In the 1960s, Spaceship Earth expressed a new way of perceiving the Earth as a singular and solitary planet in the universe. Spaceship Earth articulated and inspired an understanding of the planetary environment as a unified system that provided unique and increasingly fragile conditions of life. In spite of being coined in the techno-optimist decade of the Space Race and its high hopes of extending human life to other planets, Spaceship Earth integrated the buoyant science fact and science fiction of spaceflight with a growing sense of global crisis.