Space and beyond: The Frontier Theme in Science Fiction
Book by Gary Westfahl; Greenwood Press, 2000
Introduction:
Frontiers Old and New Gary Westfahl In 1961, when President John F. Kennedy successfully sought to rally support for a major program of human space exploration, he described outer space as "the New Frontier" -- a phrase of unusual evocative power for his American audience. For, as first argued by historian Frederick Jackson Turner in 1893, America was then viewed as a nation created, defined, and continually reinvigorated by its experiences in exploring and taming various frontiers: "The frontier is the line of most rapid and effective Americanization," Turner claimed. "[A]t the frontier the environment is at first too strong for the man. He must accept the conditions which it furnishes, or perish, and so he fits himself into the Indian clearings and follows the Indian trails. Little by little he transforms the wilderness, but the outcome is not the old Europe. . . . [but] a new product that is American" (3-4). According to Turner, the open lands and harsh conditions of the frontier had helped to engender the uniquely American commitment to democratic ideals and its spirit of independence and self-reliance, national traits that endured even as each American frontier was successively transformed into a bastion of civilization. What Turner had first articulated, then, was a saga that could serve as an American myth of origin, repeatedly enacted throughout its history and, as persuasively argued in Richard Slotkin Gunfighter Nation: The Myth of the Frontier in Twentieth- Century America, visible throughout American literature as well.

But the government had declared that the true American frontier had vanished as of 1890 -- the announcement that triggered Turner's musings. What would happen to the United States when it was no longer actively engaged in conquering a frontier? The question could be postponed for a while, since one can maintain that the government's declaration was premature. Throughout the first decades of the twentieth century, there remained areas of America where people could enjoy a frontier life, with no modern conveniences or contact with the outside world; and even if there were no unexplored realms within the United States, adventurous Americans, both in person and in fictional narratives, could venture into other regions of the world -- like the African jungle, islands of the South Pacific, or the North and South Poles -- where mysteries might still await, and where a version of the frontier experience might still be available.

In the 1940s and 1950s, however, the end of the American frontier became inescapably apparent. With campaigns for rural electrification, increased air travel, and expanding radio and television networks, virtually every part of America became closely connected to civilization; the world was now both thoroughly mapped and, as evidenced by independence movements and global decolonization, in no mood to play host to adventurous Americans. When 1958 was universally celebrated, with hoopla and scientific initiatives, as the International Geophysical Year, it seemed to signal a new era for America: life in a world without frontiers, where the United States was one of many sovereign nations poised to join cooperatively in worthwhile ventures to improve the human condition. As someone exposed to this internationalist vision as a child, I can report that it was not without appeal, though it clearly represented a sharp departure from the traditional ideology of the frontier-conquering American.

As evidence for this hypothesis of a sea change in American perceptions around this time, consider that the 1950s represented, by all accounts, the golden era of the American western film. In the classic movies of that decade -- such as Shane, High Noon, The Searchers, and Rio Bravo -- there was often an elegiac mood, portraying the inevitable end of a noble but outdated ethos and lifestyle. Shane was an admirable hero, but he was going away, and he couldn't come back. The frontier's Rugged Individualist had been supplanted by civilization's Organization Man.

Yet two events planned in conjunction with the International Geophysical Year -- the Russian and American launches of orbital satellites -- signalled a po- tential rebirth of the American frontier myth in outer space. If Earth no longer offered frontiers to inspire and strengthen Americans, space might provide those frontiers. America could once again send people into unknown territory -- first as pioneers, like Lewis and Clark, and later as settlers, ready to establish new homes and exploit new resources. The characteristic American saga of exploration, expansion, and renewal could resume, this time in a new and virtually limitless arena. Of course, Kennedy was only articulating an idea that had long been evident in American science fiction, from the space operas of the 1930s to the films of the 1950s, as documented in David Mogen Wilderness Visions: The Western Theme in Science Fiction Literature and elsewhere; but when the president made it the basis of an actual space program, this vision of space as the new frontier became a dominant metaphor of the era. Captain Kirk opened each episode of Star Trek with the words "Space -- the final frontier," as did his successor Captain Picard, and science fiction writers advocating further space initiatives began referring to outer space as "the High Frontier."