The Astrosociological Imagination: The Challenge of Human Progress By Stephanie Lynne Thorburn.pdf

Abstract
This paper offers an overview of The Astrosociological Imagination. The project addresses
the vision of human progress conceived by the space advocacy movement and its ethical and
methodological parameters. These humanist sociology papers explore the core themes
inherent to the rhetorical promise of societal transformation offered in the Space
Renaissance Initiative manifesto.
Key themes: Human progress, transformative studies, humanism, paradigmatic science,
discourse analysis.
The Astrosociological Imagination comprises a collection of reflexive sociology papers on the
Space Renaissance Initiative (SRI). The work shares some of the essentially humanist
themes of C. Wright Mills’s 1959 classic text The Sociological Imagination[1] and seeks to
integrate social, personal and historical elements into a discourse analysis of the SRI.
The work explores critically the conceptual precepts of Max Weber[2] on rationalisation in
contemporary industrial society in relation to environmental and socio-cultural
developmental issues. The SRI is an organisation that challenges the parameters of our
thinking in regard to human scientific, technological evolution and offers a pragmatic series
of proposals.