket, was an engineer working for NASA at the time of the flare, so of course he would be interested in continuing his job at a space program. Had he not been of African descent, he would have been unable to get a job at the space port. Olukotun made sure to specify that the space program was hiring only African people or people with African heritage, and other neighboring people such as Indians. This means that for the first time ever, an African country would be sending a rocket, made purely by people of African descent, with only black astronauts, into space.
The dream of space for black people can signify different things. One of them is freedom, related to the escape from slavery and the goal of freedom. Another is a future, and space is a place where there is no set future, and black people can explore their identity and personal futures however they want, free of the terrors placed upon them daily. Olukotun knew what he was doing when he decided to write the two books “Nigerians in Space” and “After the Flare,” there is no question. It is set in the present, post disaster, but could represent a day that is not all that far away from us. The goal of space exploration is on some peoples minds daily, and they are working to get us there. Exploration of space is freeing and provides a free future, and there are programs around the world that have an influence on the future.
One such program is the Arizona State University Interplanetary Initiative. The program states that it is envisioning our future in space exploration and our future as a human race. A human future is incomplete without people of every kind. Diversity is necessary in our future in order to hold onto the varied cultures seen around the world that provide so much to our race. Afrofuturists have ideas that embody the future of black people as an equal part of the human race. The future of space exploration includes all of us, and the ASU Interplanetary initiative wrote clearly in their goals that they wanted to “bring together a diverse group of people interested in a common topic” (Elkins-Tanton et al.). The goal of this initiative is not so far off of the ideas expressed by Olukotun in his novel, and it matches the dream of the black people of history who wanted to show that they were just as capable as anybody else.


Sources:
Linda T. Elkins-Tanton, Evgenya L. Shkolnik, and Michael M. Crow.New Space.Sep 2020.133-136. https://www.liebertpub.com/doi/10.1089/space.2020.0036
Olukotun, Deji Bryce. After the Flare. The Unnamed Press, 2017.