The Case Against Space, The Case Against Space

The Case Against Space is an essay film that looks back at the hidden histories of labor struggles in outer space: the film depicts what appears to be the first organised strike outside Earth’s orbit to date. The action took place in 1973, aboard the Skylab, NASA’s first orbital space station. As the Christmas break approached, the three astronauts - Jerry Carr, William R. Pogue and Edward G. Gibson - ceased all work and turned off communications due to disagreements with their superiors over their working conditions. Observed almost 24 hours a day, they had to constantly provide data and perform exhausting experiments. Following their action, NASA gave into some of the astronauts’ demands for a fairer time living and working in outer space, a struggle that remains to this day.

The Case Against Space aims to recreate the day before the strike: a tense day filled with absurd experiments, invasive medical examinations and constant monitoring. Based on a study of transcripts of exchanges between the three astronauts and NASA mission control on the ground, and a dose of speculation, the film proposes a reconstruction of these events, recreating the interior of the Skylab in a studio, in a deliberately lo-fi claustrophobic aesthetic (no question of recreating life in weightlessness). The film will feature three actors who will be filmed mainly with 70s-style CCTV B&W cameras, the black box acting as the theatre of life on Skylab, as well as with 16mm and Super8 color cameras imitating the style of NASA documentation. The film will show how the astronauts’ actions can be considered unprecedented, and constitute a vibrant testimony to the history of space exploration. It is a counter-history to the narratives of exceptionalism and individualism that have taken root within the institutions in charge of space exploration, from the space race to the present day. The film is a testament to those who have fought collectively to gain greater autonomy, for a better future to come, on Earth and in outer space.