Cosmos – "these are grown-up things" – says one of the characters. In other words: for the privileged ones. Is it really just about pushing the boundaries of science? And isn't it just as much about pushing the boundaries of the ego, about establishing and confirming a certain balance of power? Animals burn locked in capsules, female astronauts are disrespected, men proudly plant their flags. It's by no means just about props – it's been more than sixty years since the walk on the moon, humanity still has a long way to go before colonising Mars – it’s about the possessive control over a symbolic territory.
The narration about the proud triumph of science and man, about crossing borders at any cost and about the very price of cognitive hunger confronts many poetic means, and various pop-cultural references appear. The language of TV news broadcasts interweaves with quotes from John Fitzgerald Kennedy's speech, biblical passages, scientific jargon, references to Stanley Kubrick's or Ridley Scott's films. All this creates an electrifying mixture, not devoid of a rather biting humour.
Zielińska talks about participation (or the inability to participate) in space exploration from a non-male-centric perspective. She exposes the unreliable arguments which for years have made it harder on women to take part in space programmes. Women's representatives include the female dog Laika, sacrificed on the altar of science, Pilot, Wasp (a member of the WASP military corps, a fighter plane pilot during World War II) and the Astronaut Wives Club. The voices of embittered and angry women are put into perspective by the condescension of a man named Apollo, a symbol of the American space mission, but also associated with a somewhat narcissistic ancient god.