Wherever one looks, animals have always been there – geographically, evolutionarily, and even in the vastness of the cosmos, they have always been one step ahead of humankind: as mediators between Earth and the heavens, as projections of distant planetary inhabitants, and, ultimately, quite literally as pioneers of space travel. Even before Yuri Gagarin orbited the Earth and Neil Armstrong set foot on the moon, fruit flies, the rhesus macaques Albert I–IV and the most famous space animal to this day, the dog Laika, had already thrown open the gates to space. Yet in the visions of the newly reignited Space Race, there is now almost no trace of animals. Instead: microbes and plants, closed-loop systems and technically optimised habitats. What appears to be a gain in efficiency marks a profound break. For with the disappearance of animals from visions of the future, the image of humanity is also shifting.
Philipp Schönthaler’s Animals in Space is more than a story of spectacular missions. It is a fascinating exploration of our age-old relationship with the animal world – and an uncomfortable question for the future, both in space and on Earth: what happens to our concept of humanity when we lose those living beings with whom we share our origins?
Non-fiction
Philipp Schönthaler, born in Stuttgart in 1976, was awarded the Clemens Brentano Prize in 2012 for his narrative debut Nach oben ist das Leben offen. Matthes & Seitz Berlin has published ten of his books; the essay Portrait of the Manager as a Young Author (2016) was translated into English and Turkish. In Pages of the Sky, Schönthaler deepens his theoretical exploration of technology and literature that he started in The Automation of Writing and Literature Counterprograms (2022) and How Rational Machines Became Romantic (2024). Most recently published by Matthes & Seitz Berlin: Mysteria Hysteria (2026). He lives in Berlin.
