Once upon a time, science fiction writers told stories of two possible interplanetary futures over the next horizon. What lay ahead for us was either sublime or terrifying, triumphant or dismal. Often these writers would set two powerful states in opposition, each organized around distinct and opposed visions of modernity, or the way we should be.

But they shared a common goal: the realization of the space fabulists’ dreams, which everyone acknowledged were in line with the way things must and will be.

We got as far as the moon, and then things changed.