Life — October 15, 1903 — page 7: what you’re looking at

What you’re looking at

# Analysis This 1929 illustration from *Life* magazine is science fiction satire. The caption describes "the rectification of the orbits of asteroids that cross the path of the interplanetary transportation company's airships." The image depicts a futuristic space scene with small human figures operating giant machinery and astronomical equipment to manipulate asteroid trajectories. The satire mocks corporate expansion and bureaucratic solutions: it imagines a future transportation company so dominant that it literally alters celestial bodies to clear shipping lanes for its spacecraft. This reflects 1920s anxieties about corporate monopolies and unchecked technological ambition. The joke suggests that if business growth continues unchecked, companies might eventually reshape nature itself for profit—an absurdist extrapolation of contemporary industrial power.