Introduction
This page focuses on general works related to the representation of space travel and exploration. For specific writing on Star Trek and Star Wars among others, please visit the page on Major Universes/Story Worlds.
Selected Resources
2001: Building for Space Travel by Call Number: Arts Library Oversize*; * TL4015 .A15 2001ISBN: 9780865591882Date: 2001-01-01A highly original book that examines designs for space travel in both fantasy and reality. Offering a new way to look at space exploration 2001: Building For Space Travel ranges from the prophetic vision of lunar voyage in Fritz Lang's science fiction film Woman in the Moon to the multistage rocket that propelled astronauts to the moon forty years later.
Horror in Space by ISBN: 9781476664057Date: 2017-11-21This collection of new essays examines the space horror subgenre, with a focus on such films as Paul W.S. Anderson's Event Horizon, Duncan Jones' Moon, Mario Bava's Planet of the Vampires and John Carpenter's Ghosts of Mars. Contributors discuss how filmmakers explored the concepts of the final girl/survivor, the uncanny valley, the isolationism of space travel, religion and supernatural phenomena.
Outer Space and Popular Culture: Influences and Interrelations by 
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Call Number: Available OnlineISBN: 9783030226558Date: 2019-08-24The book also discusses the contrasting visions of space from the late 19th and early 20th centuries and the reality of today, and analyzes space vehicles and habitats in popular depictions of space from an engineering perspective, exploring how many of those ideas have actually been implemented in practice, and why or why not (a case of life imitating art and vice versa). As such, it covers a wide array of relevant and timely topics examining intersections between space and popular culture, and offering accounts of space and its effect on culture, language, and storytelling from the southern regions of the world.
Shooting the Moon by ISBN: 9781782798484Date: 2015-05-29Films about the moon show that even after the lunar landing of 1969 our celestial neighbor has lost none of its aptitude for being made of green cheese. In fact, as soon as you put the moon on screen it is lost. This is equally true for a wide range of moon films. Yet, as paradoxical as it might seem at first, it is only when we lose sight of the moon that lunar truths begin to come forth. This is because fantastic elements of the moon--by their mere absurdity--can indicate non-fantastic elements. However, what is of interest here is not realistic or fantastic lunar truths but rather that the moon is an object which invites, or even demands, more than one truth at once.
Space Exploration on Film by Call Number: Arts Library; PN1995.9.S26 M3659 2022ISBN: 9781476681337Date: 2022-05-24This book chronologically examines 75 films that depict voyages into outer space and offers the historical, cultural, and scientific context of each. These films range from Georges Melies' fantastical A Trip to the Moon to speculative science fiction works such as 2001: A Space Odyssey, Solaris, and Contact, and fact-based accounts of actual space missions as depicted in The Right Stuff, Apollo 13, Salyut 7 and First Man.
Space Oddities: Women in Outer Space in Popular Film and Culture, 1926-2000 by ISBN: 9781441172051Date: 2012-05-03Space Oddities examines the representation of women in outer space films from 1960 to 2000, with an emphasis on films in which women are either denied or given the role of astronaut.
The Spacesuit Film: A History, 1918-1969 by Call Number: Arts Library ; PN1995.9.S26 W48 2012ISBN: 9780786442676Date: 2012-03-28Filmmakers employ various images to suggest the strangeness of outer space, but protective spacesuits most powerfully communicate its dangers and the frailty of humans beyond the cradle of Earth. (Many films set in space, however, forgo spacesuits altogether, reluctant to hide famous faces behind bulky helmets and ill-fitting jumpsuits.) This critical history comprehensively examines science fiction films that portray space travel realistically (and sometimes not quite so) by having characters wear spacesuits.
- Woman in the Moon (dir. Fritz Lang, 1929)
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- The Concept of Time in “2001: A Space Odyssey”
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- The Production of Hypermobility: Digital Media and Science Fiction Television in the Long 1990s
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- The Women of Battlestar Galactica and Their Roles: Then and Now
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- Afronauts: On Science Fiction and the Crisis of Possibility
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- The ageless appeal of 2001: A Space Odyssey
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- Screening Cosmos-politanism: The Anthropocenic politics of outer space media
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- When the astronaut is a woman: Beyond the frontier in film and television
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- Where no European has gone before: Representations of Europe(an integration) in science fiction
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- “Ahead, Warp Factor Three, Mr. Sulu”: Imagining Interstellar Faster‐Than‐Light Travel in Space Science Fiction
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Selected Films
Aelita (dir. Yakov Protazanov, 1924)
"Exhausted by the post-revolutionary life, engineer Los builds a spaceship to travel to Mars. A tragic accident forces him to urgently make use of his invention. On Mars he falls in love with Queen Aelita, while the Red Army man who came with him raises a proletarian uprising. The revolution destroys the Martian civilization."
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Solaris (dir. Andrei Tarkovsky, 1972)
"Ground control has been receiving mysterious transmissions from the three remaining residents of the Solaris space station. When cosmonaut and psychologist Kris Kelvin is dispatched to investigate, he experiences the same strange phenomena that afflict the Solaris crew, sending him on a voyage into the darkest recesses of his consciousness."
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Dark Star (dir. John Carpenter, 1974)
"Low-budget story of four astronauts in deep space, whose mission is to destroy unstable planets in star systems which are to be colonised. The late Commander Powell is stored in deep freeze, where he is still able to offer advice. As their mission nears completion, they must cope with a runaway alien which resembles a beach-ball, faulty computer systems, and a "smart bomb" who thinks it is God."
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Memories (dir. Katsuhiro Otomo, Kôji Morimoto, and Tensai Okamura
"Three visionary sci-fi short stories by Katsuhiro Otomo, the creator of Akira, are brought to life by the top animation studios in Japan. Featuring a script by Satoshi Kon and direction by Otomo himself."
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Afronauts (dir. Nuotama Bodomo, 2014)
"16th July 1969: America prepares to launch Apollo 11. Thousands of kilometers away, a ragtag group of Zambian exiles is trying to beat America to the Moon."
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High Life (dir. Claire Denis, 2018)
"Monte (Robert Pattinson) and his baby daughter are the last survivors of a damned and dangerous mission to the outer reaches of the solar system. The crew of death-row inmates led by a doctor (Juliette Binoche) with sinister motives has vanished. As the mystery of what happened onboard the ship is unraveled, father and daughter must rely on each other to survive as they hurtle toward the oblivion of a black hole."
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