Conclusion: The End of American Frontier Nationality?

Abstract

Supporters welcomed President George H. W. Bush’s Space Exploration Initiative (SEI) as a guarantee of national leadership long into the twenty-first century. A presidential advisory group accordingly hailed outer space as America’s “most challenging frontier” and declared the SEI, by tapping “America’s drive, ingenuity and technology—all those things that have made our nation the most successful society on Earth—will propel us toward a future of peace, strength, and prosperity.”¹ This optimistic pairing of the nation’s pioneer past and future capped a decade long revival of public enthusiasm for spaceflight and predictions that an American Century of global security and prosperity would continue under United States leadership.