More-than-terrestrial diplomacy

‘more-than-terrestrial’... refers to the entanglement of material, political, and affective relations between Earth and outer space that challenge the binary of on-Earth and off-Earth. This framing foregrounds the continuity between the terrestrial and orbital environments and infrastructures and the ways in which outer space is shaped by, and shapes, life on Earth. The ISS, while located off-Earth, remains intimately connected to Earth in material, political, and affective ways. Further, as humanity increasingly incorporates orbital infrastructures and extends its sensing capacities beyond Earth, the materiality of the Earth itself becomes more-than-terrestrial (p. 20)

Cooperation without consensus

As a continuously inhabited, interdependent, and segmented structure enabled by Cold War legacies and post-Soviet pragmatism, the ISS allows cooperation without consensus—a crucial capability when navigating competing political interests. The main contributions of this research centre on the excavation of the historical legacy of US-Russian space diplomacy as reflected in the traces of memos, agreements, and technical reports within digital archives. The research considers how the context of outer space challenges terrestrial diplomatic relations by identifying how the affective atmosphere of outer space deterritorialises state assemblages, such as the US and Russia, and reterritorialises them through the ISS (p. 3)

Infrastructure as diplomacy

infrastructures such as satellites, launch systems, and the ISS are not neutral backdrops but integral to the material apparatus that both enables and contains contestation... The ISS, as a vast technological assemblage sustained by multinational cooperation... is simultaneously a product of institutionalised politics and a stage for emergent political events, experimental practices, and contestations (p. 52)

Docking, interdependence, and modular politics

By tracing the historical emergence of the ISS back to the Apollo-Soyuz ‘handshake in space,’ including both the symbolic and material meeting, I argue that in this moment the US and Russian space programmes become diplomatically and materially enmeshed. I show how the ISS emerged through technological and institutional collaboration on systems like the Androgynous Peripheral Attach System (APAS), through embodied gestures of co-presence, and through the cultivation of affective trust across bureaucratic and national boundaries. These moments reconfigure diplomatic relations from Cold War antagonism toward orbital cohabitation, each contributing to the actualisation of the ISS as a more-than-terrestrial diplomatic assemblage.The example of APAS in this chapter exemplifies two key points: first, how materials, specifically orbital docking technologies, mediate geopolitical relations, and second, how affects of trust become emergent capacities of collaborative technical projects (p. 169)

Atmosphere, affect, and shared vulnerability

the affective atmospheres generated by the ISS, demonstrating how transnational trust, embodied routines, and operational interdependence sustain cooperation amidst terrestrial geopolitical rupture. Case studies of atmosphere-based crises, maintenance routines, and everyday operational practices reveal that affects of transnationalism that sustain the US-Russian partnership. The relational and affective dimensions of orbital life create resilient patterns of cooperation, showing that diplomacy is performed not only through agreements and protocols but also through shared vulnerability, technical interdependence, and trust cultivated over decades of joint operation (p. 230)