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Silicon Valley has a science fiction problem | Aeon Essays

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Interior view of a cylindrical space settlement; artwork by Rick Guidice, 1970s. Courtesy NASA Ames Research Center is an external lecturer in the Department of Social Sciences and Business at Roskilde University in Denmark, where he recently completed a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions postdoctoral fellowship examining how financial and technological elites weaponise speculative narratives. He is the author of Post-Politics in Context (2016) and his forthcoming book Fictional Worlds and Financial Realities in Speculative Literature and Film will be published by Palgrave. His research has appeared in Science as Culture, International Political Sociology, and Theory, Culture & Society, and he serves on the editorial board of Distinktion: Journal of Social Theory. Edited bySam Haselby Listen to this essay 29 minute listen In January 2026, Elon Musk stood before the US Secretary of Defense and senior Pentagon leaders at the SpaceX Starbase in Texas. ‘We want to make Star Trek real, OK?’ he

In January 2026, Elon Musk stood before the US Secretary of Defense and senior Pentagon leaders at the SpaceX Starbase in Texas. ‘We want to make Star Trek real, OK?’ he declared. ‘We want to make Starfleet Academy real. So that it’s not always science fiction, but one day the science fiction turns to science fact, and we have spaceships going through space. Big spaceships!’ He painted a vivid picture: exploring alien civilisations, humanity spreading across the stars. ‘That’s the goal!’ he concluded. ‘And that is what I think the public thinks of when they think of Space Force!’ It was a…

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